Farming on the fringe: climate change and coastal farms | Kate Tully | TEDxGreatMills

How can we plan today for resilience as climate change affects our coastal farms? Dr. Kate Tully is an Assistant Professor of Agroecology at the University of Maryland and directs the AgroEcoLab. She earned a bachelor's degree in English, Spanish, and Biology from Kenyon College and a master's and doctorate in Ecology from the University of Virginia. She conducted postdoctoral research at Columbia University's Earth Institute, where she researched the environmental impacts of the African Green Revolution and lived in Kenya and Tanzania. Broadly, her research examines how to manage farming systems so they both adapt to and mitigate climate change. Specifically, her current research programs address how to manage (1) coastal farmlands impacted by sea-level rise and saltwater intrusion and (2) cover crops to improve agroecosystem services provisioning.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Like 40% of the human population,
we live within 100 miles of a coast,

and here, in Great Mills,
we're only about five miles from a coast.

Our coasts, as you can see,
are beautiful and bountiful,

but they're also in danger.

The seas are rising across the planet,

threatening our homes
but also the farms where we grow our food.

For instance,

the eastern shore of Maryland

was farmed for many years
by native peoples

before the British colonists arrived,

and it is still heavily farmed even today.

But America's first farms
are starting to go underwater;

our history is quite literally drowning.

And even as we lose land
in our own backyards,

we're losing land
in Vietnam and Bangladesh,

two coastal countries

where we grow a large portion
of the world's rice.

And when we talk about climate change,

we often talk about it
like it's this thing of the future,

something we can worry about
in a couple of years

or even a couple of decades,

but climate change is happening.

It's happening now.

And here in Maryland,

the symptoms of the disease
are already starting to show.

Many people are unaware,

but there is an invisible flood
moving far inland

in advance of the surface floods
that can drown our homes and our farms.

And that invisible flood
is called “saltwater intrusion,”

and it can make our water undrinkable.

And it means that many of the crops
growing along our coastlines

have salty and wet "feet”;

that is, their roots
are burrowing below ground

searching for pure water,

but they're finding only salt.

And you can see what that looks like
in this picture here.

All of this white stuff
along the edge of this farm field

is salt.

And just like in Vietnam and Bangladesh,

it can feel like our Maryland farmers
are fighting a losing battle.

Here in the Chesapeake bay region,

sea level rise rates
are three times the global average.

And that means that our communities

are some of the first to be hit
by the slow burn of climate change.

And unfortunately,

we're not going to be able
to stop climate change right now

or reverse it, reverse the tides,

but what we can do is work together.

We can work together

as researchers, as farmers
and local government agencies

to design solutions that can help us
prevent climate change in the future

but also allow us to thrive
as communities right now.

And when I say communities,
I mean communities of people

but also of plants and animals.

So, what do we do?

We have to manage the transition,

and that means thinking
about climate change as a moving target.

So what's going to work now
on this farm field

won't work in five years,

and what works in five years
isn't going to work in 10 years.

With some of the fastest rates
of sea level rise on the planet,

the Eastern Seaboard of the United States
is at the leading edge of climate change.

And it is our job
to manage that moving edge.

The first thing we need are maps,

like this one,

that can help us understand
the current extent of saltwater intrusion

but also understand where it's headed.

And that will provide us
with an early warning system

that can help us generate a targeted plan
for every stage of saltwater intrusion.

And so my team is working to develop
some of these first ever maps

of saltwater intrusion,

giving us "eyes" on the disease
for the very first time.

And so you can see here in this map

all of these pink areas

are where we believe
saltwater intrusion to be right now

in two coastal Maryland counties,

in Dorchester and in Somerset.

And so, if we can understand
where saltwater intrusion is

but also understand
the rate of its spread,

we can help fight it,

that will help us fight it
and maybe even contain it.

The second thing we have to do
is work together.

We have to work together

as landowners and as scientists
and as policy makers

to design solutions that can help us
protect our environmental health

but also the farmer
or landowner's bottom line.

And third,

we have to start making changes now

that can help us prevent
climate change in the future.

And if we can do these three things,
we can save our coastlines.

So let me give you some examples
of what that might look like.

Saltwater intrusion is leading
to the large-scale death

of coastal timber plantations and forests,

often called ghost forests.

And we're going to watch
a short clip just now

that will give you a sense
of what that looks like,

the dramatic impact

that saltwater intrusion
is having on our systems.

(Video) (Insects chirping
and wind blowing)

Narrator: When you see
a ghost forest for the first time,

you're struck by how eerie it is,
sort of like a ghost town.

(Ominous music)

This ground is now too salty and too wet
to support living trees.

[Ghost forest]

(Music ends)

Kate Tully: If left unchecked,

saltwater intrusion can burn trees
from the inside out,

and the understory that's left
can become overrun with invasive species.

And these invasive species
can choke out native marsh plants,

and they do not provide good habitat
for nesting bird species.

However, we can help design solutions

that will enable landowners
to remove timber early.

We can use our early warning systems,

these maps,

to help us identify
the optimum time to remove timber

so that the landowners
can maximize their profits

and minimize their financial losses;

and at the same time,

we can promote the transition
of these ghost forests

into marshes.

So my team has been
working very closely

with the Maryland Department of Planning

and the Maryland Department
of Natural Resources,

two Maryland agencies
that are thinking about this a lot.

And we're asking really tough questions,

like "What happens to your property rights
as your land slips under water?"

We can't ask landowners

to bear the full burden
of climate change alone.

These people are our neighbors,

and we can help support them
with science-based management strategies

and policies.

In some cases,

the traditional crops we grow are failing,

so the typical mid-Atlantic rotation
of corn, soy, and wheat

is no longer viable.

