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No matter what your opinion may be of climate change or of the efforts to fight it, farmers have to face the reality. A changing climate affects their water supply or the production of their land. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has a program that tries to help by sharing detailed information about how climate change affects agriculture and forestry. Rachel Cramer with Harvest Public Media reports on that program's uncertain future.
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RACHEL CRAMER, BYLINE: Except for some garlic sprouts poking out of the ground, everything is brown and yellow at a vegetable farm in central Iowa. Jessica Krupicka is one of the co-owners.
JESSICA KRUPICKA: I'm so ready for the day where, like, things are greening up, and we're actually, you know, able to start working in the soil again.
CRAMER: Even as she looks forward to spring, Krupicka says the season can bring new challenges with heavier downpours and big temperature swings.
KRUPICKA: So that really impacts certain crops, especially, like the lettuce, where the temperatures, if they get just too warm, they just get bitter, so you have a unmarketable crop.
CRAMER: Krupicka says they're scaling back certain crops and shifting planting dates to stay profitable.
KRUPICKA: With the climate change, we need to be more nimble.
CRAMER: More and more farmers in Iowa agree. Over three-quarters surveyed by Iowa State University in 2023 said climate change is happening. More than a decade ago, the USDA began creating 11 regional climate hubs in large part to help producers adapt. Julian Reyes was the national coordinator for several years.
JULIAN REYES: There was a lot of great climate data, for example, that existed at NOAA and at NASA, but there needed to be an in between - right? - to translate what that meant for farmers, ranchers and foresters. And that's where I think the climate hubs excelled the best.
CRAMER: Last year, the Trump administration proposed cutting funding for the hubs in the 2026 budget request sent to Congress, but just how much the hubs will lose is unclear. A USDA spokesperson said in a statement budget allocations are still being formulated. Reyes says the hubs' annual funding was roughly $30 million before he left in 2024.
REYES: They definitely punched above their weight. For the amount of funding that they received, they delivered benefits to not only the USDA, but farmers, ranchers and foresters. I was going to say threefold - I would say even fourfold.
CRAMER: Illinois state climatologist Trent Ford says the hubs play an important role in supporting local research, and the Midwest Climate Hub makes it easier to share information and resources with researchers and crop advisers across eight states.
TRENT FORD: We know that weather and climate and the impacts that they cause don't stop at state borders.
CRAMER: Laurie Nowatzke is the former associate director of the Midwest Climate Hub. She says the expected funding cuts come on top of massive federal layoffs last year.
LAURIE NOWATZKE: I think the more prominent impact to the climate hubs has been the effect on the ability to keep staff and hire new staff.
CRAMER: Nowatzke was one of tens of thousands of federal employees who were fired last February. She was rehired with temporary job security, took a deferred resignation offer and found a research job outside the USDA. Still, she worries about early career scientists and widespread federal cuts to other weather and climate research programs.
NOWATZKE: To me, the greatest concern there is that we are going to have less robust weather-related services for farmers moving forward. I think that's almost a given, considering the changes that have happened this year.
CRAMER: And with fewer resources to plan for the future, that may mean difficult times ahead for farmers as they try to navigate climate change.
For NPR News, I'm Rachel Cramer in Des Moines, Iowa.
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