NY Farm Risk & Resilience Explorer
Explore climate trends. Understand farm impacts. Build resilience.
New York agriculture is experiencing changing weather patterns, shifting growing conditions, increasing weather variability, and more frequent extreme weather events. These changes can affect crops, livestock, soils, water resources, farm infrastructure, labor, and long-term profitability.
Understanding how conditions are changing is the first step toward making informed decisions about the future of a farm.
The NY Farm Risk & Resilience Explorer helps farmers, agricultural advisors, educators, conservation professionals, and other agricultural stakeholders understand how changing weather patterns and environmental conditions may affect the crops, livestock, soils, water resources, and management systems they depend on.
Rather than beginning with recommendations, the Explorer begins by helping users understand the risks, vulnerabilities, and opportunities most relevant to their operation.
Every farm is different
The same weather trend can affect farms in very different ways.
Two farms in the same county may face very different challenges depending on their soils, water resources, crops, livestock, infrastructure, management practices, and position on the landscape. A trend that creates new opportunities on one farm may increase risk on another.
The goal of this Explorer is to translate broad environmental and weather information into information that is relevant to your operation.
Risk arises when changing conditions affect things that matter to a farm, such as crop production, livestock performance, soil health, water availability, infrastructure, or profitability.
Vulnerability describes how susceptible a particular farm, field, enterprise, or resource may be to those changes. Vulnerability is influenced by factors such as soils, drainage, slope, water resources, infrastructure, management history, and the ability of the operation to respond and adapt.
Moving beyond temperature and precipitation trends
Weather and environmental change are often described using measures such as annual temperature, seasonal precipitation, or the frequency of extreme events.
While these indicators are important, farmers make decisions based on what those changes mean for their operations.
The purpose of the Explorer is not simply to show how temperatures or precipitation patterns are changing.
The purpose is to help users understand how those changes may affect the crops, livestock, soils, water resources, infrastructure, and management systems they depend on.
Depending on the farming systems selected, the Explorer may help users evaluate topics such as:
Growing season changes
Heat stress risks for crops and livestock
Soil moisture and drought conditions
Extreme rainfall, runoff, and flooding risks
Soil erosion potential
Water availability and demand
Pest, disease, and weed pressures
Winter injury and freeze risks
Long-term crop and livestock suitability
Risks to infrastructure and farm operations
By linking weather and environmental trends to agricultural systems, the Explorer helps users understand not only what is changing, but also why it matters and where it may affect their operation.
Farmers do not manage temperature or precipitation directly. They manage crops, livestock, soils, water, infrastructure, labor, and business resources. Understanding how changing conditions affect those systems provides a stronger foundation for planning and decision-making.
From understanding risk to building resilience
Understanding risk is only the beginning.
Once relevant trends, hazards, vulnerabilities, and opportunities have been identified, the Explorer helps users explore strategies that may reduce risk, improve preparedness, strengthen resilience, or capitalize on emerging opportunities.
These responses may include:
Changes in management practices
Soil and water conservation strategies
Crop or livestock adjustments
Infrastructure improvements
Risk-management approaches
Long-term business and succession planning
The Explorer is intended to support existing farm planning and decision-making processes, not replace them.
Resilience is the ability of a farm system to withstand disruptions, recover from adverse conditions, adapt when necessary, and continue meeting production, stewardship, and business goals over time.
Science-based. Farm-focused.
The Explorer combines:
Historical weather observations and data
Future projections of temperature, precipitation, and other environmental conditions
Agricultural research and extension expertise
Risk and vulnerability assessment methods
Farm management and conservation principles
Established resilience and adaptation planning frameworks
At the same time, local knowledge remains essential.
Regional projections and scientific analyses provide important information, but farmers and agricultural advisors bring equally valuable knowledge about soils, fields, infrastructure, livestock, crops, management history, and business objectives. The best decisions combine both sources of knowledge.
Getting Started
To provide information that is relevant to your operation, begin by selecting:
Your location or region within New York
The farming system(s) or enterprises of interest
The Explorer will then identify weather and environmental trends, farm impacts, risks, opportunities, vulnerabilities, and resilience strategies most relevant to your operation.
Most environmental information is developed at regional scales. Understanding what those changes mean for an individual farm requires combining location-specific information with local soils, landscape characteristics, infrastructure, water resources, and production systems. Different farming systems often experience the same weather trends in very different ways.
Begin by selecting your location and farming system(s).