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Society & Natural Resources An International Journal

ISSN: 0894-1920 (Print) 1521-0723 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/usnr20

Perceptions of Environmental Change and Climate Concern Among Idaho’s Farmers

Katrina Running, Jordan Burke & Kathleen Shipley

To cite this article: Katrina Running, Jordan Burke & Kathleen Shipley (2017) Perceptions of Environmental Change and Climate Concern Among Idaho’s Farmers, Society & Natural Resources, 30:6, 659-673, DOI: 10.1080/08941920.2016.1239151

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2016.1239151

Published online: 31 Oct 2016.

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SOCIETY & NATURAL RESOURCES 2017, VOL. 30, NO. 6, 659–673 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2016.1239151

ARTICLES

Perceptions of Environmental Change and Climate Concern Among Idaho’s Farmers Katrina Running, Jordan Burke, and Kathleen Shipley

Department of Sociology, Idaho State University, Pocatello, Idaho, USA

ABSTRACT Climate change public opinion research has identified conservative political ideology as the primary predictor of skepticism about climate change’s anthropogenic causes. Most farmers in Idaho are politically conservative, but they are also a unique group for whom observing their environment is part of daily life and work. We use data from in-depth interviews with 30 Idaho farmers to examine the relationship between observations of specific environmental changes and climate concern. We find that while most farmers report noticing changes in precipitation patterns, growing season length, and winter tempera- tures, few farmers connect these with long-term global climate change. These findings have two important implications: 1) direct experience, even in the form of disruption to an individual’s economic security, is not enough to overcome the influence of political ideology on climate change beliefs, and 2) acknowledging climate variation is not sufficient to convince individuals that the changes are produced by human activities.

ARTICLE HISTORY Received 9 March 2016 Accepted 24 August 2016

KEYWORDS Adaptation; agriculture; climate change; farmers; perception; vulnerability

In the United States, state economies that rely on agriculture are likely to be some of the first impacted by climate change (National Climate Assessment [NCA] 2014). Especially in semi-arid environments like much of the West, this reality is causing anxiety, given that even best-case scenarios predict the earth’s average temperature will continue to increase until at least mid-century, accompanied by worsening drought (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] 2014). In Idaho, where agriculture accounts for about 31% of total employment (Idaho Department of Labor [IDL] 2014), the recently negotiated Water Settlement Agreement is attempting to address this problem by mandating an approximately 13% reduction in groundwater pumping during the 2016 irrigation season (Matthews 2016). Still, as climate change trends continue, states that depend on agriculture are likely to be especially vulnerable to declining well-being, and farmers themselves may be personally impacted since reduced water allocations will mean more acres of potentially productive land remaining unplanted.

Despite the importance of farming in Idaho, and the potential for climate change to affect its future sustainability, Idahoans report less average concern about climate change than the American public (Howe et al. 2015). Lower levels of climate concern are typical in sparsely populated Western states, where conservative political ideology, which is the most

CONTACT Katrina Running [email protected] Department of Sociology, Social Work and Criminology, Idaho State University, 921 S. 8th Ave., STOP 8114, Pocatello, ID 83209, USA. Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/usnr. © 2017 Taylor & Francis

consistent predictor of climate skepticism (McCright and Dunlap 2011a; McCright and Dunlap 2011b), and religion, also associated with lower levels of concern for climate change (Kilburn 2014; Zhou 2015), both exert substantial influence on local culture (Pew Research Center [PRC] 2014). Southeastern Idaho also has a large Mormon population, which studies have found to be even less supportive of environmental efforts than other religious denominations, possibly due to members’ predominantly pro-business positions and distrust of federal regulation (Foltz 2000; Hunter and Toney 2005; Peterson and Liu 2008).

