As part of CAFF’s Ecological Farming Program, we collaborate with farmers to implement and better understand ecologically-based farming practices, which include climate smart farming and soil health practices. Climate smart farming practices are named for their potential to help farms mitigate and adapt to climate change through building soil carbon, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and conserving natural resources like water and topsoil. Over the years, we have partnered with several farmers to trial, research and demonstrate the implementation of various climate smart farming practices. These collaborations have provided snapshots of how practices like compost, cover crops, livestock integration and reduced tillage (to name a few) can impact soil health on a given farm in a given region. While we have learned so much from farmers and our data collection through this work, there is also a need to understand the potential of climate smart farming across the incredibly diverse regions and management systems of California.
To address this need, CAFF’s Ecological Farming team partnered with Jessica Chiartas, Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Davis and founder of Soil Life, to conduct a review of the scientific literature on climate smart agriculture in California and Mediterranean climates. The aim of this review is to improve our collective understanding of the research on these practices, and identify where knowledge gaps still need to be addressed to improve accessibility of these farming practices. In Understanding the Science Behind Climate Smart Agriculture in California, we review the key elements of soil health, explore what practices and strategies California farmers can utilize to mitigate and adapt to climate change, and cover research findings on an array of climate smart farming practices such as:
- Cover crops and their impacts on carbon storage, water, and nitrogen dynamics
- No-till and reduced tillage
- Compost, mulching, and whole orchard recycling
- Planting perennial crops
- Farmscaping practices like hedgerows and windbreaks
- Integrated crop livestock systems
- Improving efficiencies through methods of irrigation and mineral fertilizer management
Finally, we expand on the multifold benefits of diversification and stacking climate smart practices. Recommendations for stakeholders in the agriculture sector are also offered as a path toward greater climate resilience, mitigation, and adaptation. Click here to view or download Understanding the Science Behind Climate Smart Agriculture in California or find it below.
CAFF_Understanding the Science Behind Climate Smart Agriculture