“Climate change is bringing more severe and longer-lasting droughts to many locations around the world. Some ecosystems have shown resilience to increasing drought, but this could change as droughts become more severe,” said the study.

The research showed that losses in plant productivity — the creation of new organic matter through photosynthesis — were more than twice as high after four years of continued extreme drought when compared to losses from droughts of moderate intensity. Grassland and shrubland ecosystems especially lose their ability to recover over time under prolonged dry conditions.

“We show that — when combined — extreme, multi-year droughts have even more profound effects than a single year of extreme drought or multi-year moderate droughts,” said Colorado State University biology professor Melinda Smith, who led the study with Timothy Ohlert, a former CSU postdoctoral researcher.

“The Dust Bowl is a good example of this,” said Smith in a news release on the study. “Although it spanned nearly a decade it was only when there were consecutive extremely dry years that those effects, such as soil erosion and dust storms, occurred. Now with our changing climate, Dust Bowl-type droughts are expected to occur more frequently.”

Smith designed and led the International Drought Experiment with more than 170 researchers around the world. For the project, researchers built rainfall manipulation structures that reduced each rainfall event by a target amount over a four-year period in grassland and shrubland ecosystems across six continents.

By simulating 1-in-100-year extreme drought conditions, the team was able to study the long- and short-term effects on grasslands and shrublands, which store more than 30 per cent of global carbon and support key industries, such as livestock production. Variations in precipitation, as well as soil and vegetation across continents, meant different sites experienced different combinations of moderate and extreme drought years — providing unique experimental conditions that informed the study.

The research also suggests that the negative impacts on plant productivity are likely to be much larger than previously expected under both extreme and prolonged drought conditions.

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This weather system occurs all over the world. It starts when a large amount of water vapor from tropical oceans is carried by a jet stream toward land. As the air rises, it cools and condenses, resulting in rain or snow. They most commonly form in mid-latitude oceans, roughly 30 and 60 degrees north and south, according to NASA. They appear as a trail of wispy clouds that can stretch for hundreds of miles.

Atmospheric rivers can carry up to 15 times the volume of the Mississippi River, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Most atmospheric rivers are weak and do not cause damage. They can provide much-needed rain or snow.

Sometimes they do both. In drought-stricken California, such storms have triggered mudslides, toppled utility poles and blocked roadways, but also helped replenish depleted reservoirs and reduced the risk of wildfires by saturating the state’s parched vegetation.

In 2019, an atmospheric river nicknamed the “Pineapple Express” hit California. The water vapor from near Hawaii brought rain and triggered mudslides that forced motorists to swim for their lives and sent homes sliding downhill.

In 2021, an atmospheric river dumped a month’s worth of rain on British Columbia in two days, prompting deadly floods and landslides, devastating communities and severing access to Canada’s largest port.

According to scientists, atmospheric rivers of the kind that drenched California and flooded British Columbia in recent years will become larger—and possibly more destructive—because of climate change. There are projected to be 10 per cent fewer atmospheric rivers in the future, but they are expected to be 25 per cent wider and longer and carry more water, according to a 2018 research paper.

This could make managing water supply much harder as moderate atmospheric rivers, which can be beneficial for water supplies, will be less frequent, and strong ones could become more calamitous.

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The poll of 858 producers from coast to coast determined that farmers rank climate change as their No. 1 concern.

“When farmers and ranchers were asked an open-ended question—at the very beginning of the poll—about the top challenge for the agricultural sector for the next decade, climate change was the number one answer,” says Farmers for Climate Solutions, a group, that as its name suggests, is focused on climate change mitigation and adaptation within Canadian agriculture.

The organization hired Leger, a market research firm, to conduct the survey.

It was done by phone from Aug. 8 to Sept. 8.

The headline question from the poll asked farmers to identify the top challenge for the agriculture sector over the next 10 years.

The results?

• 17.9 percent said climate change.
• Input costs were 17.2 percent.
• Government policy and regulations, 11.5 percent.
• Market uncertainty/price volatility, 9.8 percent.
• About 5.8 percent of respondents ranked severe weather as their No. 1 challenge over the next decade.

Brent Preston, president of Farmers for Climate Solutions, said the poll result was unexpected.

“I was surprised that climate change was right at the top. I thought it would be a concern for most producers, but I didn’t think it would be the number one concern,” said Preston, a vegetable grower from Creemore, Ont.

