As forecasters warn that this year’s El Niño could become the strongest on record, concerns are growing about its effect on agriculture and food security.

The United States will not be hit nearly as hard as Central and South America, the Caribbean, and southern Africa, but severe weather could cause significant crop loss in some parts of the country.

As a researcher and writer who studies farmers’ responses to climate crisis, I have watched these heartbreaking events become all too common: flooded fields, missed planting windows, crops so drought-stressed they are not worth harvesting.

But some farms have weathered extremes such as this year’s super El Niño better than others, for one key reason. In the winter, when most other fields are bare, these farms still have something growing.

Over the past 15 years, I’ve had the privilege of visiting some of the most resilient farms in the country: the ones that soak up heavy rains when their neighbors have several inches of standing water, the ones that get 80% of their average yields in years when they have seen just 40% of their average moisture.

Their secret is that they have gradually built up the carbon-rich organic matter in their soil, which allows the land to soak up and hold moisture like a sponge.

There’s a long list of practices farmers........

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