Resilience in the face of the polycrisis is an important factor in envisioning a livable future for small communities like Middlebury. Climate resilience is both the ability to respond to acute climate disasters and to thrive despite worsening trends and chronic symptoms of climate change and ecological breakdown.
The Landworkers Alliance and Heedayah Lockman. May 8, 2022 https://shado-mag.com/what-is/what-is-food-sovereignty/
Climate resilience can take place in many forms, but especially integrated into our food systems. Our current dominant food system is industrialized and will be subject to increasing precarity as the climate crisis advances. Climate resilience in the food system looks like food sovereignty, agroecological practices, and attention to soil health. These ideas increase stability of the food system in face of adversity and disaster, and address the inequalities experienced in our current system.
Food sovereignty is “the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and the right to define their own food and agriculture systems,” (Pluriverse 185). Thus, the people and nations in the global south that have become dependent on international markets to acquire food would return to local food production that would give them more control over their food supply. These nations have been subject to many unequal practices under the industrialized food system that have undermined their capacity to feed themselves. Food sovereignty prioritizes local economies and markets, and empowers peasants and small-scale agriculture. In order to achieve food sovereignty, seeds, land, water, knowledge, and biodiversity must be considered as commons, where everyone has access and shares responsibility. This system would protect and encourage the multiplicity of food producing systems around the world, and requires solidarity among food producers and consumers.
Soil health is also an essential aspect of creating resiliency, as nutrient-rich soils are more adaptive in times of drought or disaster. Healthy soils are important for maintaining good water quality, holding rain water for use during dry periods, preventing potential pollutants from leaving the fields, allowing soil microbes to diversify and flourish. Nutrient-rich soils have been shown to increase productivity and profitability in farming. Healthy soil also has serious potential to sequester carbon, which is essential in mitigating the effects of the climate crisis. New York State passed a Soil Health and Climate Resiliency Act in 2021, which defined soil health practices as “agricultural and land management practices that improve the function of soils through actions that follow the principles of: minimizing soil disturbance from soil preparation; maximizing soil vegetation cover; maximizing the diversity of beneficial soil organisms; maximizing presence of living roots; and integrating animals into land management.” In pursuit of these principles, they suggest practices such as no-till, cover-cropping, precision nitrogen and phosphorus application, planned rotational grazing, integrated crop-livestock systems, agroforestry, perennial crops, and integrated pest management, among others. These practices, all of which contribute to soil health, are therefore practices for increasing resiliency.
Agroecology was originally a technical field focused on applying ecological concepts and principles to the design of sustainable agriculture systems. Now it is considered a transcultural, participatory, and action-oriented approach which relies on intercultural dialogue and the co-production of knowledge. A common descriptor of agroecology is that it is a science, movement, and practice. Agroecological innovations combine science with the traditional, practical, and local knowledge of producers. It aims to enhance the autonomy and adaptive capacity of producers in the face of climate-related issues. Agroecological systems are more resilient because they have a greater capacity to recover from disturbances and to resist pest and disease attack. Agroecological practices increase biodiversity and complexity of agricultural systems, which supports interactions between organisms that may improve self-regulation. Additionally, these practices enhance socio-economic resilience. Diversification of crops reduces the vulnerability of producers if a single crop or commodity fails. By reducing dependence on external inputs, it also reduces the vulnerability of producers to economic risk. Therefore, agroecology is an essential principle to adopt in pursuit of increasing resiliency in the food system.
The 10 Elements of Agroecology: Guiding the Transition to Sustainable Food and Agricultural Systems. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. 2022. https://www.fao.org/3/i9037en/i9037en.pdf
Community Resilience
Community climate resilience is essential to the forthcoming climate crisis. Community initiatives that help build resilience include supporting the localization of food systems, climate action plans, and community protection plans to mitigate effects of climate disasters and acute climate events.
- The localization of food systems will benefit communities by increasing their resilience and adaptability to climate change and decreasing their reliance on international supply chains that may begin to crumble with worsening soils and crop yields on monoculture plantations worldwide. It will also address geopolitical dynamics such as hoarding or embargoes, and threats to fossil fuel supplies used to distribute food. Additionally, localizing food systems will decrease carbon emissions from food production and shipping (Pradhan et al. 2020). Additionally, regionalized and localized food systems have decreased food waste, resulting in more equitable distribution of food globally and more resilient communities. Support of local farms, especially ones with sustainable and organic practices, helps to develop a reciprocal economy and move away from a corporate and exploitative one. The goal of your local farmer, generally speaking, is not to increase profits year after year after year. They want to cover their expenses, live comfortably, and feed their community. The local customer wants to support the farmer and eat good food with knowledge of where it came from. It’s a reciprocal relationship.
Reduction in emissions through localization of food systems. (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2020, 54, 17, 10551-10560)
- Continued protection of wetlands south of Middlebury, upriver along Otter Creek, is imperative to maintaining resilience in Middlebury. The wetlands upriver of Middlebury have proven to prevent massive flooding disasters, decreasing damages to buildings and other infrastructure. During Tropical Storm Irene in 2011, Rutland suffered major flooding and damages. Downriver and past wetlands and floodplains, Middlebury barely suffered any flooding. It is predicted that the wetlands reduced Middlebury’s costs in damages by over 80% or $1.8 million (Roman and Erikson 2015; Shapiro 2016). While storms like Tropical Storm Irene do not happen every day, or even every year, a UVM study estimates that on average, the floodplains save the town up to 78%, or $450,000 of damages (Shapiro 2016). Additionally, major storms and flooding events will become and are becoming more frequent with climate change. Continued protection of these floodplains is imperative for the town’s infrastructure, economy, and livelihoods of its community. If they are destroyed or developed, Middlebury’s resilience against acute flooding events will be severely reduced.
Otter Creek actual and modeled discharge without wetlands during Tropical Storm Irene for Rutland and Middlebury (Roman and Erikson, 2015, Economics of Conservation in Vermont)
The water in Rutland rose much faster and in a greater magnitude than it did in Middlebury. Without the wetlands and floodplains upriver of Middlebury, it is predicted that Middlebury would have experienced a similar rise in water flow that Rutland did (Roman and Erikson 2015).
Bibliography
Pradhan, Prajal, Steffen Kriewald, Luís Costa, Diego Rybski, Tim G. Benton, Günther Fischer, and Jürgen P. Kropp. 2020. “Urban Food Systems: How Regionalization Can Contribute to Climate Change Mitigation.” Environmental Science & Technology 54 (17): 10551–60. doi:10.1021/acs.est.0c02739.
Roman, Joe, and Jon Erikson. 2015. “Economics of Conservation in Vermont.” Rubenstein School of the Environment and Natural Resources University of Vermont. https://fpr.vermont.gov/sites/fpr/files/Recreation/Learn_More/Library/Economics%20of%20conservation%20report%20final7_8_15.pdf.
Shapiro, Carolyn. 2016. “Floodplains Saved Middlebury $1.8M in Damage.” The University of Vermont. July 6. https://www.uvm.edu/news/gund/floodplains-saved-middlebury-18m-damage.