Climate Adaptation  for Vegetable & Flower Farmers

About Our Presenters

Julie Fine is the Climate and Agriculture Specialist at American Farmland Trust – New England. She works directly with farmers on soil health and climate adaptation practices. With years of experience as an organic vegetable farmer, Julie negotiates these issues with respect for real-world farm demands. As Johnny's Northeast Territory Sales Representative from 2018 to 2021, Julie loved connecting with growers about well-adapted varieties and cover crops. She was a 2021 Climate Adaptation Fellow and has an MS in plant and soil science from the Stockbridge School of Agriculture at UMass Amherst.

Johanna Willingham is a former Territory Sales Representative for the Pacific Northwest at Johnny's. After many years of farming on both large- and small-scale diversified farms around the world, she obtained her bachelor's degree in Sustainable Agriculture at the Evergreen State College. Her career focus has been sustainable agriculture production, field production of fruit and vegetables, and livestock management. Her agricultural passions include appropriate technology, streamlining farm systems, emerging IPM techniques, climate resiliency, and local food sovereignty.

Jeremy Barker Plotkin has been a vegetable farmer in Massachusetts for 20 years. After interning at the Land Institute in 1993, Jeremy earned his Master's in plant and soil sciences from the University of Maine, then founded Simple Gifts Farm at the New England Small Farm Institute in Belchertown, Massachusetts. Over the next 7 years, he grew the farm and, in 2006, moved his operation to the 40-acre North Amherst Community Farm, where Dave Tepfer joined him as farm partner. Jeremy and Dave have won several USDA SARE grants for on-farm research projects and work devotedly to manage the farm as an ecological system.

About Our Guest Panelist

Joshua Faulkner, PhD is a Research Assistant Professor and Farming & Climate Change Program Coordinator at the University of Vermont Extension Center for Sustainable Agriculture. He conducts applied research and outreach on soil, water, and nutrient-related issues across the state. He provides technical assistance to farmers on practices and innovative solutions to improve the management of these resources. Joshua's work spans from the farmstead to the watershed scale.

Welcome to the Resources page for our Climate Adaptation for Vegetable & Flower Farmers Webinar, a list of educational materials related to the webinar. The webinar has taken place, but in case you missed it or want to revisit the material, we will be providing links to the video recording of the webinar and related learning materials below, as soon as they are ready for posting.

In partnership with

OVERVIEW: Farms are increasingly at risk for crop, soil, and infrastructure damage from changing temperature and precipitation patterns. Drought and flooding have occurred within the same growing season. How do farms prepare for both extremes? We have partnered with American Farmland Trust to introduce adaptation planning and how to get started.

Climate change adaptation planning can help farmers strategically assess vulnerabilities and implement practices to build the resilience of farms and agroecosystems. This webinar is for vegetable and flower growers of any scale who want to examine the potential impacts of climate change on their farms and start a plan for climate adaptation. We also share several first-hand adaptation experiences from farmers.

A Q&A session follows the presentation.