Climate change poses a challenge to farming systems worldwide. However, existing research suggests that farmers and those providing outreach may have different climate change perspectives, and there is little understanding of how farmers prioritize climate change compared with other aspects of their farming system. To compare how farmers and outreach professionals in northern New England consider climate change within the context of whole-farming systems, we conducted mental modeling interviews with 33 farmers and 16 outreach professionals. Despite being primed to consider climate during the interviews, only 24% of farmers and 25% of outreach professionals included climate in their mental models. Key differences arose in both group’s perceptions of weather: outreach professionals focused on connections between good weather and biophysical factors, while farmers drew additional connections to factors like quality of life and overall farm success. Social factors including community well-being, public education, and farm success were significantly more likely to be included (P < 0.05), and in some cases were more influential, in farmer models compared to outreach professional models. We conclude that farmer participants did not perceive climate to be a central factor of their farming systems, and valued human and social dimensions more highly than outreach professionals perceived. These factors may warrant special consideration in efforts to make outreach meaningful to local contexts, along with framing climate change within its broader relationship to other farming system aspects. Interdisciplinary teams may be helpful in developing outreach approaches that fully contextualize climate change within farmers’ complex whole-farm management perspectives.

气候变化对全世界的农业系统构成挑战。然而，现有研究表明，农民和提供外展服务的人可能对气候变化有不同的看法，而且与农业系统的其他方面相比，农民如何优先考虑气候变化的问题鲜有了解。为了比较新英格兰北部的农民和外展专业人士如何在全农系统的背景下考虑气候变化，我们对 33 位农民和 16 位外展专业人士进行了心理模型访谈。尽管在采访中已经准备好考虑气候，但只有 24% 的农民和 25% 的外展专业人员将气候在他们的心智模型中。两个群体对天气的看法存在主要差异：外展专业人员专注于良好天气和生物物理因素之间的联系，而农民则将其他因素与生活质量和整体农场成功等因素联系起来。包括社区福祉、公共教育和农场成功在内的社会因素明显更有可能被包括在内（P < 0.05)，在某些情况下，农民模型比外展专业模型更有影响力。我们得出的结论是，农民参与者并不认为气候是他们农业系统的核心因素，并且比外展专业人士认为的更重视人类和社会层面。这些因素可能需要在努力使外展对当地情况有意义时特别考虑，同时在气候变化与其他农业系统方面的更广泛关系中构建气候变化。跨学科团队可能有助于开发外展方法，在农民复杂的全农场管理视角内充分考虑气候变化。