Challenges and opportunities to tree planting on working landscapes: Insights from New York dairy farmers

Diverse actors are interested in increasing tree cover on working landscapes to address social and ecological challenges. Yet land managers' interest and capacity to engage in tree planting remains unclear. To address this gap, we conducted semi-structured interviews with dairy farmers across New York State to understand their perspectives on tree planting. Analytically, we draw on political ecology to examine how endogenous factors (e.g., farm succession, land use practices, farmer identity) and exogenous factors (e.g., sectoral consolidation, tenure precarity, policy–market infrastructures) shape the opportunity costs farmers face. Many farmers had already planted and managed trees over the past two decades and viewed expanding tree cover as a strategy for improving resource management. Rather than emphasizing climate change mitigation, they highlighted trees' roles in navigating climatic events (e.g., precipitation, wind, temperature) and enhancing financial resilience. Perceptions of future planting were shaped by regional and sectoral dynamics, including limited access to capital, labor, and land, which often led farmers to deprioritize trees in favor of more pressing investments. These challenges were compounded by technocratic policy legacies and cultural histories of agricultural development, which manifested differently depending on operational type and farmer entry into the sector. We identify key leverage points—such as succession windows, tenure security, and infrastructure for tree value chains—where costs can be rebalanced and land manager participation in tree planting can be made more feasible. This research contributes to a growing body of work suggesting that implementing natural climate solutions on working landscapes requires structural change, place-based analysis, and centering land managers’ lived experience. • Most farmers value trees but face structural constraints. • Farmers in confinement systems seek income; pasture-based focus on adaptation. • Labor, land costs, and tenure issues deter new tree plantings. • Farm constructs and succession affect tree-planting attitudes. • Tree-planting policies must align with farm economic realities and land-use needs.