Fickle Monsoons, Summer in March, and Hot Summer Nights: Climate change is here, has been seriously affecting local agriculture, and will certainly get worse. It will take some serious effort to adjust our local food production and local food systems to the extent needed, so why not ramp up efforts now to adapt and help mitigate further climate change.

What a Start to Our Growing Season this Year! It seemed to start in February on our farm with crocuses nearby before mid-month, warm days, and sun. All that was missing was precipitation and a reasonable snowpack. Summer temps in March have been followed by spring temps in April, and the meager mountain snow is melting fast. Certainly, this is a one-off, and never again.

Whole Solutions that address problems without causing new ones are obviously what we should strive for, but if we don’t get serious about addressing climate change in our food systems now, we will end up applying band-aid after band-aid, and losing producers—and healthy local food—along the way.

On the other hand, if we start to see this as a responsibility of the whole community, rather than just of our local producers, we can look forward to a more resilient, sustainable, and fair local food system—and a brighter future.

We at Healthy Community Food Systems have some suggestions for such a whole community effort. Our newly revised Adapting Your Local Foodshed to a Changing Climate is a 14-page guide available free online. I certainly can’t say we have all the answers, but am pretty sure we have posed some critical questions that we should be asking ourselves in plotting a course forward. The guide includes several proposed guiding principles or assumptions, an outline of potential adaptation strategies, three climate change scenarios, 17 possible themes for community discussions, and a proposed plan of action.

Guiding Assumptions: It’s important in a planning process to step back at first and acknowledge your guiding principles or assumptions. Upon reflection, you may discover some rather subconscious assumptions including ones you might want to change. Unless this is a purely personal project, this will require a healthy group discussion. We suggest 12 assumptions, guidelines, or simply items to keep in mind—things such as considering all parts of the food system, fairness to all community members, the importance of healthy foodsheds, watching out for greenwashing, learning from the past and other cultures, supporting the family farm, and more.

Climate Disruptions to Food Production: In addition to the jarring weather extremes and storms that we can’t miss, the overall warming of our planet also has many insidious effects on food production. Warming spring temperatures would seem to extend the growing season, but actually make the impact of later spring frosts even worse. Warming summer nights may be as bad as hotter days for livestock. Sufficient chill hours for fruit trees may not be met, hindering production. Longer growing seasons may seem a boon, but may require more irrigation water. Many crops have different phenological timing cues than the pollinators they depend on. Being aware of the finer points of climate change impacts on production is essential, and are outlined in our guide.

Strategies: It’s wise to cast a wide net in considering climate adaptation strategies so we don’t overlook the obvious or, on the other hand, the more novel less-often-considered approaches. Foremost are strategies that apply to most any sector—diversification, resource efficiency, careful observation, learning from other cultures, and being ready for the unexpected—all of which clearly apply to food as well. We are also fortunate to have a large number of “sustainable agriculture” practices that we know we should be implementing more and more, so there is no reason to hold back on them. Then, there are some more novel practices from other cultures, other regions, and other times—novel in the sense that we so often overlook them. For these, we rely especially on the great work by our own Southwest ethnobotanist and local food advocate, Gary Nabhan, and his inspiring book, Growing Food in a Hotter Drier Land.

Scenarios: To help envision what we may need to prepare for, scenarios can help. Three fascinating scenarios developed by scientists for our SW Colorado/Four Corners region are presented, not as forecasts, but fleshed out descriptions of what might happen. “Hot and Dry”, “Warm and Wet”, and “Feast and Famine” offer contrasting possibilities for us to consider. These can help us evaluate the strategies to pursue in local food production here. Of special note are strategies that, considering the contrasting possibilities, are things that will help out in any of these scenarios—what we call ”no-regrets strategies.”

Community Discussion Topics: Whole community discussions are key to public involvement, and we have a short list of 17 suggestions for such discussions as well as some sources of local, tribal, and state level climate information to inform these discussions—and as good project topics for community members including students. We can envision a series of community events with one or more small group discussions on a variety of topics of most interest. Climate impacts on our monsoons, fruit tree susceptibility to late frosts, snowpack and runoff patterns, both floods and droughts, and shifting sands on and around the Navajo Nation are just a few such topics.