This study explores the contradiction between the personal economic significance of environmental change for farmers in southeastern Idaho and their skepticism about global climate change as a larger phenomenon. We use data from interviews with 30 farmers in the area to investigate how they perceive their natural environments and potentially use observations about changing environmental conditions to plan for the future. The objective of this research is to reveal points of disconnection between scientific projections about future climate trends and on-the-ground behavior among farmers. This is especially impor- tant because Idaho’s growing population—currently just over 1.6 million people and increasing at a rate of about 0.89% per year—continues to add pressure on the state’s natural resources (World Population Review [WPR] 2015). We hope that becoming equipped with research findings regarding both climate predictions and social perception of environmental change will help scientists, policymakers, and farmers work together to develop long-term sustainable management strategies for balancing the region’s increasing demand for biophysical resources with changing supply.

Analytical Framework

Public Opinion about Climate Change

Environmental social scientists have found that both public awareness of environmental issues in general and knowledge of climate change in particular have been increasing since 1982 (General Social Surveys [GSS] 1972–2014). However, concern among individuals varies substantially. In the United States, repeated studies have found age, sex, political ideology, and education to be the most influential predictors of concern for climate change. Of these, female sex and politically liberal beliefs have the strongest positive association with climate concern and support for political action to address environmental problems (Kemmelmeier, Krol, and Kim 2002; Dunlap and McCright 2008; McCright and Dunlap 2011a; McCright and Dunlap 2011b; Hamilton et al. 2014), though newer research has revealed an interaction effect between education and political ideology, finding concern positively correlated with education among Democrats but negatively correlated for Republicans (Hamilton, Colocousis and Duncan 2010; McCright and Dunlap 2011a; Hamilton et al. 2014). Theoretically, these relationships are often explained as the result of socialization patterns related to gender and political ideology. With respect to gender, males are enculturated into masculine norms of behavior such as competitiveness, control, and independence, while females are socialized to be more compassionate, cooperative, and concerned about the well-being of others, which may extend to environmental well-being (Brody et al. 2008). Politically, liberal and conservative ideologies maintain different opinions about who holds responsibility for the collective welfare, with liberals being more

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likely to support government financing of basic social services and policies designed to improve environmental conditions while conservatives are more likely to prefer smaller government and see government regulations targeting the environment as unnecessarily intrusive (Leiserowitz 2006).

Climate change public opinion research has also addressed the sizable minority of the American population who are skeptical about climate science and the threat of climate change. Overall, the proportion of Americans reporting “climate skepticism” or “climate denial” has ranged from about 10 to 14% over the last decade (Global Warming’s Six Americas [GWSA] 2014). Recent studies have zeroed in on conservative political ideology and male sex as the two most powerful predictors of an inclination to reject scientific conclusions about the anthropogenic causes of global warming (McCright and Dunlap 2011a). This has been labeled the “white male effect” and has been attributed to social psychological “identity protection” processes by which members of high-status social groups are less willing to accept information that challenges their group’s elevated position in the existing social and economic hierarchy. This leads to a preference for the dominant social order and an aversion to accepting problems that may be associated with how that system functions—a position alternatively labeled “system justification” or “social domi- nance orientation” and associated with the denial of problems like climate change (Feygina, Jost and Goldsmith 2010; Jylhä and Akrami 2015). Among farmers in particular, low levels of trust in the sources of information about climate change (especially environmental groups and scientists) have also been found to reduce the perceived importance of climate change (Arbuckle, Morton, and Hobbs 2013).

Sociocognitive theories also suggest that people formulate their perceptions of environ- mental risk, especially those that primarily affect members of other social groups, through cultural worldviews derived from broad value orientations (Stern et al. 1999) or a sense of one’s moral or social responsibility (Weber 2010). Among the most developed of these frameworks is values–beliefs–norms (VBN) theory, which attributes general environmental concern as a function of core value preferences on two dimensions: hierarchicalism versus egalitarianism, and individualism versus communitarianism (Stern et al. 1999). VBN theory suggests that altruism and self-interest are among the most important factors for understanding individual environmental orientations, given that environmental problems are typically collective challenges. Thus, people who value social control and respect for authority (revealing an inclination toward hierarchicalism) and self-sufficiency and private property (suggesting a preference for individualism), are less likely to express concern about the environment. Subsequent empirical studies have confirmed these general relationships (Leiserowitz 2006; Zahran et al. 2006; Brody et al. 2008), and though none of these focus specifically on farmers, as a group farmers in the western United States are more likely to hold hierarchical, individualist views compared to egalitarian or communitarian positions.

