Climate change’s impact on animal agriculture in the northeastern United States is expected to be mild overall — and in some cases new weather patterns might even help producers, says a study by Penn State, published in the journal Climatic Change.
Climate models for the rest of the century predict more warm days and more precipitation throughout the region. While hotter temperatures will likely mean greater heat stress on dairy cows and could slightly lower milk production, warmer conditions will likely be a boon to the poultry industry, which won’t have to spend as much money heating chicken houses through the spring. Warmer weather is also expected to lower the maintenance costs for beef cattle, which are exposed to the cold.
However, farm runoff during storms is expected to be exacerbated by warmer, wetter conditions, making nutrient management and so-called dead-zones in waterways more of a problem. Climate change could also spur the rise of new pathogens, but it’s difficult to predict their severity, according to the Penn State research team.