Agriculture
From the largest farm to the smallest market garden, agriculture thoroughly depends on climate. Learn more about how crops and livestock will be affected, and how farms and farmers can rise to the challenge of climate change.
Read about
Climate Change and Agriculture
Farmers know all too well that agriculture is highly dependent on weather. Modern methods, techniques, and technologies have made today’s crop and livestock farms increasingly productive, but agricultural success still depends on getting just the right amount of rain and just the right amount of sun at just the right time of year.
From the largest farm to the smallest market garden, from planting to eating, and at every stage from choosing seed to trucking livestock, agriculture and agri-business thoroughly depend on climate. And the climate is changing.
Successful farming in the face of climate change will demand the same ingenuity and long-term thinking that are already the bread and butter of farm planning, which frequently includes either short- or long-term transitions to new technologies, techniques, and species of crops or livestock. But that fundamentally resilient and adaptive outlook now has to take into account current and coming changes in climate conditions.
Video
Roy McLaren
70 years of farming experience
Roy McLaren has a lifetime of farming experience: he’s farmed in southwest Manitoba for over 70 years and lived through the 1930s dustbowl. He has long-term knowledge regarding farming and how to thrive on the land in a respectful way. In conversation with Dr. Ian Mauro, Roy explores the interactive Climate Atlas, and reflects on what extreme heat will mean for farmers, soil and the future of water on the Prairies.
Video
Robin Tunnicliffe
Farming in a changing climate on Vancouver Island
Robin Tunnicliffe has farmed for about 25 years, growing a wide range of organic vegetables for local restaurants and farmer’s markets. When she started farming, there was a more predictable climate, but she is now experiencing more weather extremes that put her farm at risk. To combat the problem, Robin is breeding climate resilient seed that is adapted to her specific growing conditions, which gives her hope for the future.
Maps
Climate Change Maps and Agriculture
The Climate Atlas allows you to explore how climate change is likely to impact Canada’s agricultural sector.
Hotter temperatures and changes in precipitation may introduce new risks, while a longer growing season with more heat accumulation and fewer frost days may have some benefits. Of course none of these changes is projected to happen in isolation: the positive likelihood of a longer growing season co-exists with possibly damaging changes in patterns of seasonal precipitation and very high heat.
Video
Darrin Qualman
Energy, emissions and agriculture
Darrin Qualman is a writer and researcher – with extensive farming experience – and who has been doing some long-term thinking about agriculture, climate change and energy system. Given the large-scale and costly use of nitrogen fertilizer, fossil fuels and other inputs in agriculture, he has determined that it takes about 13.3 calories to make every calorie we eat. For Qualman, the solutions to climate change and the farm income crisis is to shift away from high-input, high-energy agriculture.
Video
Dr. Amber Fletcher
Gender, agriculture and climate change
Dr. Amber Fletcher grew up on a farm and has a strong appreciation for farmer knowledge and the importance of rural environments and communities. Now, as an academic at University of Regina, she studies how farmers are seeing and feeling the impacts of climate change in their fields and daily lives. She’s interested in the critical contributions that women make to farm life, especially during climate extremes such as floods and droughts.
Video
Troy Stozek and Don McIntyre
Farming Carbon
Livestock producers Troy Stozek and Don McIntyre – both from southwestern Manitoba – are on the frontlines of farming carbon. By practicing rotational grazing, they’re able to raise more cattle on less land, and in doing so they’re restoring the soil and sequestering carbon from the atmosphere at the same time. Their stories and farming practices show that animal agriculture can be an important part of the climate solution.
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Video
Organic Farming in Oil Country
On the frontier of making land sustainable for long term productivity
Take Action
Climate change touches all of our lives, one way or another. Because it affects all aspects of modern life, there are many kinds of meaningful choices we can make that will help.
Climate change solutions start close to home, with simple actions in our own homes and families, but also involve new ways of thinking, planning, and acting in workplaces, neighbourhoods, and communities across the country.
See our "Take Action" topic for ideas and examples of innovative climate action taking place all across Canada.
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The Climate Atlas of Canada is part of a national suite of climate data portals.
Stories and explanations about climate change, and local climate data that can be explored using maps and graphs.
High-resolution climate data to help decision makers build a more resilient Canada.
Advanced tools for academia, climate scenario developers, and other expert users.
This project was undertaken with the financial support of:
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