Environmental Change and Climate Concern

Another domain of social science scholarship on climate change has focused specifically on whether perceiving local climate changes influences concern for climate change more broadly. One broad theoretical perspective loosely underpinning this research area is the objective problems explanation, which holds that individuals who personally experience

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the consequences of environmental problems will be more likely to report concern (Inglehart 1995). For farmers, perceived changes in local climate have been found to increase support for adaptation but not mitigation initiatives (Haden et al. 2012). Among the general public, though people are able to accurately perceive warmer than average winter temperatures, they do not always attribute them to global warming as a larger phenomenon (McCright, Dunlap and Xiao 2014); for those who do, the effects are greater among “leaning” partisans (both Democratic and Republican) compared to people with more strongly held political beliefs (Egan and Mullin 2012). Howe and Leiserowitz (2013) also tried flipping this causal analysis, and concluded that beliefs about global warming may actually drive perceptions of local weather conditions rather than vice versa, with people who do not believe in global warming being significantly less likely to perceive above-normal temperatures. From a policy perspective, perceptions of risk have also been found to affect whether people support adaptation measures designed to address climate change (Grothmann and Patt 2005), including among farmers (Arbuckle, Morton, and Hobbs 2013).

Environmental Change in Idaho

In the western United States, a number of environmental changes have become increas- ingly apparent over the last few decades. Reservoirs and aquifers with lower than average water levels have spurred growing fear and ongoing negotiations about future water availability (Matthews 2016). In Idaho, while annual precipitation has increased an aver- age of one inch over the past half-century (Office of the Washington State Climatologists [OWSC] 2015), more of this precipitation is taking the form of rain rather than snow and reducing the snow water equivalent (SWE)—a measure of water in snowpack that affects summer streamflow. Since 1980, SWE has been declining—a trend that is expected to continue or even accelerate through the 21st century (Pierce et al. 2008). These changes are important predictors of the amount of irrigation water that will available for farming in Idaho, leading some to speculate that future water shortages could result in an estimated 32% loss in average annual crop revenue (Xu, Lowe, and Adams 2014; Rocca et al. 2014).

Ultimately, all of this is being driven by warmer temperatures due to global climate change. Average temperatures in Idaho have increased approximately 1°F (0.56°C) over the last century, with many years in the last two decades in particular breaking high temperature records. It is anticipated that average annual temperatures in the northwestern region of the United States will continue to rise, by as much as 3.3–9.7°F (1.83–5.39°C) by the latter half of this century (NCA 2014). Higher temperatures are also expected to alter other ecological processes such as first leaf dates (FLD), which are correlated with SWE and may change the length of the growing season (McCabe et al. 2013), and tree die-off rates, which could increase erosion and decrease flooding protection (NCA 2014).

Overall, these predicted environmental changes are likely to have multidimensional consequences for farmers. On one hand, the growing season has increased by approxi- mately 2 weeks since the beginning of the 20th century (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] 2014), with the average growing season in the western United States now 22 days longer than it was in 1895, which may have a positive effect on productivity. In particular, yields of certain crops in Idaho such as wheat and barley have the potential

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to increase as a result of climate change (U.S. EPA 1998). On the other hand, higher temperatures combined with water scarcity may intensify heat stress on crops, cause lengthier and more severe fire seasons, and exacerbate problems with regional agricultural pests, including Mormon crickets, brown wheat mites, and aphids, all of which could negatively impact farming activities (Michaud 2010; Srygley 2014; Natural Resources Defense Council [NRDC] 2015).

