Near the Chesapeake Bay, farms have flourished for hundreds of years on the rich fertile

soil of Coastal Maryland.

But as sea levels rise, driven in part by climate change, encroaching salt water is quickly

disrupting the lives and livelihoods of many farmers.

A preview of what other farming areas near salt water may soon be confronting.

William Bringham reports for our ongoing series on climate change and water tipping point.

When I bought this farm, this field was perfect.

Now the tide comes in and out of here all the time.

Kevin Anderson's farm near Princess Anne Maryland is now plagued by saltwater.

In this area that we're standing here now in the last 90 days I would tell you

it's had water on it at least half the time. This cornfield is nestled near a creek connected to the Chesapeake Bay, and a decade ago, he says that salt water mostly stayed in the creek.

But now, it's increasingly coming on shore, making some of his land completely un-farmable.

There's an acre of corn right here that costs $650 an acre to grow that I won't make a dime off of because nothing productive

would come from that.

About 30 miles away a group of researchers who study sea level rise and salt water intrusion, as this phenomenon

is known, are trying to help farmers find solutions for what could be a potentially

existential threat from all that salt water.

And I think many of us are thinking about carbon storage.

The University of Maryland's Kate Tully is one of the conference organizers.

She studies the connections between agriculture and

ecology. When we have this concept of climate change, we kind of think of it as

something that's gonna happen and what we were saying is it's it is happening.

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