There is an urgent need to change the way we farm.
Climate change from greenhouse gas emissions is the defining challenge of our time, demanding immediate action and global cooperation to secure a sustainable future for all. Canadian agriculture accounts for approximately 12% of Canada’s total greenhouse gas emissions. But even though agriculture is uniquely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, unlike other sectors, these emissions are going up.
It is clear that something must change.
Weathering the storms: Agriculture in a changing climate.
At global and local levels, we face multiple food system challenges posed by climate change: extreme weather events, soil degradation, and biodiversity collapse, among others. And, as demonstrated by the COVID-19 pandemic, our globalized food system is not impervious to disruptions to our supply chains. All of these challenges pose a threat to our ability to secure fresh, healthy food to feed our communities.
Farmers are disproportionately affected by the changing climate, but are also in a unique position to change some habits in small ways that can make a collectively significant impact. Simple acts such as using more cover crops, shifting away from synthetic fetilizers and pesticides, using no till practices, and maintaining or planting hedgerows, woodlots and naturalized marginal areas are significant ways to improve farmers’ ability to be leaders in climate action.
Sowing the seeds of change.
The NFU-O has been advocating and providing education on sustainable agricultural solutions for generations.
We work to advance the principles of agroecology: a holistic approach to food production that uses—and creates—social, cultural, economic and environmental knowledge to promote food sovereignty, social justice, economic sustainability, and healthy agricultural ecosystems. It is a way of farming, and a way of thinking about farming. It takes seriously the idea that a farm is an ecosystem, made up of plants and soil organisms, powered by the sun, subject to disturbances, and resilient, or not. Agroecology encourages us to take a whole-system approach, to look to biology rather than industry, to diversify and to see nature as an exemplar, not a nuisance.
At the National level, the NFU’s policy team works to educate the public and guide our governments towards sustainable (agroecological) solutions for our agricultural and food systems. Our most recent Nitrogen Fertilizer: Critical Nutrient, Key Farm Input, and Major Environmental Problem report (2022) builds on decades of policy work by the NFU on climate change and emissions, including the influential 2019 report, Tackling the Farm Crisis and the Climate Crisis: A Transformative Strategy for Canadian Farms and Food Systems.
The NFU Climate Committee develops analysis of public policy matters pertaining to the climate crisis. The Climate Committee advocates for real climate solutions in agriculture with federal and provincial governments and with the broader public. Members of the Climate Committee and others at the NFU are active leaders within the Farmers for Climate Solutions coalition of which the NFU was a founding member.
At the Ontario level, our accredited farm organization has been active on climate change for years. Our 2019 Climate Action Project brought together 300 people across Ontario for “Kitchen Table Meetings” (KTMs) on climate change and agriculture. The KTMs empowered farmers to take deliberate, immediate actions to benefit the environment by providing information about climate change and available financing programs, as well as encouraging community-level analysis, networking, and problem solving.
Young farmers are disproportionately affected by climate change. It gives me anxiety to be starting a career with such a scary future. But I also saw farming as the only career path in which I could do something about it.
– Ayla Fenton, a Kingston-area farmer
Want to learn more about climate change & mitigation?
Frequently Asked Questions
Climate change is causing more extreme weather events, changing growing seasons, and impacting yields. Droughts, flooding, heat waves, and early frost negatively impact crops.
The NFU-O is the accredited farm organization for you.
The NFU-O is the accredited farm organization for you.