Farmers’ role in climate mitigation

This winter has brought extreme polar vortexes seeing wind chills of -50°C, contrasted with days up to +10°C. We’ve had rain, snow, freezing drizzle, and just about everything in between. A number of the farmers we hear from have been worried about what this summer will bring. We’ve already had several summers of drought interspersed with summers of extreme rains. Farmers are the first to feel the effect of climate change as we are intimately connected with the weather and little else can wreak such havoc on the best laid plans.

Researchers are working on strategies like devices that can pull carbon from the atmosphere or seeding the atmosphere with sulfur to reduce some of the impact, but a number of these ideas are still theoretical or in testing phases. Climate change, or climate chaos, is already happening as evidenced by the extreme weather events we’re seeing, and we need to act now. Farmers are uniquely suited to be able to take steps to mitigate climate change. While agriculture is currently ranked sixth in the list of greenhouse gas emitters in Canada, by practicing carbon farming, agriculture can go from emitters to absorbers.

The NFU-O will be hosting free workshops across Ontario this spring to help you figure out what steps you can take to implement carbon farming in your practices. Some of these ideas will be easy, and some will take longer term planning. Our goal throughout this project will to provide support to farmers who choose to implement strategies as well as to promote participants through social media and other avenues.