Data and Methods

Data

Data for this study come from in-depth interviews conducted during the summer of 2015 with 30 farmers in southeastern Idaho. We recruited participants using flyers posted in regional businesses, especially those catering to the farming community, as well as through word-of-mouth once the interviews began. We conducted almost all of the interviews in pairs, and most occurred at the interviewee’s residence or place of work, though a few took place in local diners, churches, or community centers. Each interview lasted between 30 min- utes and 2 hours, with an average length of 45 minutes. The responsiveness and interest among the participants ranged from highly engaged to somewhat disinterested. All of the interviews were recorded, transcribed, and then coded in Atlas.ti to identify common themes.

Table 1 reports the basic demographic characteristics of the 30 farmers included in the study. All of the farmers were white men and the majority (87%) had been born into farming in the area. The average age of the farmers sampled was 56 years, which is 2 years younger than the mean age of farmers in the United States (Census of Agriculture [CA] 2012). The average length of time these farmers or their immediate families had been working their land was 60 years, the primary crops grown were potatoes, wheat, sugar beets, alfalfa, corn, and hay, and their irrigated water came from either surface water or wells, depending on the terms of their water rights. Most of the farmers (83%) described their political views as conservative, with the other 17% identifying as either politically moderate or independent. Finally, while we would have liked to have included questions about educational attainment and religious affiliation, we decided against doing so as this was our first research contact with this community and we did not want to highlight the educational differences between us and our interviewees or inquire about sensitive topics (like religion) before building trust. Our longer-range research program involves doing additional work in the area.

Table 1. Interview participant demographics. Percentage Mean Median Minimum Maximum

Conservative 83% — — — — Independent/moderate 17% — — — — Age of respondent (years) — 55.66 55 27 78 Male 100% — — — — Farm acreage — 3,617.57 1,600 110 25,000 Household size — 2.59 2 1 8 White 100% — — — — Years family has been farming in area — 67.9 60 5 130 Born into farming 87% — — — — First generation farmer 13% — — — — N ¼ 30

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Method

Our interviews began with general questions about how long the farmer (or the farmer’s family) had owned the land he was farming, what he was growing and how much, and what his plans were for his farm after retirement. We then moved on to questions about possible environmental changes observed, beginning with an open-ended question: “Have you noticed any changes in the environmental conditions in your area that seem beyond normal variation from year to year?” We followed up with questions about specific environ- mental changes such as differences in precipitation patterns, growing season length, and average winter temperatures before asking each farmer directly whether he was concerned about climate change. If he acknowledged any amount of concern, we then asked whether he thought any of these changes to the climate were the result of human activities.

Though we went into the interviews with some knowledge of what prior empirical and theoretical work have found regarding the factors related to environmental perception and climate concern, we also used thematic analysis to allow the data to guide our theoretical findings (Glaser and Strauss 1967; Glaser 1998). Thus, following several readings of all 30 interviews by the analytic research team (consisting of one faculty member, one graduate research assistant, and one undergraduate research assistant), we coded statements as either indicating perception of environmental change or not, first in general and then regarding the specific changes we inquired about, before identifying major ideas within respondents’ answers and explanations. (In our interviews we also asked about other things such as farmers’ opinions of genetically modified organism [GMO] seeds, experiences with regulatory agencies, and adoption of conservation practices, but the data from these questions are not analyzed in this article.) While each member of the research team noticed slightly different details, we agreed upon the main themes emerging from the interviews: reluctant acknowledgment of environmental variation and suspicion of environmentalists, liberals, and the federal government; the belief that any perceived climate change is primarily due to natural cycles and/or God’s plan; and a commitment to environmental stewardship in order to keep land productive and maintain the rural lifestyle. In the following, we outline and interpret representative examples of these response themes in greater detail.

