(calm music) - [Sam] Farming has always been a part of coastal Virginia's economy, especially around the Eastern Shore.

The climate isn't too hot or cold and the soil is fertile, but now the region is experiencing the fastest average rate of sea level rise on the Atlantic coast.

Water levels around Southeast Virginia have risen nearly 20 inches over the past century.

And it's estimated they could go up about seven feet by 2100.

So what does all this mean for coastal farmers around here?

Lynn Gayle is still figuring that out.

- This is a seaside farm in an area called Fox Grove, and the barrier islands are about a mile to the east of us.

My son farms with me, and we tend about 2,500 acres.

Farming is a lifestyle.

- [Sam] Gayle has farmed out here for more than three decades.

He grows commodities, corn, soybean, and something called rapeseed, which produces an oil used for engines and plastics.

Gayle shows me around the seventy-five acre field bordering the ocean.

Lush soybean crops are everywhere except for one small patch close to the water.

- They were planted here, and you can actually see the salt residue on the soil.

Most of those that came up died.

Occasional high tides or flood tides, or if there's a nor'easter, this would be underwater right here.

- [Sam] So if I stick my finger in a salty patch... - [Lynn] Will it taste like salt?

- Yeah.

It's like pure salt.

(suspenseful music) Gayle says he's watched the seawater encroach farther and farther up this field over the past decade.

About an acre is no longer farmable.

It's even worse in another field he used to plant.

20 acres, completely failed.

This is all worrying Gayle's 32-year-old son, Sands.

He grew up playing with tractor toys.

Now he's taking over the business and says hundreds of thousands of future dollars are at stake.

- A 1/3 of the acreage that I farm could be right on the water and directly affected by sea level rise.

And as it takes more area, then, of course, I'm gonna have to figure something out.

- [Sam] Nationwide, only the Gulf Coast around Texas and Louisiana is experiencing a faster rate of rising seas.

As oceans heat up from climate change, water molecules expand, contributing to sea level rise.

Another part of the problem?

Scientists point to low elevation, combined with sinking land around the Gulf and Virginia.

The land is subsiding because we've pumped out water from underground.

The last ice age thousands of years ago is also playing a role.

Cora Baird studies sea level rise around here for the University of Virginia's Coastal Research Center.

- Essentially, when there was the last glaciation and there were ice sheets down this way, when the ice sheets are really heavy, 'cause they're are a lot of water and they essentially push the crust of the earth down.

- [Sam] This region was at the end of the glacier, and actually lifted, kind of like when you sit on a mattress, the part beneath you sinks, but the area around you bulges up.

Those glaciers melted away thousands of years ago, but the Earth's crust is still reacting.

- Now we are still doing the process of settling down as if whoever was sitting on the mattress just stood up.

- [Sam] On top of this, as glaciers continue to melt all over the world, they're sending more water into the oceans.

Add all of it up, and it's not a question of if some areas will go underwater, but when?

Up and down this narrow peninsula, Baird speaks to farmers concerned about the rising seas.

- This was land that was farmed from the 1650s until the early 2000's, when the farmers stopped renewing their leases because the land was getting wet and buggy.

- [Sam] Baird shows me what could happen when saltwater takes over farmland.

- What we're seeing is the regrowth of species, including some salt marsh species, so like the dark green shrubs that are poking up between the grass.

That's a salt-associated shrub, that's the wax myrtle.

- [Sam] Baird says the water isn't just coming in from the ocean, rivers and creeks.

It's rising from beneath the land, mixing with groundwater and making the soil wetter and saltier, an invisible killer.

It's a threat all the way down the Atlantic coast to Florida.

Does it make you sad that this has happened?

- If you feel like it's important to continue farming, and it's important to keep agriculture a part of our sort of landscape and identity, where we're in such a confined geographical area, if it keeps pushing in from the edges, there's only so many places we can shift to.

- [Sam] Now, there are ways that farmers can hold on for some time.

Salt can dehydrate plants to death or even poison them.

So researchers are testing salt-tolerant crops, like barley and quinoa.

Farmers also can dig ditches and build berms to keep water away.

How'd the farmer's market go yesterday?

- Oh, it wasn't too bad.

- [Sam] Planting wetlands and trees around fields is another option.

- So what I've started to do on my landscape is plant things that love the water.

They love wet soils, and they can actually help to soak up some of that water.

- [Sam] Thelonius Cook runs a sustainable produce farm, no fertilizer or pesticides.

Problem is, the farm is right along the main highway on the Eastern Shore.

So when it rains, a lot of water flows off the road onto Cook's fields.

- There's so much investment in this land, into this farm.

Right now, a lot of us are just treating the symptoms, but not the main problem.

And the problem is the climate change issue that's causing the sea levels to rise in the first place.

- [Sam] This has killed enough crops the past few years to translate into a $30,000 loss.

Cook, who's 42, hopes to adapt to the rising water, but he says there's a good chance farming here could become impossible.

- It makes you feel deflated, because you're building something for the next generation, and you wanna make sure that this is here for the next generation.

(calm music) (seagulls calling) (waves crashing)