Developing a Local Food Community-Based Climate Planning Process: Getting a wide swath of community members involved may be the hardest task, but perhaps the most fundamental and critical to success. Producers are excellent innovators with plenty of motivation, but often constrained by time, finances, and policies. Community members can address these constraints by being loyal customers and good policy advocates. Gardeners and part-time producers may be better able to test out innovations suitable to the local area. With producers, gardeners, students, community leaders, scientists and agency reps, tribal members, and environmental and food nonprofits at the table, we might just make some real progress toward a brighter future.

Accelerating climate change impacts, frightening prospects for more to come, inadequate responses so far, and disarray at the federal government level all call for us being more attentive, thoughtful, and deliberate about our changing climate.

Here in Southwest Colorado, we have had an alarmingly warm and snow-starved winter—so far—coupled with a sense of foreboding about the irrigation water supply this summer. Spring storms may well come to the rescue, but the pattern of uncertainty is alarming to more and more people. Overall dryness, undependable monsoons, floods such as those last October, frequently low snowpack, and hot, hot summers all foreshadow more climate disruption to come, according to scientists.

Last week while I was enjoying the warmth on my walk, a dismayed neighbor pointed out her bed of crocuses blooming weeks before normal. Fortunately, here and across the country more and more people are expressing deep concern—and rightly so. Scientists are ringing the alarm bells. Being attentive and aware—and talking about it—is a good first step toward action.

Recent newspaper articles in our community, for example, have raised concern over progress toward meeting previous commitments to reduce emissions and over how to find acceptable locations for solar farms and grid-based battery systems. We can be proud of what our community (and our state) is doing on climate, but across the board, more urgency is needed. The fact that these discussions are taking place here and across the country is a very good sign, but community-wide climate actions often aren’t receiving the priority they deserve.

Community climate initiatives are not undertaken in isolation—in addition to state programs, much depends on supportive policies, funding, and leadership from the federal level, or at least that has been the case up to now. We can expect that federal help will return in some form in time (if we vote accordingly), but the physics of climate change and the momentum of our carbon emission habits will unfortunately take no time off. In the meantime, we need to do all we can—and as fast as we can—on climate on the local level with the help of state governments, enlightened green energy businesses, nonprofits, and any remaining federal resources available.

We also would be wise to start work now for the return of robust federal climate programs by determining how to rebuild a more resilient, balanced, and well integrated local, state, and national approach as soon as supportive leadership at the federal level returns. As I have been writing for the past 10 years in our Getting Serious Now series, none of this can wait.

As we pay increased attention and strive to learn more about our climate crisis, we need to be more thoughtful about the consequences of our actions—or inactions. Serious attention should be given to the underlying issues that seem to thwart our progress toward a better world. The bottom line—to put it bluntly—calls for thinking about more than oneself—about other people, other living things, future generations, and the future of our planet—with respect, fairness, and compassion.

Taking action, deliberate action, would mean that we move from reacting to the latest crisis or societal impulse, to working toward “whole solutions” to paraphrase Wendell Berry—ones that solve multiple problems rather than creating new ones. We are past the point where we should ask ourselves if we should concentrate on mitigating climate change or on adapting to it, so we must prioritize actions that do both. Bill Gate’s recent comments about priorities prompted some good discussion of whether we should prioritize climate action or bettering people’s lives. It seems pretty obvious that we must (and can) do both. Do we concentrate on climate change or biodiversity? Solutions that address both of these intrinsically intertwined crises abound. In our case, we work on local food as a climate strategy—and we highly recommend it—but in whatever sector you are most passionate about, deliberate action toward whole solutions is needed.

When climate scientists try to explain the magnitude and urgency of needed actions, they often use the concept of tipping points—after which returning to a safe condition is very unlikely. Think coral bleaching, melting of permafrost, Arctic sea ice melt, etc. Often, a final straw-on-the-camel’s-back change can lead to a self-reinforcing downward spiral. Yet, tipping points can lead to welcome outcomes from positive reinforcement as well. Think solar energy, electric cars, heat pumps, local food, people learning and talking about climate, society listening to its youth on climate issues, and governments at all levels cooperating on policies that encourage climate action. These are tipping points well worth working toward.

