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Jessica Krupicka hops out of her truck on a cold January morning at Heritage Hill Farm in central Iowa. The vegetable plots sleep under cover crops while hollow sunflower stalks guard a patch once blooming with dahlias and zinnias.
“I’m so ready for the day where things are greening up and we’re actually able to start working in the soil again,” Krupicka said.
She runs this diversified organic vegetable farm with her husband, their two boys and some hired help, selling produce directly to consumers and restaurants. Heirloom tomatoes are one of their specialties.
Even as Krupicka looks forward to spring, she says it’s brought new challenges in recent years with heavier downpours and big temperature swings. Waterlogged soil can increase the risk of root rot and other diseases, while erratic temperatures can stress plants and disrupt typical growing seasons.
“We might have a time or stretch of temperatures where it’s just very hot,” Krupicka said. “That really impacts certain crops, especially the lettuce … if they get just too warm, they just get bitter, so you have an unmarketable crop.”
Krupicka says they’re experimenting with different varieties, shifting planting dates and scaling back certain crops in response to changes they’ve experienced on the farm since they purchased it in 2012.
“With the climate change, we need to be more nimble,” Krupicka said. “And there’s going to be a certain point where we’re just not even going to grow [some crops].”
While farmers have always had to contend with unexpected weather, a growing number say it’s becoming harder to predict and more extreme. Nearly 80% of farmers surveyed in a 2023 Iowa State University poll said climate change is happening, up from 68% in 2011.
To better understand the risks and help farmers, ranchers and forest landowners adapt, the U.S. Department of Agriculture created a network of regional “Climate Hubs” in 2014. Scientists and producers say the hubs provide valuable information and support collaboration across state lines.
But now the climate hubs’ future is uncertain.
As part of President Trump’s 2026 USDA budget request to Congress, the administration proposed terminating over $145 million in discretionary funding to the 11 hubs and climate science research.
And the massive spending package that Congress passed in November cuts funding for the hubs, according to bill summaries published by the Senate and House appropriations committees.
The exact dollar amount and impact on the program’s operations are unclear. Discrectionary funds are allocated to USDA agencies, which decide how to use them based on the administration’s priorities and congressional intent.
When Harvest Public Media asked for clarity on funding for the climate hubs, a USDA spokesperson wrote in a statement on Jan. 30 that “budget allocations are still being formulated.”
The spokesperson also pointed to a recent announcement outlining Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’ research priorities, which “will guide decisions for funding research and other critical programs that advance the President’s agenda for America’s farmers and ranchers,” according to the USDA statement.
Harvest Public Media contacted staff at all 11 hubs with questions about funding changes. Two declined to comment, and the rest did not respond.
Julian Reyes was the national coordinator for the climate hubs from 2021 to 2024. He said the hubs’ annual funding grew to roughly $30 million while he was there and came from multiple USDA agencies, often to support specific projects.
“It's not just one line item in a budget. That does not necessarily exist,” Reyes said. “Because of that, the climate hubs budget has really been dependent on goodwill between all USDA agencies to work together towards a common good.”
Reyes, who now works for the Union of Concerned Scientists as chief of staff, said the hubs “punched above their weight for the amount of funding they received” and were created to fill an important gap.
“There was a lot of great climate data that existed, for example, at NOAA and NASA, but there needed to be an in-between to translate what that meant for farmers, ranchers and foresters, and I think that’s where the climate hubs excelled the best,” Reyes said.
A regional network
Illinois State Climatologist Trent Ford said eliminating the hubs would be a loss for farmers and weaken regional coordination.
“We know that weather and climate and the impacts that they cause don't stop at state borders,” Ford said.
The Midwest Climate Hub based in Ames, Iowa, covers eight states.
Monthly meetings with other state climatologists, USDA and university researchers and extension staff are an opportunity to share information, Ford said. He gave the example of a sudden change in atmosphere that could lead to dangerously cold temperatures for crops and livestock.
He said they also discuss the best way to communicate risks across the Midwest, rather than leave it up to each group to develop its own messaging.
Missouri State Climatologist Zachary Leasor said the Midwest Climate Hub has helped him connect with others in the region and better understand the challenges facing agricultural producers in his state.
Leasor contributed to a series of reports aimed at explaining key climate trends in specific states, their impacts on agriculture and options for farmers to adapt.
“I think the next piece of the ‘so what’ and ‘what does that mean for agriculture?’ was the more important part to come out of that,” Leasor said. “That will speak to producers as more actionable information.”
Some of the adaptation options in the Missouri report include cover crops, which help the soil absorb more water during heavy rainfall events and reduce daily soil temperature fluctuations. Another is using white instead of black plastic mulch, which absorbs heat, for speciality crops that need cooler growing conditions.
