by Laura Lengnick | Apr 4, 2019 | Speaking
The latest episode of SARE’s Our Farms, Our Future podcast series features Laura Lengnick, a soil scientist and founder of Cultivating Resilience, LLC, a consulting firm that offers ecosystem-based climate risk management and planning services. Lengnick speaks with Don Teske, a fifth-generation farmer in northeastern Kansas who is currently transitioning from cropping to cattle grazing on his farm. They discuss the valuable role of the family farmer in a sustainable food system.
Check out the podcast here!
SARE is supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Their grant programs are administered regionally, with involvement from producers and others in the agricultural community. Their grassroots structure allows SARE to better identify and support local solutions to local problems.
The Our Farms, Our Future podcast series brings together the sustainable agriculture community for thought-provoking conversations about the state of agriculture, how we got here, and where we’re headed.
by Laura Lengnick | Feb 27, 2019 | Educating, Speaking
Headed to the Hudson Valley later this week to release the results of a year-long project led by Cultivating Resilience, LLC and funded by Scenic Hudson that explored the potential for land conservation organizations to promote climate resilience through voluntary conservation incentives: The Climate-Resilient Agriculture Initiative.
From Scenic Hudson, photo credit: Robert Rodriguez, Jr.
I’ll open the day-long workshop by sharing results from the Initiative, and will help facilitate a discussion about practical pathways to a climate-resilient Hudson Valley agriculture. Check out more about the workshop here!
Scenic Hudson has long been considered a leader in safeguarding the Hudson Valley’s irreplaceable landscapes — including the region’s productive family farms — while advancing balanced and sustainable development, and protecting our land, air and water from pollution and other threats.
by Laura Lengnick | Jan 20, 2019 | Educating, Speaking
Headed to Independence, Missouri this Wednesday for the 2019 Mid-America Organic Association Conference. The theme of this year’s conference is “Cultivating Resilience.” I’ll open the conference with a keynote on Thursday morning, teach three workshops on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and host a climate listening session on Saturday. Looking forward to learning a lot and being inspired by all the great workshops, meeting some new friends, and catching up with old friends like Resilient Agriculture farmers Ron Rosmann of Farm Sweet Farm LLC and Gail Fuller of Fuller Farms and G & L Whole Food – both are scheduled to teach at the conference.
Check out more about the workshop here!
by Laura Lengnick | Jul 13, 2017 | Speaking
I had the great pleasure earlier today of visiting with Brian Allmer at the Barn. We got together to talk about my visit to Colorado at the end of this month. Brian and his wife Connie live on his family farm & ranch in Northeastern Colorado. Brian’s farm was named a Colorado Centennial Farm in 2016.
Brian Allmer
Brian is “the principle bottle washer,” as he puts it, and founder of Barn Media and the Colorado Agriculture News Network. Brian runs an awesome operation dedicated to covering the issues that matter to Colorado agriculture. “Barn Media & the Colorado Ag News Network’s mission,” says Brian, “is to provide accurate and factual information pertaining to any ag issue facing producers & agriculture entrepreneurs and then let the listener or webpage visitor make up their own minds based on the facts on the discussions presented to them.”
During our visit before the interview, Brian’s deep knowledge, abiding respect and genuine love for agriculture and the people in agriculture, especially young people, really shone through. I learned that he is the “Official Livestock Announcer” at both the Colorado State Fair and the National Western Stock Show. Brian has also served as a board member of the Colorado Future Farmers of America and 4-H Foundations. And he is co-founder and coordinator of the Briggsdale Classic Open, an annual stock show that has rapidly become a “must” for 4H and FFA youth involved in exhibiting market beef, lambs and goats.
We had a great conversation today about the new risks and opportunities created by climate change. “Climate risk” is increasing agricultural risks across the board – production, marketing, legal/regulatory, financial and human.
Although Colorado producers are masters at managing the risks associated with changing weather cycles and extremes of weather, these kinds of weather challenges are likely going to come faster and be more intense in coming years. Climate risk is something new. Practices that have worked in the past to manage weather-related risks will become less successful over time.
City region food systems bring urban and rural people together for mutual benefit. Credit FAO
We also discussed a new idea that holds a lot of opportunity for agriculture. The “City Region Food System” is a sustainable development idea that is rapidly gaining traction around the world. Simply put, this solution changes the nature of the relationship between urban and rural areas from one that is exploitive to one that is mutually beneficial. Rural areas are recognized as providing services essential to the health and well-being of urban areas and are remunerated accordingly. Instead of being viewed as a source of additional raw materials, rural areas are viewed, for example, as a source of high quality food, clean water and air, open space, beautiful landscapes, and living expressions of place-based tradition. Rural areas can also contribute significantly to regional climate change solutions, by storing carbon in soils, reducing flooding, and providing many other mitigation and adaptation benefits to both rural and urban communities.
One of the real joys of my work these days is the opportunity to visit with all sorts of good people working in agriculture and food systems, all across the U.S. and beyond. We don’t always agree on the problems or the solutions, but we all share a deep love for the land and the people who care for the plants and animals that feed us. Thank you, Brian Allmer, for a great visit to the Barn. I look forward to catching up with you again real soon!
You can hear the full interview at BARN ONAIR & ONLINE 24/7/365.
by Cultivating Resilience | Nov 16, 2016 | Speaking
I spent 5 days talking about Resilient Agriculture in central New York the early part of this month on the SUNY-Cobleskill campus and at the Farmer’s Museum Annual Conference on Food and Agriculture in Cooperstown. I enjoyed visiting with students in the agriculture and natural resources program at Cobleskill to talk about how dairy and beef producers can prepare for changing climate conditions, how to manage for resilience in food supply chain management, leading edge agricultural education strategies, and how to research and write about sustainable food issues. I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation at the evening reception and book signing, and my public presentation, Climate Change, Resilience and the Future of Food was standing room only! The evening events were made even more special because Resilient Agriculture farmers Jim and Adele Hayes were able to attend. I also enjoyed a visit with Jim and Adele at Sap Bush Hollow Farm to catch up on all the latest news, including their most recent venture taken on by their daughter Shannon and her husband Bob – the Sap Bush Hollow Cafe in West Fulton, NY.
This year’s Annual Conference on Food and Farming, hosted by the Farmers Museum in Cooperstown. The museum’s collection of 23,000 artifacts reflect 19th century farm life in central New York. The conference focused on the impacts of climate change on farming in central New York. I kicked off the day long meeting with a keynote on Climate Change, Resilience and the Future of Food and finished the day with a New Times, New Tools workshop for farmers that presented the results of my research with award-winning sustainable farmers and ranchers in the U.S. and new management practices that a proven to reduce climate risk.
by Cultivating Resilience | Mar 5, 2016 | Speaking
For the first time, the potential of agriculture as a solution to climate change was included in COP discussions. Attend this session if you would like to learn more about what it was like to attend the Paris meetings as a civil society delegate and what you can do to ensure that our country does its part to reduce emissions and cultivate climate resilience. Presented at the Abundance Foundation’s 4th Climate Adaptation Conference in Pittsboro NC on March 4, 2016. Report From Paris Abundance 2016
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