The Intermountain West—specifically Western Colorado—has been the setting for our farming adventures for the past several decades. We were drawn especially to those areas with wide horizons, million-dollar mountain views (without the price tag), vast areas of wilderness, amazing wildlife, isolated farms and ranches, and for most of the time at least, clean air and quiet. The gnarliness of the weather, landscapes, and wildlife certainly makes farming a challenge, but is much of what makes it all worth it.

Most all these attributes can be profoundly degraded if we fail to take care of this land and the ecosystems and life it supports, so it’s incumbent upon us, as Wild Farm Alliance says, to grow our food and fiber “in a way that supports and benefits from wild nature.” We need to find our place on this landscape—coexisting with it, protecting it, and helping restore any harm we have already caused. Wild farming, ranching, and gardening—along with rewilding your local foodshed as we have suggested—are powerful tools to make this so.

Taking a closer look at what wild farming practices can work well here, we first need to look around us. Growers are ingenious in adapting to local conditions, so examples abound of how to coexist with nature—see the beautiful Farming with the Wild book for example. Rather than a menu of practices, a set of questions to keep in mind as we look at food and fiber operations around us is a wise way to start. Besides having a wealth of information on their website on how to “grow with the wild”, the Wild Farm Alliance has a succinct set of core principles that can be paraphrased into the following very basic questions.

Is the soil kept covered with plants? This is a guiding principle at the core of much of the encouraging renewed interest in soil health and enlightened tillage, cultivation, cover cropping, interplanting, and weed control practices. It will look different in different settings, but the basic principle is the key. With the landscapes and climate in the intermountain West, we need to pay special attention to the effects of extreme drought, wind erosion, floods, salinization, time honored but unwise tillage practices, and general aridity on our ability to keep plant cover on the soil.

Are flowers present? Pollinators—especially so many native ones beyond honeybees—are essential to so many of our crops, but are often overlooked. Making sure that appropriate nectar sources are available throughout the growing season, as well as nesting sites, is critical. Taking the time to look more closely at your pollinators and how they are doing through the season is the key. With farms often isolated from each other in our region (which has advantages for organic production and seed saving), we need to ensure that pollinators have the ability to move readily between nectar sources (essentially pollinator trails).

Are native trees and shrubs part of the farm? It makes sense that native plants are important to attracting and supporting native pollinators, as well as other beneficial insects, birds, and other animals. In our part of the West, we also have plenty of invasives from other semi-arid to arid regions that love our fields, rangelands, streams, and irrigation canals and ditches. Addressing invasives in ways that don’t cause new problems in the ecosystem is vital.

Is wildlife, from bees and birds to larger animals, present? The benefits of wildlife of all sorts are wide-ranging, whether directly aiding the crops or livestock, in controlling damage from other organisms, or overall, by keeping the on-farm ecosystem healthy. In the Intermountain West, we have the special needs of wildlife-friendly fencing (the fence in the photo above needs some adjusting), maintaining viable corridors for movement of elk and other ungulates, avoiding overgrazing, and coexisting with nearby carnivores, among many other things.

Taking a broader look as we zoom out from the individual farm or ranch and find a high lookout, we can see the mosaic of food-producing ecosystems and surrounding wild or semi-wild ecosystems. We need to consider the interactions between all these ecosystems whose health is so intricately intertwined. The grazing, fencing, wildlife corridor, and carnivore issues mentioned above play out on a larger scene. This is where the rewilding of our agricultural lands blends into the rewilding of an entire region—which we prefer to consider our extended foodshed.

Moving forward: Besides giving us valuable insights as to what wild farming, ranching, and gardening practices can work in our region, watching nature and how it is doing in our foodsheds is our responsibility if we want healthy food, healthy land, and healthy people. Monitoring specific indicators of foodshed health over time, collaborating with growers and community members on local monitoring projects, and participating in Citizen Science activities that help scientists address sustainability issues is what our HCFS Foodshed Health Field Guides were designed for. We have just updated two “observing worksheets” for these Field Guides that include many of the questions posed above.

Paying attention to our foodsheds and being aware of how nature is faring is the basis for action. Recognizing producer practices that “support and benefit from wild nature” and rewarding those producers in the marketplace and with community recognition and supportive policies should help these wise practices spread, making our local and regional foodsheds healthier for all.