And these crops are not adapted
to high concentrations of salt,

and they can't sit around
for a long time with wet feet.

And so my team is working to develop
some new alternative crop rotations,

better adapted to this new normal.

And so we're experimenting with sorghum,

a salt tolerant soybean,

and malting barley
for many of our microbreweries

in this area.

And we are not the only people
working on this.

There are Norwegian farmers

who are experimenting
with a salt-tolerant potato,

and in Louisiana, they're experimenting
with a salt-tolerant rice

that could be grown
in many coastal low-lying regions,

like Vietnam and Bangladesh.

And many a health nut
will be pleased to know

that quinoa is actually
a very salt tolerant crop.

However, there is another issue.

Farm soils are loaded with nutrients,
like nitrogen and phosphorus,

from decades of fertilizer applications,

and these nutrients are leading
to toxic algal blooms in our water bodies

that can be seen from space.

And this image here shows you
a map of the current impact

that agriculture is already having
along our coastlines,

such as causing the formation
of the dead zone

in the Gulf of Mexico.

And the problem is

that saltwater intrusion
only makes matters worse.

Because of its unique chemistry,

it can actually release
even more nitrogen and phosphorus

from farm soils.

So you can imagine

that as saltwater intrusion
marches across the landscape,

this could have potentially
devastating consequences for water quality

all along the Eastern Seaboard.

However, there are options.

We can plant fast-growing grass species,
like a switchgrass,

that can suck nutrients out of the soil
and store it in its plant tissues.

And many livestock operations

are interested in using
some of these fast-growing species

as bedding for chickens.

So you can imagine
that an endeavor like this

could actually provide
a farmer with income

as their land transitions,

help promote water quality,

and prevent species invasions.

These are all great ideas.

But as we think about
the changing face of farming

along our coastlines,

it will be critical to involve farmers
at every step of the way.

We have to ensure

that there is a market
that they can tap into

and that we take into account

their farming heritage
and wealth of knowledge.

So that is, scientists can't just come in
and tell farmers what to do

without understanding
where they're coming from

and leveraging their
generations of expertise

and understanding
their financial constraints.

For example,

the equipment that's needed
to grow that potato

is very different than the equipment
that's needed to grow soybean,

such as seen here.

And so my team is dedicated
to working very closely with farmers

in order to make sure
that we are designing management solutions

that work for them now
and also in the future.

In some cases,

we have already lost large swaths
of coastal timber plantations,

forests, and farms

to the invisible flood
of saltwater intrusion.

We didn't know that it was coming
until it was too late.

But that doesn't mean
that we should give up hope.

We can facilitate the transition
of these areas into marshes,

marshes that are filled
with native grass species

and marshes that can serve as sponges
for sediment and agricultural inputs,

like fertilizers.

These marshes can promote
environmental health,

which means they can support
a thriving crab industry,

and they can also provide nesting habitat
for many endangered species.

Marshes are also very good
at storing carbon.

And coming up with strategies
to store more carbon on our landscapes

is actually a key way

that we can fight climate change
in the long term;

that is, by sucking carbon dioxide
out of the atmosphere

and storing it in plant tissues
and storing it in soils.

And so, my team was really interested
in the carbon storage potential of farms

as they transition into marshes.

And it turns out the potential is huge.

So I’m going to show you some data -

because I’m a scientist
and I can't help myself.

So on the y-axis,
we have soil carbon concentration,

and the x-axis is a transect
across a salt-damaged field.

So imagine you're standing
in the center of a cornfield

and you're looking out towards the marsh.

These are the levels
of carbon in your soil.

So in the tidal marsh, we have
very high concentrations of carbon.

That's to be expected.

What is incredible is how much carbon
is on the edge of those fields,

in the field edge and the ditch bank,

where you're starting to see
some of that saltwater intrusion.

In fact, the carbon levels
are five times higher

than they are in that crop area

where the corn plants
are struggling to survive.

So on these fields,

where it's becoming increasingly
challenging to turn a profit,

we could actually allow the migration
of marshes into these farm fields.

Maybe we even help them out a little bit
by planting some native grass species.

If we did that,

we could store a lot of carbon,

and we could store it very quickly.

So in some cases, consider a situation

where we are subsidizing
the farming of carbon

rather than the farming of corn.

This work is, in a way,

a struggle to stay ahead
of a moving target,

and to do that requires
coordination and collaboration

among researchers
from many different disciplines.

And so, we're working together

to develop these first ever maps
of saltwater intrusion

to understand where it is
and also where it's headed.

And every day, my team is working
to gain a deeper understanding

of what crops are likely to grow,

how we can store more carbon,

and how we can protect water quality

as our coastlines transition.

The truth is we aren't going to halt
climate change in its tracks.

We can't slow the rising seas,
at least not in the short term.

To do that will require
coordinated global action.

But that doesn't mean
that we can't do anything about it.

When the world is sick, we wear masks.

We adapt to this new normal.

And we can help our neighbors,
our communities, and our planet

if we manage the transition
to the new normal

using science-based solutions.

Climate change is impacting
nearly every single agricultural system

on the planet.

Everyone at some point will have to adapt,

so why not be on the cutting edge
of climate change adaptation?

We are already building these maps
of saltwater intrusion

to understand where it is
and where it's headed,

and we are already working together

as researchers, as farmers
and as policy makers

to design these science-based solutions.

And we have the opportunity
to make changes now

that can help prevent climate change

in the long term.

We could farm carbon and not corn.

And what's remarkable to me

is that the state of Maryland
could actually be a global leader

in climate change adaptation,

especially when it comes to sea level rise
and saltwater intrusion.

We are already building the tools we need,

and we are already working together
towards this goal.

So, I’d say, let's do it.