Results and Discussion

Perceptions of Environmental Change Among Farmers

Overall, most farmers’ initial reaction to the question about whether they had observed environmental changes in their area was “no.” However, most of these opening responses were followed by lengthier discussions of some of the changes they had noticed upon thinking about it, though these extended reflections were often concluded with a vague dismissal of their significance. Thus, at the outset one of the most interesting aspects of the farmers’ discussions about environmental change was the ambivalence about it they revealed. Here is the way one 51-year-old alfalfa and grain farmer began his answer to the open-ended environmental change question:

Um, not really. I mean there are good years and bad years. I remember as a kid being really cold, you know, 30 below at the time. But we haven’t had any winters like that. But I don’t

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know. It felt like we had an early spring here, but then we got about a week of really cold weather after it warmed up again, so. It all comes back around, so.

This sentiment was repeatedly illustrated during the interviews by the common trajectory of answers, which typically began with a rejection of the idea of environmental changes that exceed normal year-to-year variation, followed by a mention of one or two noted changes, but then concluded by an expression of doubt that the changes were meaningful. The following quote by a 61-year-old potato, wheat, and sugar beet farmer is another typical example of this thought process:

Not really. Right now we are in the cycle. I mean this year crops are probably 10 days ahead, you know. Last August we had like 23 or 24 days of rain. It kind of seems like the weather gets a little more violent … When I was young man we would go through periods of drought and then we go through periods where we had major drifts in the winter which we haven’t experi- enced in a few years. So, I think there are cycles. I’m not a big [believer in] environmental change. There is, I think, if you look back to the normal pattern of life, it’s not a big theme of worry for us I guess is what I would say.

Ultimately, then, despite frequent mentions of particular environmental changes they had noticed, most of the farmers did not report much concern about these variations or consider them linked to a longer term trend like climate change.

Next we asked whether each farmer had noted longer growing seasons, changes in precipitation patterns, warmer winters, and/or the presence of pests that seemed beyond normal variation. Figure 1 presents a summary of the percentages of our interviewees who noted each of these specific types of changes. A large majority (90%) reported noticing sustained differences in precipitation patterns in the area, and 50–60% of the farmers mentioned longer growing seasons, warmer winters, and the increased presence of pests. Seventy-three percent also reported their perception that the climate was changing, but only 27% attributed these changes in any way to human activities (this 27% comprised 8 out of our sample of 30, and they had no distinguishing characteristics that we measured compared to the other respondents). In general, these farmers’ reported observations align

Figure 1. Perceptions of environmental change.

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with scientific measurements of changes in local climate, which have documented warmer temperatures, more spring rain instead of snow, and a longer growing season on average (U.S. EPA 1998, 2014; NCA 2014; NRDC 2015).

Concern About Climate Change Among Farmers

Our next set of questions addressed climate change directly, seeking to gauge concern about long-term trends and understanding of scientific predictions. In particular, we asked: “Thinking specifically about changes to the climate, how concerned are you about climate change?” Here, we found the farmers’ narratives centered on natural cycles, the constantly changing nature of weather, and a general belief that people cannot transform the environ- ment. For example, in response to this question, one 55-year-old corn and alfalfa farmer told us:

I am not. It is changing but I am sure the people that went through the last Ice Age … it is a cycle. You are going to have them. It is just nature’s way of cycling in, cycling out. Yes, we can add to it. We can make it come a little quicker. But as far as the practices that we do affecting it greatly, it is going to cycle in and cycle out.

Another farmer added to the natural cycle theme by linking it to his religious belief in the relationship between earth, humans, and God. He said:

I told you earlier, I’m a God-fearing man. I think we have no control over it. I think that I don’t have [control]. I don’t worry about what is gonna happen. I think that is going to take care of itself.

This conviction that humans are not in a position to seriously alter the earth’s natural environment because such control is handled by a higher power was repeated frequently throughout our interviews. Another 72-year-old wheat and sugar beet farmer simply stated:

Not much. Not concerned about that at all. I think the Good Lord will take care of that. I don’t think we can do much to change it one way or another.

