UC Santa Barbara Scholar Says Cover Crops Can Guard Farms From El Niño

Farmers who keep living roots in their soil year-round are weathering flooding and drought far better than neighbors with bare winter fields, according to Liz Carlisle, an associate professor of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who argues the finding matters now because forecasters warn this year's El Niño could become the strongest on record, Carlisle wrote in The Guardian.

The United States will not be hit nearly as hard as Central and South America, the Caribbean, and southern Africa, Carlisle wrote, but she cautioned that severe weather tied to the El Niño pattern could still cause significant crop loss in parts of the country. Carlisle, author of "Healing Grounds: Climate, Justice, and the Deep Roots of Regenerative Farming" and co-editor of "Living Roots: The Promise of Perennial Foods," said she has spent 15 years visiting farms that handle climate extremes better than most.

What makes this El Niño different?

Carlisle did not detail specific meteorological projections in her essay, but she framed the stakes in terms of recurring field-level damage she has observed: flooded fields, missed planting windows, and crops so drought-stressed they are not worth harvesting. She described these outcomes as "heartbreaking events" that have become common as climate volatility increases, though she did not attribute a specific number of past incidents to any single agency.

How are resilient farms performing differently?

According to Carlisle, the farms she has studied soak up heavy rains when neighboring fields are left with standing water, and in low-moisture years they produce roughly 80% of their average yields despite receiving just 40% of their average moisture. She attributed that performance gap to one factor: the amount of carbon-rich organic matter built up in the soil over time, which she said allows land to absorb and hold moisture the way a sponge does.

What soil practices protect against flooding and drought?

Carlisle identified two practices as central to building that soil capacity. Farmers can plant a soil-building cover crop during the offseason, she wrote, or they can grow perennial plants that live for multiple years instead of being replanted annually. The shared mechanism, in her account, is keeping living roots in the ground year-round rather than leaving fields bare between harvests.

What does the research show?

Carlisle cited work by researchers Andrea Basche and Marcia DeLonge, who found that adopting either cover crops or perennial plantings increases the space between soil particles by 8%, a change that allows water to move into and through the soil more effectively. She acknowledged the figure "may not sound like much" on its own, but tied it directly to the yield and flood-resilience differences she described observing on working farms.

By the numbers, as cited by Carlisle:

• 8% — increase in soil pore space from cover crops or perennials, per Basche and DeLonge's research
• 80% — average yield resilient farms achieved in low-moisture years
• 40% — the share of average moisture those farms received in the same years

What role does Congress play?

Carlisle argued that Congress needs to act to protect cover-cropping and perennial-planting practices, framing federal policy as a lever for scaling up the soil-building methods she profiled. Her essay did not specify particular bills, appropriations levels, or agency programs under consideration, and HTT News could not independently verify legislative details beyond what she described in general terms.

Why does global context matter here?

Carlisle's essay focused on the comparative insulation of US agriculture, noting that Central and South America, the Caribbean, and southern Africa face steeper exposure to this El Niño cycle. That regional disparity echoes separate reporting on how drought and conflict are compounding food insecurity elsewhere: a famine monitor cited in an HTT News report on Sudan found that drought, combined with ongoing conflict around Khartoum, is pushing the country toward famine conditions. That crisis is driven by a distinct mix of factors rather than this specific El Niño pattern, but it illustrates the kind of compounding climate and food-security pressure Carlisle's essay warns could intensify in harder-hit regions if resilience investments lag.

Carlisle closed her essay by suggesting the current El Niño could serve as impetus for broader investment in farm resilience, writing that "maybe this Super El Niño will be the nudge we need to finally invest properly in the resilience of American farms." Whether Congress responds with the policy changes she called for remains an open question heading into the growing season.