It should come as no surprise, the role our weather plays in agriculture. Farmers gathered at a dairy farm in Orleans county, to learn how to mitigate impacts of climate change.
Ask a Vermont farmer and they’ll tell you, extreme rainfall events have made for lasting impacts across the state. Now some of them are learning how to improve soil quality.
“Seeing how these heavy rain event are affecting our fields, and how to actually define soil health,” said Richard Hall the co-owner of Fairmount Farm. “Some of these rain events seem to be a little heavier. We are just changing our practices as time goes on, how we rotate crops, how we plant crops or how we do or don’t do tillage.”
On had for today’s event was a rainfall simulator over five different landscapes. The demonstration shows how much top soil is lost in storm run off.
“The soil has no structure, the aggregate is all broken because it’s tilled, tilled, and tilled,” said Sarah Damsell of the Orleans County Conservation District. “Soil organic matter also helps farmers deal with the climate change reality of increased precipitation here in Vermont.”
The group Damsell works with helps farmers by going out into their fields to asses soil health and look to see what can be done differently to prevent run off into streams and rivers.
Richard Hall tells us the farmer takes pride in protecting the environment.
“As a farm community we are very quick to make these adjustments. And be responsible to the environment,” said Hall.
Friday’s event was part of Vermont Clean Water Week.