However, some of the farmers went beyond simply doubting that humans were respon- sible for changes to the climate and actively criticized how other people discuss such changes as being silly and/or overstated. One 40-year-old wheat, hay, potato, and sugar beet farmer answered the climate concern question by scoffing:

I think it’s crazy to listen to people talk about it. It’s way hotter than it used to be; it’s way colder than it used to be. Things fluctuate. There’s so many things that happen. We all know that you can get a tropical storm off the coast of Mexico and it will affect us here. But, why we have the tropical storm, everyone wants to have the answer to all of this stuff, but we know the environment’s always changing and it always has. And, I’m just going to say, it seems like, you know, our growing seasons seem like they’ve gotten a little bit longer.

While some of these responses may seem contradictory, one way to make sense of the disconnect between the environmental changes the farmers admitted noticing and their simultaneous dismissal of their implications is by considering what studies of climate change public opinion have discovered about how individuals form opinions on this some- what complicated scientific issue. McCright and Dunlap (2011a) found that conservative white men are the group in the United States most likely to deny the existence and/or seriousness of climate change, in part because they have been at the top of the country’s

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socioeconomic hierarchy for a long time and thus have a personal interest in resisting calls for changes in “business-as-usual” practices. It is worth offering a small caveat here to acknowledge that one could legitimately question whether farmers in southeastern Idaho are truly “winners” in the modern economy, especially considering the trend toward large agribusinesses increasingly replacing small-scale operations (CA 2012). Still, as a group, the farmers we interviewed were all white and almost all conservative, and thus in these ways politically aligned with the status quo in their area.

During the course of the interview process we also developed a sense that, from a political perspective, the farmers were reluctant to acknowledge environmental changes because they believed doing so was what the environmentalists “wanted,” making it a form of tacit support for a group they almost universally disliked. Among farmers in rural communities, opinions of environmentalists generally range from somewhat suspicious to downright hostile due to environmentalists’ perceived association with the federal government and regulatory overreach. For example, when asked about his level of worry about climate change, one 61-year-old potato, wheat, and sugar beet farmer said:

Not in the top five. I mean, I’m more concerned about drought. I am more concerned about the economy. I am more concerned about the safety of the food. I’m more concerned about taking care of the land, and I think that climate change … what I am worried about in regards to climate change is that the government will overreact and try so hard to regulate and then the regulations will cost so much that people starve to death because of the regulations or something. I mean that is a real possibility. So, I think, I hope going forward we will all approach it really slowly and with caution, so that is what I worry about.

Another 52-year-old potato and sugar beet farmer further developed this line of thinking by specifically relating action on climate change to expanded control by the federal government:

I think climate change in today’s political vernacular is another word for controlling the folks. One political party is trying to put a cap on business and people’s rights, really. There has been a bill been introduced in the U.S Senate or U.S. House—I don’t know which one—it’s called Waters of America. It scares me because they are going to try and control everybody’s water. We are already fighting everybody for our water, you know. Now all we need is Washington D.C. to tell us what they can. But I think our government has reached a point where climate change has … they use it to control people, and people’s property. My water rights belong to me. I think there is a certain amount of people in government that—and people in our country—that think that all natural resources should belong to everybody. I don’t see it that way. I think that is major trouble that is going to happen. So my answer to climate change is I think it’s PR to be “Yes I believe in climate change you know.” Or PC, I mean. I think it’s a crock, I’ll just tell you flat out.

Another notable finding from these interviews was the frequency with which common climate science misconceptions were invoked. Among individuals who acknowledged some changes to the local climate, when asked “What do you think is causing these changes?” the three most common responses (beyond the more general attribution to “natural cycles”) revolved around the role of sun spots, ice ages from the past, and the effect of volcanoes on the global climate.

For example, the farmer just quoted continued explaining his skepticism about scientific warnings of climate change this way:

Is there climate change? Yeah. Always has been. Every year it is different. Is there trends? Yes. Maybe sun spots have more to do with it. I have read a lot of information. There are a lot of

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experts that put a lot of weight on sun spots. The activity on the sun has more to do with what happens on earth.

