Cornell's Climate Smart Farming Program

Torrential Downpours. Scorching Heat Waves. New Pests and Diseases. Longer Growing Seasons. Farmers in the Northeast are under increasing pressure to respond to extreme weather events, climate variability, and long-term change. Cornell’s new Climate Smart Farming (CSF) program brings together world-class researchers and highly trained extension specialists to work with producers and their communities on innovative approaches to meet this challenge. We empower farmers to adopt practices that will increase resiliency, reduce their impact on the climate, and protect your food supply, but we need your help!

Donate Now to Ensure the Success and Sustainability of the new Cornell Climate Smart Farming Program!

Our Harvest Campaign, ending on Giving Tuesday, celebrates the bounty that farmers in the Northeast produce, all while facing increasing challenges and risks from extreme weather and climate change.

We need your Support:

• Suite of Tools, Best Management Practices, Forums built for farmers: We are building out a suite of resources (which will move to a newly designed website in 2016 and currently at climatesmartfarming.org). The Climate Smart Farming tools, practices, and training programs will encourage wider adoption of climate change adaptation and mitigation practices to sustainably increase farm productivity and incomes.
• Climate Smart Farming Extension Team: We established the first CSF Extension Team in the nation to provide resources related to economic development, dairy, grapes, small fruits, vegetables, integrated pest management, field crops, and soil health issues - answering farmers’ questions about climate variability and farm management. 

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• Cutting Edge Research: Cornell University is one of the leading universities conducting the applied research to help farmers and communities make informed decisions. We need your help to support research-extension partnerships that translate science for the end-user.
• Student Engagement: We work to train and mentor undergraduate research assistants, graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, who are gaining invaluable experience working with the Cornell Institute for Climate Change and Agriculture (CICCA).​

• Information Clearinghouse: We are developing a Toolkit of Management Practices to give farmers the information they need now to respond. The Farmer Forum will encourage farmer-to-farmer networking, information exchange, and access to specialists.  
• Online Decision Support Tools: We are building new tools based on weather, climate, agricultural, yield, and economic data to help farmers make the most informed decisions in the face of a changing climate. These tools are being built with farmer input and will be available on multiple platforms when and where farmers need them.

• Extension and Farmer Training: We are training extension specialists and farmers to use new tools to make more informed decisions, and adopt practices to increase resiliency. Your support will help us train farmers at the NYS Agriculture Society Forum, Fruit and Vegetable Expo, and PASA Conference.
• Climate Smart Farming Videos: Our new Climate Smart Farming Videos showcase farmers’ management responses to extreme weather and change. These are Real Farmers, Talking about Real Impacts and Adaptations.

Cornell launched the Climate Smart Farming program in 2015. The Long-Term Goal is to:

• Increase agricultural productivity and farming incomes sustainably;
• Reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural production through adoption of best management practices, and increased energy efficiency and use of renewable energy; and
• Increase farm resiliency to extreme weather and climate variability through adoption of best management practices for climate change adaptation.

Cornell's Climate Smart Farming Program was kickstarted through the backing of a few small grants and foundations. But we need your support to continue to build out tools and training for farmers over the next year. 

Thank you for taking part in our work!