Farmers for Climate Solution decided to pay for a poll because it wanted information on how farmers feel about climate change and related issues.

He said it’s important to have this sort of data when meeting with federal and provincial officials.

“We’re hoping it will give us ammunition when we talk to politicians and policy makers,” he said.

“We can now say, ‘look, this is an issue that’s top of mind for producers and we’re hoping governments are going to do more to help up adapt.’ ”

East-west split

The poll suggests that Canadian farmers are anxious about climate change, but the details within the 37-page report tell a more nuanced story.

Eastern farmers are concerned about the climate, while western producers are less so:

• 116 farmers out of 450 respondents (26 per cent) from the East ranked climate change as the biggest challenge over the next decade.
• In the West, 38 of 408 respondents (9.3 per cent) said climate change was the biggest challenge.
• Nearly three times more farmers in Quebec, Ontario and the Maritimes are worried about climate change.

The gap between East and West is striking, Preston acknowledged.

“There’s a very clear difference in perception or attitude,” he said, adding that farmers across Canada have some concerns about climate change.

“Everywhere in the country, climate change is in the top three.”

In its report, Farmers for Climate Solutions noted that Prairie farmers are less concerned about the issue.

“Input costs and government policies are seen as the top challenges (in the West).”

In more detail, 21 per cent of western farmers said input costs are their top challenge. About 16 per cent said government policy and regulations. Around 12 per cent cited market uncertainty and nine per cent said climate change.

The poll received responses from 858 people across Canada, including 247 farmers from Quebec. That’s nearly 29 per cent of the total for a province that has five per cent of the country’s arable land.

Comparing the total number of poll respondents, 450 out of 858 were from Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes. The remainder, 408, were from the West.

A critical piece of data that could be missing from the poll is the opinions of large-scale farmers.

Of all the producers who responded, about 50 percent said they have farm revenues of zero to $500,000. Only 7.6 per cent in the survey had revenues of $3 million or higher.

More large producers are likely needed in the survey to paint an accurate picture.

“You might be right. We may have over-represented small farmers,” Preston said, adding it was difficult for Leger to acquire lists and contact information of producers.

“The sample is definitely not perfect…. We’re not going to use these results to say that definitively, X percentage of farmers think (this or that) … but we think the sample is good enough to make some broad inferences.”

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Inside the domes, researchers are growing pears in a controlled environment that simulates how climate change will affect the region in 2040. Their aim is to see what global warming has in store for Europe’s fruit growers.

“We expect more heatwaves and less even precipitation, so more droughts and floods as well. And overall, slightly higher temperatures,” Francois Rineau, associate professor at the University of Hasselt, said of the simulated climate inside the domes.

Early results from the scientists’ first harvest in 2023 suggest Belgian pears may be spared some of the worst impacts of climate change – which scientists expect to cut some crop yields and hike growers’ costs for irrigation to combat drought.

“The effect of climate change at the 2040 horizon on the quality of pears was very minor. However, we found a difference in how the ecosystem was functioning,” Rineau said, noting that an earlier growing season in the 2040 simulation appeared to result in the ecosystem absorbing more CO2.

Year-to-year variability means that one year alone cannot capture intermittent extreme weather and other changes in the climate which can wreak havoc on crops. The three-year experiment will cover three harvests.

This year’s harvest of 2040-era pears is being studied at the Flanders Centre of Postharvest Technology (VCBT), to check the fruits’ size, firmness and sugar content – and compare them to pears grown in domes simulating today’s climate.

“If we have a higher temperature on the trees, pears tend to be less firm and have more sugar,” VCBT researcher Dorien Vanhees said.

That’s bad news for growers. Less-firm fruit survives a shorter period in storage, reducing the quantity of pears growers can sell.

Floods, hail and drought have already affected European pear growers in recent years, as climate change begins to leave fingerprints on growing patterns.

Belgium’s pear production is expected to plunge by 27 per cent this year, according to the World Apple and Pear Association, owing to factors including an unusually early bloom and unusually late frost.

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Despite her best efforts, unpredictable temperatures, humidity and air quality changes led to the deaths of thousands of chicks, a lesson that would propel her to commit her life to making African farms more climate-resilient.

“Nigeria’s unprecedented rainfalls and weather patterns are not predictable, and with heat and cold stresses our birds were dying,” the 34-year-old agricultural engineer said in a telephone interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“We understand that innovation is pivotal to combating climate-related issues around food insecurity,” she said.

