Understanding scientists’ communication challenges at the intersection of climate and agriculture

“Getting people to think of climate change and variability (including the past) on time scales of decades rather than years.” “Short term business decisions (1–5 years) vs. climate projections (30–100 years).” Scientists highlighted difficulties discussing uncertainty of timing and magnitude of climate change, but not the certainty of climate change. Many scientists noted this specifically in regards to communicating with policymakers, one noting that this is similar to how policy- makers already deal with uncertainty in other areas of decision making. A few wrote that uncertainty is a challenge in communicating with producers. “Communicating uncertainties [is a challenge] honestly but in a context of all the other uncer- tainties within which policymakers already routinely make decisions, i.e., climate change uncertainty is not fundamentally different than many other uncertainties that already are accommodated, like drought risks, market fluctuations, and technological change. All are cer- tain to come and we even have a pretty good idea of time scales and directions of change; none can be predicted precisely in either timing or magnitude; and proactive planning and accom- modation are the most economical responses to each of these sources of uncertainty and risk.” “Bridging the gap between uncertainty and helping to create an action plan for the producer.” We coded many more challenges related to producers than any other stakeholder group; we applied 20 of the 22 codes to this group (Table 2). Several of the coding themes related to

complexities of farm management as compared with other groups (e.g., overworked, fear of regulation, risk management). Moreover, as noted above, challenges with timescale was men- tioned by a few respondents described in relation to the producer stakeholder group. “Growers are focused on the immediate. They may recognize the need for longer term plan- ning, but if they don’t make a crop this year, there will be no long term.” Many scientists also described challenges of communicating climate change issues as related to the way producers see the world (e.g., culture, politics). A few scientists wrote about implications of climate change to farm management (e.g., economics, fear of regulation, risk management). “. . .the realities of climate change go against a fundamental psychological requirement of being a farmer; always hoping and believing that next year will be better. Positively addressing climate change requires a positive attitude toward making changes in practices and expecting positive outcomes. Too much of the climate change message is negative because negative out- comes of climate change are what we talk about and it is difficult to be positive toward change if we like and are adjusted to what we are doing.” “Crop producers do not want to change unless they are 100% sure the change will make money. That is almost impossible to do. . .” “Many farmers/ranchers face such a large set of issues and complex decisions every single day that they barely have enough time to pause for lunch. . .they rarely have the luxury of enough

spare time to develop a well-thought-out strategic (long-term) plan, let alone revisiting that plan regularly or incorporating new information or technology.” Finally, as reported in previous sections, many scientists indicated challenges in devising communication strategies for producers (e.g., making it personal, using layperson language). PLOS ONE Understanding scientists’ communication challenges at the intersection of climate and agriculture PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0269927 August 2, 2022 12 / 22