Growing Pains: Climate Changes Upend Farming

Cultivation throughout the U.S. is becoming more difficult because of unpredictable weather patterns, leading to higher prices and lowered productivity. Farmers are finding that a shift of two or three weeks in a growing season can upset supply chains, labor schedules and other agricultural variables, like the routes that honeybees travel to pollinate fields. Also, climate change is driving a rise in pest infestations that will keep growers scrambling to keep up with rapidly changing conditions. “Decades-long patterns of frost, heat and rain, never entirely predictable, but once reliable enough, have broken down. In regions where the term climate change still meets with skepticism, some simply call the weather extreme or erratic. But most agree that something unusual is happening,” reports The New York Times.