Akpagbula last year launched a remote-sensing device called PenKeep that monitors and controls environmental conditions in poultry farms. She is now extending the technology into aquaculture and greenhouse farms.

Alongside container farms in South Africa cultivating soldier flies for animal feed, solar-powered fish and crop dryers in Tanzania and machine-learning pest detectors in Kenya, Africans are coming up with innovative solutions to overcome the effects of climate change on food production.

Such solutions are going to be needed as Africa, according to a new United Nations report, is the continent most impacted by hunger.

Together with conflict and economic crises, climate shocks are leaving Africa at the epicentre of a hunger crisis, with one in five – some 300 million people – short of food.

It is also the continent most vulnerable to climate shocks, while contributing the least to carbon emissions.

“Current societal inequalities, such as resource constraints, make it even more difficult to source funds to adapt to these changes,” said Mulako Kabisa, from the Global Change Institute research platform at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

“Home-grown solutions matter because they take into cognizance the local context … and what will be sustainable in the long run,” she said in emailed comments.

Sensors and solar

PenKeep’s solar-powered device interprets data from sensors that monitor environmental changes including temperature, water levels and air quality in poultry coops. Farmers are alerted of condition changes through SMS, email or an alarm.

It is being used by more than 1,200 chicken farmers in western and northern Nigeria, with more than 100,000 chickens monitored in the company’s first six months. Subscriptions of around $15 a month make it more affordable for farmers, Akpagbula said.

Users can also use an artificial intelligence (AI) management app called FS Manager that provides farmers with information including management advice, weather updates and book-keeping services.

“Nigeria has millions of poultry farmers … but they are not producing enough … because they are spending so much on energy and they have a lot of poultry mortality as a result of their environment,” said Akpagbula.

Farmers using PenKeep have seen poultry mortality rates decrease by 72 per cent, Akpagbula said.

In east Africa, Tanzanian Evodius Rutta also utilizes the continent’s abundance of sun through his MAVUNOLAB Solar Dryer that helps subsistence fish processors and farmers rapidly dry out produce including fish, fruits and vegetables, preventing post-harvest food loss.

Small-scale fish processors at Lake Victoria in western Tanzania have begun using his dryer, reducing the drying time of 250 kg of fish from 12 hours to four.

Climate variability has led to erratic rains that can spoil up to 50 per cent of fishermen’s harvests as they do not have access to cold storage, said Rutta, a sustainability researcher and MAVUNOLAB innovation hub founder.

“Because of the rains and high tides, it has also become very dangerous for fishermen that go to the sea and the lakes,” Rutta, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a telephone interview.

“We need low-cost solutions for farmers to adapt to changing climate patterns because it’s going to be unavoidable,” Rutta said, adding that he was getting requests from farmers in Zimbabwe, Uganda and Kenya to use his invention.

Pest detection

Climate change can impact environmental factors such as temperature and humidity that can in turn influence the life cycle and spread of crop pests, according to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization.

Pests are already responsible for at least 40 per cent of crop loss worldwide.

Kenyan computer scientist Esther Kimani witnessed this first-hand growing up when pests decimated up to one-third of her family’s pea, potato and maize crops in the south of Kenya.

By the time the pests were detected, the destruction was so severe that even using pesticides became pointless.

Kimani was inspired to invent the Early Crop Pest and Disease Detection Device – a solar-powered tool that uses AI and machine learning-enabled cameras to rapidly detect and alert farmers of pests and diseases.

Kimani’s invention is being used by more than 5,000 farmers across Kenya since its launch in 2020. A group-leasing model reduces the cost to each farmer to $3 per month.

The device also advises farmers about which pesticides to use when, according to predicted climatic changes.

Kimani estimates that more than 3,000 acres of land have been protected from pest infestation by her invention.

She recently won the Royal Academy of Engineering’s African Prize for Engineering Innovation, for which Akpagbula and Rutta were also short-listed.

Climate crisis

Some home-grown innovations are also focusing on protecting agricultural output while reducing carbon emissions.

South Africa’s Philafeed helps build tailor-made black soldier fly container farms. The fly larvae feed on food waste, diverting planet-heating methane emissions from landfills.

The larvae can also be used as a protein feed for livestock, reducing the need for carbon-intensive soya and fish meal.

