Constraints on farmer adaptability in the Iowa-Cedar River Basin

Agricultural production and farmer wellbeing are frequently and adversely affected by interacting climatic, economic, and policy-related disturbances. The ability of individuals to adapt and manage their resilience in the face of these threats is key to understanding how social-ecological systems might respond to future disturbances. We report the results of a survey of farmer adaptability in the Iowa-Cedar River Basin in eastern Iowa that asked questions of farm characteristics, experiences with extreme events, risk perceptions, climate change beliefs, and the frequency of perturbations that might stimulate a response. We find that in general farmers’ adoption of conservation practices and land use decisions are insensitive to climate-related perturbations. These individual adaptation decisions are affected by a wide array of constraints. Financial constraints and the stabilizing effect of crop insurance, in particular, reduce the self-reported likelihood that farmers will adapt to changes in system-level drivers. An analysis of constraints and farmer perturbation sensitivity suggests that alternative economic and policy levers may be necessary to incentivize change on the agricultural landscape.