Spring is right around the corner – which means many farmers across the Commonwealth are hard at work preparing for the growing season.
They’re doing that with the ever-growing impact of a warming climate and extreme heat events – which certainly have been documented in Virginia in recent years.
“There have been increased instances of extreme heat episodes – and I know this is ironic coming off of a very cold, very wet winter – but once winter ends, what we’ve been finding is that the margins of spring and fall have been shrinking. That summers are much longer,” says MB Mitcham, an Assistant Professor and Director of the online Masters of Public Health Program in the Department of Global and Community Health at George Mason University. “The extreme heat episodes that have occurred during summers are hotter and they’re occurring more frequently. And we’re seeing an overall shift from the moderate temperatures that we’ve had to a higher temperature threshold.”
Mitcham recently published an article about the wide range of impacts extreme heat events have on our food cycle. Some of those are more obvious to us in our day-to-day lives…
“You don’t have to have a background in agriculture necessarily to understand the implications of heat on soil.”
Drier soil is often not a good thing for crops, but there are variables here.
“Depending on the type of soil – so you have more of a loamy soil or a clay-y soil – the soil composition itself will impact how well that soil is able to retain water,” Mitcham says.
Different plants like different types of soil for optimal growth. Take potatoes, for example. You can’t have too much water for them, as the final product will become soggy and more prone to rotting. On the opposite end, dry soil – which often accompanies extreme heat events – leads to potatoes that don’t have enough moisture to grow to their full size.
Mitcham says extreme heat even hurts yields for crops that typically like warmer temperatures.
“For something more like corn, tomatoes, peppers – when the sun bakes that soil, and again depending on the type of soil that it is, it will depend on just how quickly the moisture is drained from it – that can result in stunted growth, withered crops, even a loss of germination so the crops will not grow at all.”
Extreme heat events certainly impact the farmhands and other workers who have to be out in those conditions to keep crops healthy.
“Crops don’t usually grow under shade. So, you may have a hoop house that provides shelter as far as the direct sun, but the reality is that if it’s hot outside, it’s going to be hot in the hoop house,” Mitcham says. “So that constant exposure to sunlight is very damaging for farm workers.”
Heat stroke, exhaustion and dehydration often come into play here, too.
Those direct impacts from very hot temperatures may seem obvious, but Mitcham highlights some areas that we may not typically be top of mind when it comes to our food sources during those events.
For example, farm animals tend to be quite large…
“They require a lot of water and they can overheat fairly easily. Pigs, in particular, like to roll around in mud so that they can cool down. When it becomes extremely hot outside, the extra stress of that heat on those animals can impact their well being, which then impacts muscle wasting. It can impact milk production if you’re thinking about cows that end up heat stressed,” she says. “It’s more of a burden on the farmer to make sure that they have extra water for their livestock so they don’t end up dehydrated.”
When it’s really hot out, fish are also prone to experiencing stress and other issues.
“Whether it’s fish species moving farther away from the coast. Whether it is cold water fish like trout. I know in Southwestern Virginia, a lot of trout species are ending up not being able to stay as comfortably as they can in their streams and their creeks because they require cold, freshwater.”
Increased heat can also lead to oxygen deprivation in water, making it difficult for some fish, but more welcoming to some invasive species.
“Like the snakehead fish, which does not require as much oxygen,” Mitcham says. “So, you’re crowding out native species, introducing invasive species and disrupting the ecosystem.”
Even hunters are impacted by very hot temperatures.
“When it’s extremely hot, you have different behavioral shifts in the patterns of whitetail deer, for example. And then that shift impacts when they breed, which then impacts whether or not the babies are viable over the winter and also their patterns during hunting seasons.”
All of these variables were pretty eye-opening for me, and it just reflects how much goes into the things we count on every, single day.
“I know that a lot of people think of food systems as very linear, but the reality is – it’s all very interconnected,” Mitcham says. “Much like extreme heat impacts us in very different ways, the impact of extreme heat on food systems is complex.”
These issues may seem larger than us (they certainly did to me when I read Mitcham’s article), but I asked her what individual Virginians can do to help address some of them.
“Being as green as possible in our everyday life – trying to make sure that we do our part in recycling, decreasing our energy usage, speaking to politicians about concerns related to excessive energy use…”
Mitcham says we should be good stewards of our natural resources by helping to ensure animals have wild spaces, adding more green spaces in urban areas and maybe even planting a garden or keeping chickens in our backyards can go a long way in helping the environment around us.
Virginia's annual statewide tornado drill scheduled for March 10th
It's almost that time of year to make sure you know what to do in the event of a tornado at your home, workplace or school.
The Virginia Department of Emergency Management says this year's annual statewide tornado drill will take place on March 10th at 9:45 AM. At that time, an alert will go out over NOAA weather radios, in addition to the radio in your car, just like it would in the event of an actual tornado.
State officials say it's an opportunity to make sure you, your loved ones, classmates and coworkers have a plan in place should a tornado ever touchdown nearby.
You can learn more information about the drill, including how to participate, here.
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