The larvae manure, a byproduct known as frass, helps increase soil and plant tolerance against drought and flooding, and in turn can increase crop yield in times of climate uncertainty.

“Through black soldier flies we want farmers to be able to diversify their income if there is a failed season due to climate change,” said Maya Zaken, Philafeed co-founder.

Philafeed is currently piloting its new container model in Cape Town.

Despite initial funding challenges and struggles to get farmer buy-in, Akpagbula has faith that her innovation, alongside others on the continent, will soon become essential to farmers as climate shocks become more severe and more frequent.

“People always say why now? Why you doing this now?” said Akpagbula. “I tell them it’s because of the urgency of the climate crisis.”

—The Thomson Reuters Foundation is the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters. 

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That has Lupe Gonzalo worried.

“A lot of places in the field, you don’t have access to shade, to clean and fresh drinking water,” said Gonzalo, a senior staff member with the non-profit Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), who works with farmworkers across several southern states.

For years Gonzalo picked tomatoes, berries, sweet potatoes and other produce, and the heat was always an issue. But her concerns are mounting.

“It’s getting hotter and hotter as climate change continues, and it will continue to be an issue for workers,” Gonzalo, 43, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“We’ve already seen far too many people become ill and even lose their lives. So this is truly an urgent issue,” she said.

While regulations to protect agricultural workers from the heat have been held up by political wrangling, Gonzalo and her colleagues have spearheaded an alternate strategy.

They seek to sidestep the slow and increasingly politicized government machinery and instead appeal directly to consumers and large brands.

Gonzalo and others in the CIW set up the Fair Food Program to strike deals directly with large companies.

The companies pledge to pay fair wages, eliminate sexual harassment and other issues – including increasingly stringent heat protections – in return for Fair Food Program certification for their products.

The heat-related measures include providing shade, having required breaks, training for workers and supervisors, electrolyte-infused water, and the ability to seek care without fear of retaliation.

‘Sourced for good’

The program currently covers tens of thousands of workers in 10 states, through agreements with companies such as Walmart, McDonald’s, Subway and others.

The group also works with farmworkers in Chile and South Africa, and is seeking to expand to other countries.

At national grocery store Whole Foods, for instance, consumers can purchase Fair Food Program-certified sweet potatoes and cut flowers labelled as “Sourced for Good”.

Now the program’s reach is about to expand significantly, after the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) highlighted its approach for special acknowledgement under a new program aimed at addressing human rights and worker retention on farms.

Last month, the first-ever pilot awards were made under the program, which the Fair Food Program said would see it expand to 13 new states, nearly doubling the number of farms covered.

Tomato grower Jon Esformes, whose company received one of the awards, has implemented the Fair Food Program guidelines on his operations across the United States and Mexico, though the CIW is not present in the latter country.

He said he took the steps after sitting down for the first time to simply talk with CIW leaders about their concerns.

“I found very quickly a group of people that were interested in the same things I was interested in,” he said. “We want to provide a safe and fair workplace, we want to have transparency, we need our workers to feel like it is their farm.”

Protection decades overdue

The U.S. government has dragged its feet on worker heat protections for decades, said Juanita Constible, a senior advocate with the heat solutions program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

About 51 million U.S. workers are at high risk to heat, with less than a fifth of those covered by standards, the think tank has found.

The federal government is only now updating 1970s rules, last week releasing a proposal that would offer heat protections for indoor and outdoor workers, including requiring employers to provide workers with water and shaded or air-conditioned areas above certain temperatures.

Still, a final rule could take years, with recent moves by the Supreme Court potentially further threatening such efforts.

While business associations said they were still reviewing the new proposal, farming and construction lobby groups have criticized early steps in the new process, warning of burdens to businesses.

Yet, Constible said, “the research has kept piling up that heat is not only potentially deadly to workers, but also drastically affects their productivity – billions of work hours lost in the U.S. and around the world because it’s too darn hot.”

The probability of work-related accidents rises by nearly six per cent when temperatures pass 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius), according to research from the Workers Compensation Research Institute published in May.

In the absence of federal action, five states have passed their own laws with a sixth on the horizon, though these vary significantly in scope.

Cities have also taken proactive steps, including in June in Tucson, Arizona, but such efforts have run into political resistance, with new local rules in Florida and Texas halted by state officials.

