In the years ahead, farmers can anticipate more damaging floods, droughts, heat waves and pest infestations, according to climate scientists. Annual crop productivity, as notoriously unpredictable as it is, will likely become increasingly erratic and volatile. “Insurance, subsidized by the USDA, is very well worth it,” Mark Doyle, head of development management for Fishkill Farms, told HuffPost. There is consensus in the farm community that risk management is the key to the age-old problem of weathering year-to-year income variations caused by low prices and natural disasters, according to Doyle. And in its 2012 renewal, the Farm Bill is expected to oblige with beefed-up crop insurance as a replacement for the direct subsidies that farmers have received regardless of crop prices or yields. “It’s really clear that because of the frequency of extreme weather that climate change is creating, farmers are going to need an increased level of risk mitigation,” said Julia Olmstead, senior program associate at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. “We are all for getting farmers what they need. But we’re concerned that nobody is talking about the root causes of their increased risk. No one seems to be making that connection with climate change.”

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