When Harvey Hill considers some of the predictions being made about how climate change could affect prairie agriculture, it’s enough to keep him up at night.
There are warnings about the end of farming in the Palliser triangle, prolonged droughts, water shortages that will bring an end to irrigation farming, damagingly heavy rain and such weather unpredictability that farming will become an uncertain business.
“There certainly are lots of scenarios,” said Hill, manager of the climate change impacts and adaptation division of the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration.
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“One of the problems is that there is still a lot of uncertainty about how the global models apply on the regional or local level.”
He said the PFRA and other government agencies in various jurisdictions are in the early stages of planning for adaptation strategies.
Potential water evaporation trends are being studied, and a report on potential implications for irrigation farming has been prepared.
A land suitability rating system to assess the ability of land to be productive at varying levels of moisture availability is also being developed.
As well, researchers are working not just on new drought and heat-tolerant seed varieties but also on improving the quality of oil products available from plants such as mustard that require less water.
“Work is going on on many fronts,” Hill said. “But we are at early days of this issue and it could still move in different ways. There is strong scientific consensus, but it is not unanimous. One of the challenges we have is to understand the range of forecasts and not to commit all our strategies to one assumed outcome in case we get outflanked by other outcomes. There are still uncertainties about how it will play out on the ground.”
Hill’s climate change planning position at PFRA was created in 2004, which he said reflects the growing priority governments are giving to the issue.
He said the planning is complicated by the fact that land and water are provincial jurisdictions, making intergovernmental arrangements necessary.
While many commitments to research and planning projects are being made now, “we really will have a much better idea 15 or 20 years from now what really is happening and what really is needed.”
Hill said a key ingredient of the government climate change adaptation strategy will be to make certain farmers are as informed as possible about potential changes in weather patterns, growing conditions and options. After all, they will be making the basic decisions about what crops and varieties to plant and how to farm.
“Education and communication with producers will be key,” he said.
Already, farmers and their organizations are involved in discussions about the impact of carbon sequestration as part of their contribution to fighting global warming, although a compensation plan has yet to be worked out.
The next phase will involve water, temperature and climate volatility issues.