Constible worries such politicization could continue, which she says underscores the importance of the Fair Food Program’s strategy of appealing to brands and consumers.

“I’m a huge fan. I think it’s been amazingly significant for those workers,” she said.

Farms that can ensure workers feel safe and have access to the tools to keep them healthy have found it easier to entice prospective workers, a UDSA spokesperson said.

That is what Esformes, the CEO of Pacific Tomato Growers, has found amid recent worker shortages.

“When the rest of North America was reeling with lack of workers, we did not have enough jobs for the people who wanted to work for us. And the reason is we’ve created a workplace-of-choice environment,” said Esformes, 61.

He said May saw the hottest temperatures ever recorded in parts of Florida, just as farms were in full harvest, but that Fair Food Program heat guidelines were in operation for the nearly 3,500 workers on the company’s 15,000 acres (6,070 hectares).

“There’s definitely a cost associated with it. Electrolyte powder is not cheap; breaks aren’t cheap,” Esformes said. “But you know what also is not cheap? People getting sick and people feeling like they’re not safe.”

—The Thomson Reuters Foundation is the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters. 

—Updated July 9. Clarifies that CIW is not present in Mexico.

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Even as the farmer watches, there are political and social expectations that we, the keepers of the land, do something to change the course of nature. It is an absurd conversation. How can anyone change the sun and stars, moon and waves, rain and snow, heat and harvests?

To prepare for this column, I went through 124 years of drought maps to see if what we experience today is reflective of what farmers experienced in the past. In the past 124 years, there have been 36 severe drought years in the United States. Perhaps the most astounding in terms of reach – for drought is often isolated to an area within a nation — was 1954 and 2021.

Canadians have endured 12 major droughts in the past 124 years that correlate closely with the American periods, especially in the years 1910-11, 1914–15, 1917–20, 1928–30, 1931–32, 1936–38, 1948–51, 1960–62, 1988–89, 2001–03, as well as 2014–15 and 2021-22.

• MORE with Brenda Schoepp: Telling the farm story

There is a definite pattern but the severity of the weather changed in 2002 when the dry areas lost their historic boundaries and covered larger territory. Looking at weather patterns begs the question: Are we in climate change or patterns of climate normal, and if in change, who is to be held responsible?

It took 80 years for the global livestock population to double (1900–1980) and it has now been declining steadily since 2015 and continues to do so in Canada. The cows aren’t responsible.

Arable area in Canada has been in decline since its peak in 1986 and new land is not found; rather the number of arable acres is supported by a reduction in summerfallow. Weather woe is not caused by farmers creating new fields. Canada has lost more than 15,000,000 acres to urban development and in Ontario alone, over 320 acres are lost to housing and industry every single day.

Urban encroachment paves valuable farming land and disrupts natural waterways, watersheds, and Earth’s diverse storage capabilities. The soil heats. Lack of natural shade and the loss of plants that filter, store and cleanse our earth and air becomes apparent. They have been replaced by stripped mountainsides, hot black roofs, concrete slabs and resource-guzzling industry that radiate and pollute.

In this vast nation, everyone is on the move. It is not the 27,000 seasonal tractors that contribute to climate concerns. It is the 26 million motor vehicles.

Tornados strike fear in the hearts of many and there is a belief that this is new, but they are as common as a garden weed and have been recorded in Canada since 1836, primarily in southern Quebec and Ontario, parts of B.C. and the Prairies.

These catastrophic events happen, but rarely. They were more common in the 1980s, and then settled into an unpredictable but less eventful pattern. Like earthquakes, which were first reported in 1663 and are a regularly occurring event, especially in the Charlevoix region of southern Quebec, Baffin Bay and the west coast, we do not cause these events. They simply are and always have been.

From record freezing at -63 C in 1947 to massive fires, Canada has a long history of both, and has forest fire data dating to 1921. On a time map it is clear that major events covered the nation throughout the last 100 years, although 2023 was the record breaker in terms of total area affected in a single fire season.

Again, looking at historical maps, one can see the shift in consumed territory in 2002 – the same time drought manifested itself more broadly on the continent. 2002 was also the year of contrasts and extremes for weather in Canada.

From the global lens, it is evident on an active timeline map that those countries burning to create open land, such as south Asia, central Africa and South America, are constantly in flame, season after season, year after year. It is important to differentiate this in our conversation.

Weather reporting is currently filled with a touch of sensationalism that drives fear. It is difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff – to know what is true within the context of history.

