Date of Award

Summer 8-25-2025

Level of Access Assigned by Author

Open-Access Thesis

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Ecology and Environmental Sciences

First Committee Advisor

Rachel Schattman

Second Committee Member

Tim Waring

Third Committee Member

Ivan Fernandez

Additional Committee Members

Hannah Carter

Sean Birkel

Abstract

There is an urgent need for agricultural research and advising services to support farmers’ adaptation to the changing climate. To do this effectively, service providers need to know more about how farmers learn, experiment, and communicate. This area is under rapid development, yet there is still an unmet and growing need. To address these questions, we utilized a one-year program, the 2020-21 Climate Adaptation Fellowship (CAF) Vegetable and Small Fruit Program, which supported farmers and advisors in the Northeast (NE) United States.

The need for this type of program is particularly pressing in the NE region. The region is warming faster than any other in the US. Altered, non-linear, and interconnected climate patterns are resulting in increasingly extreme weather. This includes more frequent heavy rainfall and flooding, as well as droughts. Increased temperatures and seasonal variability are also intensifying, leading to disruptions in crop growth and new pests and diseases.

For this research, the CAF program was treated as a bounded case study, and the farmer and advisor participants were followed during the one-year program and for two years post-program. The study utilized a mixed-methods longitudinal research design. Research methods were selected to collect broad data from the full group of participants (n=36), and in-depth data from a subset of the cohort through in-depth semi-structured virtual interviews (n=15), and in-person on-farm interviews on a further subset of farms (n=4). Social network analysis (SNA) was used to examine the impact of the program on the inter-cohort network and to illustrate participants’ individual social networks. Individual participant responses were connected and synthesized across the survey, interview, and SNA data.

The CAF cohort was a climate-interested group of fruit and vegetable growers and advisors within the NE agricultural community. Results and recommendations are mindful to this contextual specificity. Many of the conclusions presented here are generalizable to the nature of on-farm climate adaptation in other locations, and to the design of agricultural advising services more broadly. However, differences in demographics, culture, growing conditions, and regional climate impacts should be taken into account when interpreting these findings or applying them in new settings.

Results show that the Integrated Technical-Experiential-Social Model (TES) used in the CAF program led to near universal adaptation-related behavior change across the group. Participants noted increases in perceived self-efficacy, specifically efficacy to innovate. The program also facilitated collective efficacy, accountability, and changed social norms within the cohort. The most interactive participants experienced a reinforcing cycle that further increased beneficial program outcomes. Through the analysis of participants’ adaptation processes, the importance of actions occurring within a modification stage is evident. Participants improved, expanded, and tweaked practices and systems over time. The research shows how fellows’ adaptation processes consisted of multiple, layered, adoption processes, and explains the role of cognitive, social, and environmental influences at different stages of the process.

Finally, by analyzing the social networks of the cohort of farmers and agricultural advisors who participated in the CAF program, we see how participation resulted in a meaningful change in the social networks of approximately half of the participants, and a differentially connected inter-cohort network, in which a subset of the group grew progressively more densely connected, while others lost contact. Findings from the SNA also highlight the role of calculative trust in the selection of relationships and the filtering of advice, and the importance of reciprocity. These findings are used to suggest new criteria for the design of “peer-to-peer” agricultural programming. Individual participant’s social networks are further assessed for their ability to provide three services for complex adaptive behavior: technical information, social reinforcement, and collaborative connection.

In conclusion, three dimensions of agricultural adaptation emerge as cross-cutting: access to technical information, efficacy to innovate, and social reinforcement. Together these point to a vision of a well-informed agricultural community with a collaborative innovation ethos. Agricultural climate services that facilitate opportunities to reinforce these dimensions will be poised to promote the collaborative connections needed for effective climate adaptation.

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