SUNDERLAND — The South Deerfield-based nonprofit Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture’s fourth annual Climate Change and Farming Week is underway, providing a series of farm tours and workshops to connect farmers and residents through conversations about climate change and the future of farming.
Big River Chestnuts owner Jono Neiger guided about 25 visitors around his Sunderland property on Sunday, a tour that marked the start of the week’s programming. Outlining his strategies for building a climate-resilient farm, Neiger showed visitors his intercropping systems, an idea that dates back to the Indigenous tribes’ Three Sisters style of agriculture. At Big River Chestnuts, alleys of elderberries bloom between chestnut trees and sheep graze below the trees in a “silvopasture” system.
Neiger said the livestock benefit from the shade and meal, while the trees and berries benefit from livestock enriching the soil with manure. He added that richer soil can store more carbon and the trees can stretch their roots. Through these connected benefits for livestock, plants and soil, Neiger said diversifying the farm strengthens the business.
He compared this impact to strong immune systems resisting bacteria and viruses.
“When the soil is strong, the crops can resist pests and diseases,” Neiger explained.
He added that “enlivened, robust” soil helps the crops withstand droughts, floods and other climate-related disasters.
“By building the soil and making the soil healthier, we make the crops healthier,” he said.
Neiger also created habitat areas and meadow zones where the plants grow wildly and pollinators can feast.
“All of these are different practices and different patterns that create more resilience on the farm,” Neiger said.
The farmer said he saw the excitement on visitors’ faces on Sunday as they checked out the strategies for themselves.
“You can read about a lot of these things … but our goal is to have a place where you can see it on the ground,” Neiger noted.
Learning about climate grief
For the second event of Climate Change and Farming Week on Tuesday, local farmers and agricultural service providers attended “Climate Stress & Grief: Building Understanding & Resilience,” a workshop led by Maud Powell, a professor at Oregon State University.
“Part of it is really giving people the names for what they’re experiencing and normalizing it and validating it,” Powell said in an interview before the presentation at the Sunderland Public Library.
She said laying out this language for emotions attached to climate change and clearing space to have difficult discussions reminds farmers they are not facing these feelings alone.
“I think it’s been something that people need without knowing they need it,” Powell explained.
Powell began by sharing her path to creating the workshop two years ago. After about 25 years on her farm in Jackson County, Oregon, she and her husband decided to leave when a drought hit their farm.
“We were in triage mode,” Powell said as she described their attempts to sustain their farm, even loading a truck with water from the town.
After checking the forecast each day and seeing no drop in the heat, Powell said they finally decided to leave their crops.
“It was such a gut punch, because everything we had done had been to adapt to the climate,” Powell said.
Noticing the toll on her own mental health and that of her husband, a similar problem experienced by fellow farmers, she decided to spread the word about climate stress.
In her presentation, Powell explained the “agrarian imperative,” a term coined by Dr. Michael Rosmann.
“It’s basically the drive, the imperative that farmers have to have enough territory to grow food and fiber for their communities,” Powell explained. “And they will do it under duress. They go through unusual amounts of hardship to continue to do this.”
Powell said stress can fuel farmers, motivating them to make bouquets with their flowers late into the night before a market, for example.
“The short-term stress can be really positive, but it’s this long-term stress where there’s no real solution [that] can really impact both our mental health and our physical health,” Powell explained.
She defined climate grief as “the natural response to loss associated with climate change,” emphasizing the word “natural.”
“It is actually really appropriate to be grieving right now,” Powell told the group. “It’s not pathological. There’s nothing wrong with these feelings, and they’re actually a sign of health; they’re a sign that we’re alive, that we’re feeling, and that we love things and we’re losing them.”
She encouraged the group to share losses that climate change has caused, both ecological and cultural. Powell detailed that there are five types of climate grief: slow-onset changes, acute disasters, vicarious grief, anticipatory and secondary grief, or cultural losses. Participants mentioned the loss of beloved traditions, like being able to go cross-country skiing in their backyards amid less snowfall.
CISA’s Climate Program Coordinator Stephen Taranto described “the enormity of how much help farmers really need to keep going” as an acute disaster.
Becky Reed, a farmer in Amherst, shared the slow-onset and anticipatory grief she feels watching the loss of habitats. Butterflies once filled Reed’s farm. Now, she said she sees only a handful flutter during the summer.
Identifying climate emotions
Powell also displayed a “Climate Emotions Wheel” with about 20 feelings falling under either anger, positivity, sadness or fear. She explained that climate grief often emulates a roller coaster track, toggling between emotions, instead of representing a straight line.
“Climate stress and grief are going to look different for everyone,” Powell said.
Attendees then named emotions they felt, which included outrage, betrayal, disappointment, despair and panic.
Griffin Pelaia, a former U.S. Department of Agriculture clean energy specialist, said he pictures oil company executives and “cannot begin to describe the insidious anger” he feels.
“It’s overwhelming,” Pelaia said.
After other participants echoed similar emotions, Reed expressed her outrage with politics, but also shifted to a positive emotion.
“I have a little patch of land and a great deal of gratitude, and I choose to live in a community with gratitude,” Reed said. “Anger and fear and sadness are there, but I don’t want to be dominated by them, because I can take care of my neighborhood, and that’s something.”
To end the presentation, Powell asked attendees to share the activities that nourish their mental health and power their resilience through climate grief and anxiety. Attendees took turns sharing strategies like giving away extra food, acting in local plays and musicals, and rowing early in the morning. Next, they read off responses from other participants in Powell’s workshops, which included dancing, volunteering, being spontaneous, sitting around campfires and wildlife tracking.
Over the course of two years talking about climate grief and anxiety, Powell said she has gathered about 1,000 strategies.
CISA’s Climate Change and Farming Week will continue the conversation with the following events:
- Sept. 26: “Agroforestry Crawl: Three Farms in One Day” from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Long Game Orchard in Northfield, Firefly Farm in Sunderland, and Carr’s Ciderhouse and Preservation Orchard in Hadley.
- Sept. 26: “Agriculture and Conservation Education: On-Campus Resources and Food Security” from 3 to 5 p.m. at Greenfield Community College.
- Sept. 27: “Building Fertile Ground: Biochar, Soil Health and Agroforestry in Action” from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Big River Chestnuts’ South Deerfield fields.
- Sept. 27 and Sept. 28: “North Quabbin Garlic & Arts Festival: Portal to the Future” from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days at Forster Farm in Orange.
For more details on the remaining events, visit tinyurl.com/ClimateChangeFarmingWeek2025.
