Will USDA Report On Climate Convince Farmers of Danger?

Grist, via nc links:

As Grist reported earlier this week, the USDA released a massive report on climate change and U.S. agriculture. The report may represent the agency’s most decisive move to force farmers to face reality. The short version: Climate change is real, it’s here to stay, and farmers need to start adapting before the biggest effects hit.
And while this may not come as news to Grist readers, it’s worth highlighting the significance of this report. Big farm lobbying groups have been some of the most vocal critics of government action to address climate change, as well as of the very idea of anthropogenic (i.e. human-caused) climate change. A 2011 survey of Iowa farmers [PDF] found that while 68 percent believed the climate was changing, only 10 percent agree that it’s caused primarily by human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. Many an article on the extreme weather in farm country contain quotes like this one from American Farm Bureau President Bob Stallman:

“We are used to dealing with extreme weather variation,” he says, pointing out that his Texas farm has seen 20 inches of rain in a single day, in the middle of a drought. “We’ve learned to roll with those extremes. If it gets a little more extreme down the road, we can deal with it.”

The USDA would like you to look at a picture, Mr. Stallman.*

That’s what will happen to summer temperatures by the end of the century if we don’t cut greenhouse gas emissions. Note that farm country will get hit particularly hard — average temps will rise by about 10 degrees F. When you combine that with the increase in extreme weather events that the USDA assures farmers are baked in to the climate cake at this point, it becomes harder and harder to assume you can just “roll with it.” So sayeth the USDA:

Given the projected effects of climate change, some U.S. agricultural systems will have to undergo more transformative changes to remain productive and profitable.

That is a very scary map.  I would think that the extremely warm nights we've had the last couple of summers should scare any farmer, along with the extremely spotty rain and long dry spells.  Corn does not like hot nights, and we've had some that barely got under 80 degrees all night.  I don't know what kind of long-term effects we'll have in the Corn Belt, but the possibly disastrous situations are extremely scary. 

But as the article points out, in spite of the potential threat to our way of life, farmers will be amongst the very last people to be convinced of the reality of human caused climate change.  History is rife with the desertification of formerly arable land, mainly caused by human activity, such as deforestation and massive soil erosion.  But farmers, more than almost anybody, really, really hate environmentalists, so they will not believe anything about global warming.  As far as I can tell, it is that simple.