Distrust of environmentalists was also portrayed as frustration over past warnings about impending environmental problems that were not borne out. One 64-year-old man who farmed potatoes, wheat, sugar beets, alfalfa, and safflowers described his skepticism this way:

Frankly, I think most of the stuff they come up with is ridiculous. One volcano just totally eclipses everything that we do. Yet, the earth seems to be able to, things change for a bit, but everything equalizes back out. Having said that, I am not for just driving your smoky old car down the road burning oil and, you know, let it do what it will do. I am all for keeping that down. Just the panic and the idea that oh, we’ve got to do something. They have been predicting something cataclysmic is going to happen for years. If we don’t do it by this time, then it’s just going to be a total disaster. The seas are going to rise and all this stuff. A lot of it is just a bunch of hype, sorry.

Another 55-year-old hay, grain, and cattle farmer replied:

I don’t keep history but I am here to tell you that every year is different. There is a lot of things that environmentalists would like you to believe. I went to a seminar and they talked about global warming. I don’t remember what year that … to that date that year on the average was ten degrees colder than the previous ten years. So tell somebody a lie and they like to believe it a lot more than the honest truth. I don’t believe in global warming.

In general, it was evident from these responses that many of the farmers considered the scientific community’s conclusions about climate change to be inextricably linked to the government’s objectives, and also that environmentalists were not considered trusted sources of information about future environment-related forecasts.

Commitment to Environmental Stewardship Among Farmers

Considering the reactions to our questions directly relating to environmental conditions, it might seem natural to conclude that the farmers we interviewed were not very concerned about their local environment. However, at least as often as we heard disparaging comments directed at environmentalists or government-initiated resource management efforts, we also heard farmers espousing personal commitment to their land and empha- sizing the importance of environmental stewardship. This 44-year-old alfalfa farmer represents this general sentiment:

Everybody wants to take care of their land. That is the one thing I think sometimes maybe people do not realize. It is not productive to not be a steward. It is pretty hard to maintain your business if you do not put back what you take out.

Similarly, another 63-year-old potato, sugar beet, wheat, and corn farmer summed up the motivations behind his philosophy of care for his land this way:

Everything we do is trying to keep the highest productivity, the healthiest land that we can keep in order to produce for the next year, for the next generation.

These responses suggest that while farmers may value the natural environment differently from traditional environmentalists for whom nature is often thought of as intrinsically valuable, there is actually substantial overlap in the commitment to long-term environmental sustainability between both groups. For farmers, nature is not necessarily

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prized as an abstract concept or integral to their spiritual philosophies. Rather, farmers appreciate their land and the natural environment around them as both their livelihood and a physical place they love. Beery and Wolf-Watz (2014) dubbed this alternative model of environmental concern the “environmental connectedness perspective” and attributed positive environmental attitudes to time spent in nature rather than the environmentally oriented subjective values social research has highlighted as predictors of pro-environmen- tal attitudes among other groups (Inglehart 1995; Dalton 2008).

On a practical level, this suggests that when advocating for action to address environ- mental problems among farmers who live off the land and spend a lot of time outside, emphasizing economic benefits and the relational concept of place is likely to be a more powerful argument than the conservation of nature for its own sake. Indeed, in our inter- views this is how the farmers talked about the local environment with the reasons they gave for caring about it, coupled with a general affection for the rural lifestyle. When asked what his favorite thing about his job, one farmer simply said:

The beauty of the land. Being able to live right here. That’s my favorite.

Conclusion

In general, rural communities rely more directly on natural resources for their economic health than do urban areas. This means that for states like Idaho with a large agricultural sector and a worsening water crisis, it is especially crucial to plan for anticipated changes in natural resource availability. This study sought to contribute to that process by talking to farmers directly about their perceptions of environmental change, their concern about observed changes, and their present and planned responses to these changes, if applicable. We found that the majority of the farmers we talked to were for the most part aware of environmental changes on their land but were still not convinced that these changes were part of a bigger climate change phenomenon. While these findings are specific to Idaho, they are ultimately important because meeting the targeted greenhouse gas emissions reductions negotiated at the recent United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) Paris conference will not be achieved without cooperative efforts at multiple jurisdictional levels.