The hubs have also played an important role in supporting local research, Ford said. The Midwest Climate Hub helped him find funding to collect data about the effects of warming winters on apple production in Illinois.
This led to other funding sources for more research and a report about climate change impacts on fruit trees and viticulture in the Midwest, Ford said.
“We know that specialty crops, in some ways, are even more vulnerable to climate and climate change than commodity crops,” Ford said.
In the past year, Ford said a few projects have been put on hold, including one focused on the effects of warmer temperatures, higher rainfall and other climate trends on pumpkin production in central Illinois.
Part of a larger loss
Even before the news of potential funding cuts in November, researchers and climate scientists interviewed for this story said the hubs were already hurting.
“I think the more prominent impact to the climate hubs has been the effect on the ability to keep staff and hire new staff,” said Laurie Nowatzke, a former USDA employee at the Midwest Climate Hub.
She joined the Midwest Climate Hub as a coordinator in 2021 and became its associate director and science coordinator in January 2025. The new title triggered a one-year probationary period.
Nowatzke was one of tens of thousands of federal employees who were fired last February based on their probationary status. She was rehired with temporary job security and ultimately took a deferred resignation offer. Nowatzke now works as a research scientist at Iowa State University.
There were a dozen term and permanent employees at the Midwest Climate Hub when Nowatzke was there. Now she believes there are four.
Along with the sudden layoffs a year ago and a federal hiring freeze, Nowatzke said the USDA did not allow term employees she worked with to be renewed at the end of their 13-month period.
“Performance was good, great even among my team members. But then term employees were not renewed at the end of their initial probationary period or their following term,” Nowatzke said. “Essentially, that led to these layoffs despite the fact that funding was available.”
She said long-term impacts to early career scientists and science communicators keeps her up at night.
“Even if we can pull some of that [funding] back and reinforce some of the weather-related services that we have in the U.S. or in the Midwest region specifically, we're still going to deal with lag effects of losing professionals from this field,” she said.
Staff and funding cuts to the USDA Climate Hubs have been part of a larger attack on federal agencies and organizations related to climate science.
Last summer, the Trump administration proposed reducing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s budget by $1.7 billion. NOAA oversees the National Weather Service and Regional Climate Centers.
And then in December, the administration announced plans to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research, which is considered one of the world’s premiere research institutions for weather forecasting.
“The greatest concern there is that we are going to have less robust weather related services for farmers moving forward,” Nowatzke said. “I think that's almost a given, considering the changes that have happened this year.”
Building resilient farms
Lauren Mortensen said the Midwest Climate Hub’s reports have been helpful as she makes decisions on her farm in southwest Wisconsin.
Mortensen and her husband purchased over 80 acres near the town of Platteville in 2021 in a hilly region known as the driftless area. She said the hilltops had previously been used for row-crop production.
“When you have agricultural fields that are tilled multiple times per year, and you have an exposed soil on a hilltop, it's very vulnerable to soil erosion and nutrient runoff,” Mortensen said.
Water erosion had washed away soil, leaving behind gullies – steep-sided channels on the hill slopes, Mortensen said.
“We knew from 2021 that we needed some type of permanent cover on those hilltops,” she said.
Their motivation to protect and restore the soil is one of the reasons they’re transitioning the farm to agroforestry with rows of mixed fruit and nut trees and shrubs with 38-foot prairie alleys in between. Climate change is another.
“How do you plan for a three-week drought and then a huge rain event and then a drop in temperature, and then we go back up to 95 degrees Fahrenheit?” Mortensen said. “One tool is to start using systems that are more resilient against unpredictable weather.”
She also participated in the Climate Adaptation Mitigation Fellowship, a peer-to-peer learning program with roots in the Northeast Climate Hub.
Rachel Schattman, a sustainable agriculture professor at the University of Maine, helped start the fellowship. She said one of the goals is to build a network of farmers and advisors who understand climate change and its effects on farms and businesses and can learn from each other.
“Farmers are experimenting with adaptation and mitigation approaches on the ground, and often are able to share the results of their experiences more quickly than a rigorous scientific study,” Schattman said in an email. “Farmers are the innovators, the risk takers, and they have an intimate understanding of their land and microclimate.”
Mortensen and the other fellows contributed to a planning guide to help farmers identify climate risks and next steps they could take to buffer their operations.
Schattman doesn’t expect enough funding this year to host a new cohort. But she’s hopeful the program will continue in the future.
Mortensen said farmers need more peer-to-peer learning opportunities, like the Climate Adaptation Mitigation Fellowship, and cost-share programs.
“I think the USDA climate hub has served as another critical information sharing platform,” Mortensen said.
This story was produced in partnership with Harvest Public Media, a collaboration of public media newsrooms in the Midwest and Great Plains. It reports on food systems, agriculture and rural issues.
