California is a global leader in the agricultural sector, with 77,500 farms growing over 400 commodities. The state produces over a third of the country’s vegetables and two-thirds of its fruits and nuts. California’s highly productive agricultural industry is vulnerable to impacts of climate change. There is sufficient evidence that the climate in California has changed significantly and is expected to continue changing in the future. This justifies the importance of enhancing adaptive capacity to reduce agricultural vulnerabilities to climate change.

Tapan Pathak, cooperative extension specialist in climate adaptation in agriculture at the University of California Division of Agriculture and Resources and UC Merced, will discuss changes in climate including increases in temperatures, highly variable precipitation patterns, and increased frequency and intensity of weather extremes such as heat waves and drought and consequent impacts on agriculture in California.

Pathak led a team of researchers that published a paper on this issue in the journal Agronomy in February.