Farmers in Nebraska Adapting Systems to Climate Change:

        Summary from NSAS Annual Conference, Nebraska City, NE, 31 Jan 2025

                                                   Charles Francis, Department of Agronomy & Horticulture, UNL

                                           [Acknowledgements to Leisha Roberts and Vaughn Hammond, NSAS]

Scientists conclude that climate change is real, mostly due to human causes, and now accepted as an ‘inconvenient truth’ (Al Gore, 2004 movie) that is affecting people around the globe. Most immediate threats are hitting people who live near coasts in Bangladesh, India, China, Netherlands, and many island nations that in are home to over one billion humans in total. In addition, impacts on low-lying ecosystems could be disastrous as lands near the ocean are subsiding, due to extraction of water for agriculture and other human uses. This causes further erosion of soils and loss of viable areas for building houses and industrial infrastructure, impacting us today, and will intensify and impact agriculture for decades into the future.

What do Nebraska farmers think about global warming? At the 2025 NSAS conference we introduced the topic, then divided people into three discussion groups. After one hour of sharing, we added ideas from later conversations. We invite you to read this summary and send additional thoughts to cfrancis2@unl.edu to expand the list. Thanks to attendees. Your ideas will be most valuable before February 17, 2025 to be included in a report.

Crop and Variety Choices

• Need more drought-tolerant crops, eg. grain sorghum

• Breeding programs need to focus on drought-tolerant varieties of major crops

• Short-season varieties and hybrids can fit available summer rainfall patterns

• Less-demanding cereals use water more efficiently than corn, eg. Millet, Kamut

• Choose crops and varieties adapted to latitude and local rainfall

• Grow crops and varieties that can best suit a family’s healthy diet

• Look over farmers markets and see what crops are most desirable and profitable

• Talk with neighbors and learn what varieties are most successful in your area

• Plant crops that have a ready market locally, and don’t require long transport

• Test different crops and varieties to see what works best in your system and location

Water and Irrigation

• Practice better water conservation

• Year-round crops increase water use rates and productivity

• Increase potential for efficient irrigation on dryland fields

• Mulch fields or beds to provide better ground cover and conserve moisture

• Increase mulch to promote infiltration and increase water retention

• Install underground drip systems to more efficiently use water

• Use soaker hoses/tapes covered with mulch or soil to conserve water compared to flooding

• Timing of irrigation to meet peak crop water needs makes water use more efficient

• No-till planting practices save water compared to tillage operations

• Careful attention to irrigation systems can save water from leaks and overuse

Fertilization and Soil Nutrients     

• Increase soil testing for precise nutrient use

• Improve soil erosion control

• Maintain lower summer soil temperatures

• Feed the soil microbes with diverse crop residues 

• Apply manure to improve soil organic matter and soil tilth

• Use renewable nutrient sources – compost, cover crops, residues

• Apply decomposed plant and animal materials ,  great local sources of nutrients

• Cut back on current excess applications of chemical nutrients

• Natural cycling of nutrients is slow, and we have to at least replace what we extract

• Healthy soils lead to healthy plants and healthy people

Pest Protection and Control

• Plant diverse mixtures of crops, in strips or other convenient small plantings

• Select crop varieties or hybrids resistant to principlal plant diseases in your area

• Seek varieties that are resistant to the main insect challenges on your farm

• Rotate crops so that residues from last year to not provide pathogens or insects

• Look for new varieties that bring genetic resistance to prevalent pests

• Plant allelopathic cover crops to suppress weeds when growing and incorporated

• Carefully observe crops daily if possible to detect pests before they cause damage

• Talk to Cooperative Extension and neighbors to learn what is successful in your area

• When plants are damaged replant other species while season is available

• Compost crop residues by burying and hopefully destroying pests

Crop Rotations and Systems Planning

• Schedule planting to avoid excess heat and drought periods

• Need a third cash crop in current two-year rotations to increase diversity

• Increase use of cover cropping

• Increase inter-cropping, and strip cropping of commodity plus cover crops

• Need more diversity to reduce GHG (greenhouse gas) release from agriculture

• Need smaller farms and more farmers

• Use more allelopathic cover crops, eg. Cereal rye

• Provide living roots in soil around the year

• Adapting innovative site adaptability, eg. Indoor growing

• Embracing native crop species for food and plant multi-species systems

 

Crop/Livestock Systems Integration

• Grazing cover crops provides forage and continuous green ground cover

• Adapting more native species for grazing

• Rotational grazing can produce up to 40% more forage than large pastures

• Multiple livestock species consume different grasses: beef, sheep goats, poultry

• Sustainable grazing systems simulate natural herbivore grazing

• Diverse pastures and grazing systems sequester carbon, clean water and air

• Well-managed grazing systems keep soil in place with crowns and roots of plants

• Diverse forage plants break force of rain, and facilitate infiltration of water

• Forage and cover crops provide green cover and reduce soil loss to erosion

• Hoof action of grazing animals breaks up manure and helps spread this one field

Small-Scale Vegetable Production

• Need regenerative practices for food gardening

• Promote home/consumer composting systems

• Home produced food has the lowest possible ‘food miles’ to consumers

• Food gardening can be accomplished in beds, lawn borders, raised boxes, and pots

• In long summer areas multiple crops can be overlapped to make use of entire year

• Season can be extended with row covers and protected fields with windbreaks

• Low plastic tunnels provide protection and passive heating at low cost

• Thermal heating from ground tunnels prevents crops from freezing, extends season

• Multiple stories, benches or hanging baskets uses total greenhouse volume

• Lean-to plastic houses on south side of building uses thermal mass to store heat

Increasing Local Food Consumption

• Improve consumer education on healthy foods, especially for youth and schools

• Find out what crops are most successful in small areas in your own yard or garden

• Design effective messages with food information and how to deliver in extension

• Encourage seasonal food consumption rather than food from ‘global nowhere’

• Promote agritourism and rural development, including information on food systems

• Get to know your customers and meet their demands

• Schedule demonstrations and food events to expose people to new cuisine

• Improve teaching methods for small systems practices

• Lend, share, and borrow equipment rather than make large initial investments

• Learn from successes/failures of others in your community, and keep experimenting

 

We invite your further input on this important topic if you were unable to participate in the January 31 workshop, or if you would like to add comments after thinking about the issue. Please send responses to cfrancis2@unl.edu. All those who respond will receive an email notice when the updated book from UNL on climate change is published in March, 2025.