About this item
Climate change presents an unprecedented challenge to the productivity and profitability of agriculture in North America. More variable weather, drought, and flooding create the most obvious damage, but hot summer nights, warmer winters, longer growing seasons, and other environmental changes have more subtle but far-reaching effects on plant and livestock growth and development.Resilient Agriculture recognizes the critical role that sustainable agriculture will play in the coming decades and beyond. The latest science on climate risk, resilience, and climate change adaptation is blended with the personal experience of farmers and ranchers to explore: The "strange changes" in weather recorded over the last decade The associated shifts in crop and livestock behavior The actions producers have taken to maintain productivity in a changing climateThe climate change challenge is real and it is here now.
About the Author
Laura Lengnick has explored agricultural and food system sustainability through more than 30 years of work as a federal researcher and policy-maker, college educator, community activist and farmer to understand what it takes to move sustainability values into action on the farm, in our communities and as a nation. Trained as a soil scientist, her research in soil quality and sustainable agriculture systems at the Beltsville Agriculture Research Center in Maryland was nationally recognized with a USDA Secretary's Honor Award in 2000. She has broad federal policy expertise gained through work as a U.S. Senate staffer and USDA agency staff, and a lobbyist advocating for sustainable agriculture in the U.S. Congress. Laura has grown organic vegetables in Tidewater Virginia and in western North Carolina for community supported agriculture and farmers' markets. She has a long history of collaboration in community-based research, education and advocacy for sustainable agriculture and food systems. Laura led the academic program in sustainable agriculture at Warren Wilson College in Asheville NC for more than a decade, where she also served as the Director of Sustainability Education and taught courses featuring agroecology, whole farm planning with holistic management, sustainability assessment, sustainable decision-making, and change leadership. From 2008 to 2010, Laura facilitated student-led energy descent action planning on campus and led the development of an innovative sustainable dining policy for the college. While on sabbatical in 2012, she contributed to the 3rd National Climate assessment as a lead author of the USDA report Climate Change and Agriculture in the United States: Effects and Adaptation. Laura left Warren Wilson in 2014 to serve as Co-Director of Resilience Initiatives for Second Nature. She is an affiliated researcher with the Local Food Research Center and a climate resilience planning consultant with Fernleaf Solutions, both located in Asheville, NC.In her free time, Laura enjoys growing food on her 2 acre biointensive mini-farm tucked away in a lovely south-facing cove in the Swannanoa valley. She delights in singing classic swing, is an accomplished dance fiddler and regularly performs at contra dances and private events in the Asheville region and beyond.