Our children and our society are as exhausted with the responsibility of “saving the planet” as farmers are with living with disrupting policy and being told they are to blame.

The media conversation has been carefully crafted to steer away from the effects mining, shipping, manufacturing, urbanization and all resource exploration. Instead, we see “solutions” such as carbon credits binding food production land. That soil is our future and it needs to be both enhanced by and protected for farming.

Let’s change the dialogue. There is a time and a season for everything, and now is the time to appreciate and share that man alone does not cause weather events. However, we must collectively strive to understand our earth and respect its natural ecology using its ways of knowing and healing to better our own practices. The answers surround us.

The post Schoepp: Wider conversation needed on climate cause appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

I couldn’t judge the distance between train and bridge, nor how far along the bridge I had progressed, nor how far I had to go, nor how high I was above water or, more likely, rocks. But standing still was not on. Crouch-running, with a hand on one rail and motivation multiplied, I moved over unevenly spaced ties with toes up. I escaped.

The approaching train of my youth was certain and my uncertainty was in not knowing how to dodge it. The approaching ecological and climate crisis that amplifies weather variability may seem uncertain because we do not know what specific weather will happen, when it will happen and where it will happen.

However, disruptions and disasters, including loss of human lives, will happen in many places at many times and can no longer be dodged.

Using uncertainty about the ecological and climate crisis as an excuse to wait and see is bad for business, bad for farming and bad for health. To mitigate unwelcome surprises, it is practical to act now based on what we already know and adapt as we learn more.

If you doubt climate scientists, pay attention to the Insurance Bureau of Canada and other insurers who assess increased risks of weather-related disasters. They will not insure some force majeure risks at all.

As ecological overshoot gathers steam and its impacts come closer, we can choose to use scientific evidence to ascertain how to mitigate overshoot and how to adapt to soften impacts.

Misguided ads such as “Crave More” and the apparent certainties of required economic growth with excess energy consumption and extraction could give way to “more fun, less stuff”, a system that aims for healthy human communities on a thriving planet.

Farmers might ask about the conditions of natural habitat and biodiversity, clean water availability and soil organic matter levels on fields when their great-grandparents farmed. What are they now? How can they set an example so their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will maintain or improve these conditions?

Many farms are or will be in the same family for seven generations, and in addition to making a profit, their viability depends on high soil organic matter levels, clean available water and dynamic biodiversity.

Consumers might ask what their great-grandparents ate, how they conserved, avoided waste and practised cultural values. How can today’s consumers avoid processed food with excess fat, salt and sugar? How is a simple, seasonal, tasty and nutritious diet integrated with community engagement so descendants will have sufficient food to survive with dignity?

All of us might ask how we can use less energy, reduce our material requirements, lower our debts and live respectfully with our relations. Will we educate ourselves and others with reports from organizations such as The Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation, aimed at de-risking the negative impacts of a changing climate?

Spiritual, cultural, artistic or personal values, to be meaningful, must be integrated into daily living, within realistic ecological limits. In the golden rule — do unto others as you would have them do unto you — the “others” should extend to non-humans.

Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, said “the more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe around us, the less taste we shall have for its destruction.”

As in any strategic planning exercise, our greatest contributions to reconciling with ecological and climatic uncertainty may be to decide what we will stop doing.

– Ralph C. Martin, Ph.D., is a retired professor from the University of Guelph.

The post Opinion: Why ‘wait and see’ is not a realistic approach to climate change appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“It’s not surprising that less water is going to lead to less plant growth. We’re all very familiar with that,” said Cameron Carlyle, associate professor of rangeland ecology in the Faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Alberta, and researcher with the project.

The study involved an experimentally imposed year-long drought on grasslands and shrublands in Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe, as well as North and South America.

The U of A researchers found they had underestimated the impacts of short-term extreme drought on grassland systems.

“What we’re looking at in this study is the effects of extreme drought. We’ve defined an extreme drought as a one in 100-year type of event. We really haven’t had much opportunity to study that serious of a drought event before,” said Carlyle.

Climate change forecasts predict extreme droughts will become more common.

“What we found is that extreme drought had a much larger effect than a typical drought on plant growth,” said Carlyle.

“Here in Alberta, ranchers and farmers are dependent on grassland plant growth as a source of forage, which is what we’re really looking at. There’s going to be an implication for them. A typical drought on average reduces plant production by about 20 per cent.”

