The Effects of Climatic and Cultural Changes on Grain Agriculture in Northwest Washington

Local food movements are growing in popularity across the United States, with many communities focused on gaining control over their food systems. This is especially true in northwest Washington. Over the last 15 years, farmers, bakers, and millers in northwest Washington have increasingly invested their resources in growing and using local grains. Northwest Washington is not commonly considered a grain-growing region despite historically high yields of cereal grains. This study examines how grain agriculture has changed in northwest Washington since the late 19th century and uses a mix of quantitative spatial analyses, historical agricultural census analyses, and qualitative interviews to explore potential cultural and biophysical causes behind these changes. Our findings suggest that historical trends in grain agriculture were not driven primarily by climatic changes, but our spatially explicit models of late 21st-century climate suitability suggest the length and timing of optimal growing season conditions will change across our study area. This change coincides with the rising community interest in local grains. However, producers are concerned that future climate change may make it more challenging to grow grains in this region. This mixed-methods approach is of the utmost importance in understanding the entire story of community-based food systems in this area and in informing future decision-making of communities in northwest Washington.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  Geographies

• Publication date

  2025-03-01

• Fields of study

  Not labeled

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.3390/geographies5010010
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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