January 2008: Just after a meeting of the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition at Asilomar on the gorgeous mid-California Coast, I set out to explore one of our nation’s breadbaskets—or better yet—cool-season vegetable baskets. Having seen whales, sea otters, tidal pools, and wintering monarchs coating the trees of their winter refuge over the last few days, it was time to move slightly inland to look at the agricultural landscape through the lens of sustainability that our meeting had been all about.

Some diversified organic farms for sure, but so many huge bare desolate fields awaiting planting, less-than-welcoming biosecurity signs and gates, and landscapes covered with plastic far into the distance. This area is clearly great for raising cool-season veggies, and also a rich and varied habitat for wildlife—aerial, terrestrial, and aquatic—but stark monocultures of seemingly unfriendly food production dominated so much of the land. Rather disappointed, I sought out some semi-wild gems such as Elkhorn Slough Reserve to catch a glimpse of some of what had been the look of this landscape, and was determined to find some of the “wild farms” I had heard about.

Wild Farm Alliance: Wandering along farm roads, I finally started seeing strips of different crops, then hedgerows, and then what I believe was an owl box of the sort that the Wild Farm Alliance was promoting. I had been following the work of the Alliance for some time and was enamored with their clear purpose, tireless energy, and the concise elegance of their definition: “It is farming in a way that supports and benefits from wild nature.” Raising awareness of the role of beneficial birds in pest control, of the benefits of diversified crops, diverse pollinators, field margins, and hedgerows, of the need to incorporate nature more fully into organic farming standards, and of counterproductive and extreme industry efforts to “remove” nature from farming for the sake of food safety have been some of their many contributions. The WFA website brims with solid scientific studies, policy recommendations, and how-to guides for farmers and landowners.

Wild farming is farming in a way that supports and benefits from wild nature. (WFA)

What about organic, regenerative, sustainable, and alternative agriculture? These are all fine descriptors of the ways we are trying to make agriculture better—and all, including “wild” can be misunderstood, criticized, and co-opted. Yet, we can accept all of them as conversation-starters—all have something to add to our search for improvement. We like including “wild” as a way to focus clearly on the natural biological processes that our agriculture must both depend upon and protect.

Wild Farming, Ranching, and Gardening is what we like to call this effort since ranching is so important in the Intermountain West, and since gardeners are key partners in this effort as innovators, experimenters, customers, community supporters, and voters. Including all three modes of food production fits our belief that the whole landscape—the extended foodshed which we see as including surrounding ecosystems—needs to be our focus. Pockets of healthy food production are wonderful beginnings but not sufficient to ensure the ecological integrity of the landscape, viable food production into the future, and ultimately, our planet’s future. Depending on and protecting wild natural processes in our soils, in fertility and wildlife and pest management, and doing this throughout our regional foodsheds is what this is all about. Doing so will require greater respect and greater humility in the face of nature, will be addressing both the climate and biodiversity crises, and will create tangible hope for the future—not a bad set of outcomes at all.

Aldo Leopold continually reminded us that there are no boundaries between tame and wild, except in the imperfections of our minds—Kirschenmann & Gould in Farming and the Fate of Wild Nature

Moving forward: Whatever term you use to describe our collective efforts toward greater ecological integrity in our food producing and surrounding ecosystems, keeping the “wild” in mind can be a useful filter as you consider where we are and where we want to go in our pursuit of a better world. Looking for examples of “supporting and benefiting from wild nature” in farms, ranches, and gardens around you is a good first step. Becoming familiar with the Wild Farm Alliance’s resources and community programs such as Farmland Flyways, Wildways, and Waterways should help you appreciate a bit more of what is possible. Then, looking at your regional foodshed and dreaming of what Wild Farming, Ranching, and Gardening could look like on your landscape should help you develop “informed hope” of what could be—and ultimately a better idea of our appropriate place on the land.

I’m looking forward next to exploring what Wild Farming, Ranching, and Gardening and the broader concept of Rewilding Foodsheds could look like in the Intermountain West and our own Greater San Juan Mountain Ecosystem. Feel free to contact me if you have ideas on this effort.