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Most stories about climate change and agriculture are about the destruction of crops by droughts and floods and storms and plagues of migrating insects. But there is a place, in America, where agriculture of the right kind — small-scale, diverse, regenerative, low-impact — is flourishing because of global warming. Of all places, it’s Alaska.
The number of farms in Alaska increased by 30% between 2012 and 2017, while the total number of farms in America declined. Most of that growth was in small farms of nine acres or less. And in that same time period the value of farm products sold directly to consumers doubled, to $4.4 million. Warming temperatures (Anchorage experienced 90 degrees Fahrenheit last summer for the first time ever) and longer growing seasons (by 45% since 1900 in Fairbanks) have opened the way for growing plants that could not have survived there before. Continue reading