From a theoretical perspective, one valuable finding from this work is the lack of sup- port for the “personal experience” or “objective problems” explanation for environmental concern—a perspective that suggests people become more oriented toward environmental problems when they experience their consequences firsthand. Compared to other indivi- duals within the state and around the United States, farmers in the American West have already begun to feel the effects of a changing climate in their daily lives and their busi- ness’s bottom lines. That these personal experiences are not sufficient to persuade farmers to take climate change science seriously is therefore interesting from a social scientific per- spective, and seems to lend support for sociopolitical explanations of environmental con- cern (or lack thereof) that focus on political ideology, cultural norms, and membership in social groups. It also confirms other recent findings that many people do not attribute war- mer than average local temperatures to global warming, especially if they hold politically conservative views (Egan and Mullin 2012; McCright, Dunlap, and Xiao 2014), although these farmers did not appear to be subject to the “reverse causal” process whereby people

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who do not believe in global warming fail to perceive measurable environmental change around them (Howe and Leiserowitz 2013). However, it will require further research to determine whether this is because farmers are a particular subset of political conservatives with more awareness of environmental conditions or whether, compared to their equally conservative neighbors, those who fail to recognize global warming are still more likely to misperceive local conditions.

The findings from these interviews should also serve as a general warning to policy- makers and natural resource managers in the state, as there appears to be little explicit con- cern or conscious planning for climate change thus far among many Idaho farmers, even though most of them expressed interest in ongoing environmental stewardship. Instead, our interviews revealed many climate misconceptions and some inaccurate climate-related information that seemed to obstruct a considered evaluation of the risks of climate change. This led to our conclusion that addressing one primary gap, which is an understanding of the key mechanism driving climate change—the greenhouse effect—will be necessary before we can expect farmers’ support for climate action to increase. From a scientific com- munication standpoint, we also came to sense that using the term “global warming” rather than “climate change” in discussing the threats of sustained average temperature increases might be less apt to be dismissed. Especially for farmers, who follow the weather closely and are accustomed to adjusting their activities in light of sudden extreme events and inevi- table variation, the idea that the climate (which is often incorrectly conflated with weather) generally “changes” is obvious, and thus may not be as effective at communicating the underlying problem of long-term warming as the term “global warming.” From a practical standpoint, it may also be that more immediate problems like water restrictions, fluctuating crop prices, and yearly battles with various crop pests are simply higher priority hazards to farming, which has always been a scrambling, perilous way to make a living.

Ultimately, all of this is important because both social and environmental landscapes affect support for conservation initiatives to maintain environmental and economic sus- tainability in states with large agricultural sectors. Given that most of the farmers described their motivation to care for their land from a pragmatic, economically oriented position and/or in terms of place attachment, one effective strategy at encouraging the adoption of conservation practices, especially those related to the ever-present concern over water, could be to frame these methods in terms of business sense and lifestyle maintenance rather than environmental preservation. Possibly because people develop emotional attach- ment to the physical, open spaces in which they live (Whyte 1968), and possibly because these are also connected to relational values that emphasize cultural identity and in-group loyalty (Chan et al. 2016), studies have found that shared regional identity is especially influential in increasing support for protecting local natural resources (Carrus, Bonaiuto, and Bonnes 2005; Brehm, Eisenhauer, and Stedman 2013). Thus, in this way, state planners could use the overlap between the interests of farmers and advocates for general ecosystem health to strategically manage contested state resources with high buy-in among diverse stakeholders.

Acknowledgments

We thank Tomas Cota for contributing to data collection during the summer of 2015 and Jeremy Thomas for providing helpful feedback on earlier drafts of the article.

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Funding

We thank the National Science Foundation (NSF) Idaho EPSCoR MILES (Managing Idaho’s Land- scapes for Ecosystem Services) Program, award number IIA-1301792, for funding for this project.

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