Climate Adaptation Planning

When: Wednesday, March 5, 2025 from 10:00-2:00 PM BYO lunch (Snow date Thursday March 6)

Where: Aldermere Farm Welcome Center, 20 Russell Ave, Rockport, ME 04856

Cost $25.00


Program Description

Concerned about how a more extreme climate is impacting your farm or landscape?  Too much or too little water? Concerned about soil erosion, wind impacts or shifting seasons? Come learn about Climate Adaptation Planning as a tool to assess risks and identify solutions to increase resilience and mitigate problems related to unpredictable climate and weather patterns. In this workshop, technical service providers from Maine Farmland Trust, American Farmland Trust, and MOFGA will give an overview of the climate trends in the state, discuss the process of climate adaptation planning using Aldermere Farm as a test case, and walk you through the steps you can apply to your farm. Aldermere Farm has been part of a pilot project with MFT and Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design to explore incorporating additional site analyses used in landscape design into the climate adaptation planning process. Aldermere Farm staff will share their experience working through this process and how it has informed their thinking.

Speaker biographies:

Sean Hagan is a Farmland Protection and Climate Project Manager at Maine Farmland Trust, where he focuses on conservation through agricultural easements and providing technical assistance to farmers seeking to make their farms more climate resilient. Prior to his role at MFT, he spent 8 years running Left Field Farm, an organic vegetable farm in Bowdoinham, Maine. When he transitioned from full-time farming he obtained his Masters in Ecological Design. He can be reached at shagan@mainefarmlandtrust.org.

Sara Kelemen, New England Soil Health Specialist for American Farmland Trust, is driven by a desire to work with farmers of all types towards improved farm resilience in the face of a changing climate. She has been a Fellow with the USDA Northeast Climate Hub running peer-to-peer climate focused programs for farmers and service providers, received a MS in Plant, Soil, and Environmental Science from the University of Maine in 2021, and worked on vegetable and cut flower farms in Washington, California, and Maine. 

Meg Mitchell (she/they) began as an apprentice on an organic vegetable farm in 2005 and has been raising produce ever since, working with local markets, planning for financial and climate resilience as well as participating in a network of mutual aid organizations. Meg works at MOFGA and seeks to connect farmers with technical support and funding for climate-smart practices and organic transition. Removing barriers to access for communities historically underserved by MOFGA is central to their work as is integrating emotional resilience into outreach and technical support.