The federal government will have to change and strengthen its farm support programs to help farmers cope with increased weather risks that will come with climate change, a Senate committee warned last week.
After months of public hearings on the impact of climate change, the Senate agriculture committee warned in a report tabled Nov. 6 that climate change means less predictable weather, more frequent crop failures and increasing competition for available water.
It called for “a realistic safety net for the long term be designed to incorporate risks associated with climate change in order to allow the farming community to take advantage of possible opportunities that will arise from climate change.”
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Jack Wiebe, Liberal vice-chair of the Senate agriculture committee, said it must mean significant changes for crop insurance programs and a recognition by the government that it cannot rely on the new agricultural policy framework for all the needs of agriculture.
“There are a lot of good points to the APF but it is clear that in a climate change scenario, it would not do the trick,” he said. “Crop insurance would have to be changed so it is more comprehensive, based on farm costs and affordable.”
He said a flaw in the APF is that support levels are based on five-year averages.
“In an era of years of drought, a rolling average becomes pretty low pretty fast.”
The “opportunities” identified by the committee include longer growing seasons and possibly more moisture in parts of Canada. It could lead to more production in some parts of the West, although more weeds also could be a problem.
However, the southern Prairies could see less moisture, more droughts and more soil erosion.
“The availability of water for agricultural production will become a major issue and may limit the positive effects of higher temperatures,” said the 77-page report. “Yet how changes in precipitation patterns will exactly play out is currently unknown.”
