SUNDERLAND — Two local farms opened their doors to Climate Chief Melissa Hoffer on Monday morning to talk about the challenges brought on by climate change, as well as opportunities for future investments in the industry.

The state’s first-ever climate chief toured Atlas Farm in Deerfield and Big River Chestnuts in Sunderland alongside legislators, Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources officials and representatives from Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA), which coordinated the events for its third annual Climate Change and Farming Week.

Following the tour at Big River Chestnuts, which showed off the evolving chestnut tree farm and agroforestry operation taking place off River Road, Hoffer highlighted the growing business’ aspects of less reliance on fossil fuels, carbon sequestration and climate resilience as something that other farmers, as well as state officials, could look at and see if they could be adapted to their needs.

“A lot of the things I’m seeing in practice are things here that I’ve read about, so it’s really terrific to see that happening,” Hoffer said. “I think our thriving agricultural sector here in western Massachusetts can be a real example of that.”

CISA Climate Program Coordinator Stephen Taranto said Hoffer’s visit is a chance to show how western Massachusetts’ agriculture industry is adapting to climate change, which could help inspire future grants or programs geared toward helping farmers tackle these sometimes-expensive projects.

“This is just an opportunity for [Hoffer] to get out into the field and see these different techniques and practices being put in place, and hopefully it’ll start a dialogue,” Taranto said. “Our hope is that it could lead to additional grants and support, so that more and more farmers can implement these practices that we need so urgently.”

At Big River Chestnuts, Jono Neiger and his team are cultivating a farm intended to last for generations with Chinese chestnut trees planted alongside rows of companion crops — such as aronia, elderberries, and other flowers and bushes — in a practice called alley cropping.

With this fabric of trees and other crops, the farm is creating a web — “We tend to let things get a little wild here,” Neiger quipped — of plants that can sequester carbon, reduce moisture loss and control erosion, all while inviting pollinators in.

“Trees are just going to be, in a lot of cases, more resilient,” Neiger said, noting that while conditions got extremely dry amid the 2022 drought, the 5-year-old chestnut trees were able to get through without signs of stress. “The strategy here is to create a system resilient to droughts and floods that’s baked into the crops.”

While the trees grow, the alley crops provide additional production for the farm, as well as an opportunity for local sheep farmers to bring in their flocks to mow down alleys of plants, which reduces the need for fossil fuels and keeps roots in the soil, therefore keeping carbon sequestered. Integrating tree farming and grazing livestock operations on the same plot of land is called silvopasturing.

These sorts of climate-resilience projects and community partnerships, Hoffer said, are the key to meeting Massachusetts’ net-zero energy goals by 2050. She noted the Biden administration has set out estimates that every ton of carbon dioxide and methane does between $230 and $2,400 worth of damage, which means “morbidity and mortality, and also property loss.”

“As we take fossil fuels out of transportation, out of the power sector and out of the building sector, it never really gets to net-zero unless you have the carbon drawdown from our agriculture sector,” Hoffer said. “It’s very, very expensive to be spewing fossil fuels into the atmosphere and we should be compensating people, through a rational system that’s market-based, who are doing things to reduce that pollution and also taking measures to make our community more resilient.”

The farm tours came alongside the launch of CISA’s third annual Climate Change and Farming Week, which seeks to bring together farmers, community groups and nonprofits for workshops, tours and other opportunities to discuss the challenges presented by a changing climate. From Tuesday through the end of the week, CISA is hosting nine more events, including tours, webinars and panel discussions. Details can be found at bit.ly/3TrUrw0.

“Climate change brings a range of challenges to local farms and to our local food system, including increased precipitation, more frequent extreme weather events, hotter summers and less predictable growing seasons,” Taranto said. “Climate Change and Farming Week is an opportunity for farmers to share information with each other, for organizations and institutions to highlight their efforts to their communities and for any interested person to learn a little more about this vital issue.”

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com.