How Is Our Future Climate Projected?

Climate change may be one of the biggest issues facing Florida agriculture. Most countries are trying to slow global warming by reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, including through climate-smart agriculture (CSA). Climatesmart agriculture is an integrated approach to managing landscapes, including cropland, livestock, and forests, which addresses the interlinked challenges of food security and climate change.

For example, certain management practices can increase the amount of carbon stored, or sequestered, in the soil. Carbon credits, which can be traded, are a way to reward these management activities. But how can Florida agriculture contribute to carbon sequestration? How can a producer generate carbon credits? And how can they participate in carbon markets?To help answer these UF/IFAS Extension has formed a team of specialists: the Climate and Carbon Extension Educators (C2E2).

Understanding the science, mechanisms, and policy behind the carbon cycle and trading will help Florida’s agriculture better prepare for the carbon economy. 

Tropical Research and Education Center(TREC) was established in 1929 by an act of the state legislature in what is now Miami-Dade County. Due to the region's humid subtropical climate, TREC is the only state university research center in the continental U.S. focusing on a large number of tropical and subtropical crops. Also, the area's oolitic limestone soil is unique to extreme southern Florida. In addition, the Center addresses water and environmental issues that impact crop production over a shallow aquifer and in proximity to Everglades National Park, Biscayne National Marine Park, Florida Bay and major well fields which provide drinking water to the several million people in neighboring urban areas.