In the case of extreme drought, researchers found there was almost a 40 per cent reduction in plant growth.

Alberta farmers and ranchers may have a keener interest in the effect because different parts of the province have been in drought for a couple of years.

“The presence of drought is varied across the province, but I think it would be fair to say that there are large areas that have experienced much lower than average rainfall conditions for the last three years. It looks like we are going to be heading into a fourth year,” Carlyle said.

The study involved 100 sites around the world, on every continent except for Antarctica.

“One thing that came out is that not all grasslands respond to drought in the same way,” said Carlyle.

Some sites were more resistant to drought and some were more sensitive to it.

“The sites that we had in Alberta — they fared a little bit better. They seemed to be a little more resistant to drought. The reductions we saw overall at our sites in Alberta was about a 10 per cent reduction in forage,” he said.

This study marked the first time international researchers used standardized equipment to study a big picture projection of drought. Using the same method allowed researchers to compare and have more certainty in the results.

Basic studies have been done before. In this study, researchers covered some plants with a shelter to create a drought, and then compared the results to the uncovered plants nearby.

Carlyle said droughts in general have been predicted by climate change models.

“Our climate models predict for us that we’re going to on average receive more rainfall, but at the same time, we are going to have more drought conditions,” he said.

“The reason for that is because the air temperature is warming and warmer air can hold more water. Water goes into the air, it stays there for longer periods of time before it falls as rain. Because the air is holding more water, rain won’t come as often. That’s what is going to create those extended drought periods.”

Grasslands are a vital part of the ecosystem.

“We depend on grasslands for several things. Farmers and ranchers depend on them for forage for livestock. The rest of society needs them as well. They provide a variety of ecosystems goods and services, sequestering carbon in the soil to help reduce the effects of climate change.

“ They help to clean and regulate our water. They are habitat for wildlife. In Canada, grasslands are among our most endangered ecosystems. They’re habitat to many of our endangered species. Having healthy grasslands is important for all those reasons,” said Carlyle.

Researchers are curious to see if multiple years of droughts have a cumulative effect on plants, or if plants can recover regardless of the time period.

“Another question we’re looking at addressing is what makes some sites more resilient to drought and what makes other ones more susceptible to drought. If the grasslands are being grazed and managed with livestock, we might find other ways to manage the livestock that makes the ecosystem more resistant to drought.

“Keeping carbon stored in the soil is important from helping to prevent climate change, but increasing carbon storage in soils could also help producers adapt to droughts they might have in the future. Soils that have more carbon in the organic matter in the soil have the potential to hold onto more water than those that have less,” he said.

“People are seeing the effects of drought, and the effects of climate change are becoming more of a reality. Some of our other work is looking at grazing management that can lead to more drought resistant systems.”

The post Researchers delve into drought and grasslands appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The Pembina Institute is offering the public an assessment document ahead of the moratorium’s February 29 closure. It includes seven criteria for evaluating the Alberta Utilities Commission’s (AUC) forthcoming recommendations on renewable energy development in the province:

• Companies’ ability to develop projects with willing landowners, 
• Reclamation security requirements, 
• Municipal government approval and stakeholder intervention process,
• Pristine viewscapes,
• Access to lands held by the Crown in Right of Alberta, 
• Access to the grid, and 
• Access to Alberta’s open market.

In a February 15 news release, the institute accused the provincial government of “unfairly (targeting) the renewable energy sector.”

“We look forward to seeing evidence that the renewable energy sector is being treated consistently and fairly with other Alberta land uses and is not subjected to stricter rules than other energy sectors that have a larger impact,” read the release. 

“When the renewable energy moratorium ends, the Pembina Institute will be evaluating if the Government of Alberta made reasonable changes, especially with an eye to the fairness of the outcomes in relation to the lack of accountability awarded other sectors needing substantial reform. 

“In doing so, we aim to understand if Alberta remains a highly attractive place for renewable energy investment and how the moratorium has impacted this.”

In August 2023, the provincial government announced a moratorium on approvals for wind, solar and geothermal projects greater than one megawatt.

The Pembina report, entitled Is Alberta’s Renewable Energy Industry Being Treated Fairly?: How to assess the outcome of the Alberta Utilities Commission inquiry into the ongoing economic, orderly and efficient development of electricity generation can be found on the Pembina Institute website.

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