Climate Change and Agriculture
Agriculture and climate change have a messy relationship
On the one hand, agricultural soils can be carbon sinks, playing an important role in climate action by taking carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the atmosphere.
While on the other hand, agriculture can be a significant source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, including nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from nutrient use, methane (CH4) from raising livestock, and CO2 from on-farm fuel combustion and managed soils.
The size of the arrow indicates the relative magnitude of the emission or amount sequestered. (Source: Agriculture Agri-Food Canada)
This messiness does not stop there. Agricultural producers are not one homogenous group, all adopting the same practices at the same rate, and agricultural landscapes do not all respond the same to the adoption of practices that have the potential to reduce and sequester greenhouse gas emissions.
Source
Excluding fossil fuel use, Canadian agriculture accounted for 8.1% or 59 megatonnes of the national greenhouse gas inventory in 2018 according to Canada’s official greenhouse gas inventory.
Canadian agriculture does not only emit carbon dioxide. Canada’s official greenhouse gas inventory reported that agriculture was responsible for 76% of nitrous oxide emissions and 31% of methane emissions in 2018. There are significant opportunities to reduce these emissions by enhancing efficiencies in nitrogen fertilizer use, feed-to-meat conversion ratios, and manure management. For example, by implementing anaerobic digesters on livestock farms methane emissions from manure can be turned into usable biogas, a renewable energy source.
Sink
With proper management, world renowned climate scientists from The Nature Conservancy have found that global forest, wetland, grassland and agricultural lands can provide up to one third of mitigation needed between now and 2030 to keep warming below 2°C. Worldwide, agriculture could absorb up to 6,000 megatonnes of greenhouse gases per year by 2030. However, to realize this potential significant action is needed to advance carbon policies and pricing, and wide spread adoption of best management practices by farmers.
The most widely agreed upon (and lowest cost) options to enable farmland to become a more robust carbon sink include: planting trees around fields, better nutrient management, conservation agriculture (inclusive of reduced tillage and cover cropping), improved animal grazing, and keeping perennial grasslands intact.
Climate Change
Climate change to reveal more global farmland at steep environmental cost
February 13, 2020
Building Climate Resilience in Agriculture
Climate resilience is increasingly becoming a key consideration for business risk management for farmers, and requires both adaptation and mitigation.
On-farms, building climate resilience can range from adopting practices that reduce soil loss such as maintaining tree lines between fields or avoiding excessive tilling of fields to implementing flood preventative measures such as tile drainage infrastructure and restoration of wetlands.
Along the supply chain, climate resilience can be built by ensuring strategies and protocols are in place in the incident of an extreme natural disaster that impacts food supplies. It may also include proactively ensuring supply chains are continuously improving on environment, social and economic sustainability metrics to enhance their overall resilience.
Climate Change Adaptation
Climate change adaptation comprises of strategies, actions and knowledge sharing that improves resilience to the impacts of climate change.
The purpose of undertaking agricultural adaptation is to effectively manage potential climate risks over the coming decades as climate change intensifies and environmental conditions become more abnormal compared to historically experienced. In particular, farmers must adapt to changes in water availability, both in the context of flooding and drought, while also evolving as temperatures and seasonality shift and impact the growth cycles of crops.
Feeding Nine Billion Video 6: Climate Change and Food Security
Adapting agriculture to a changing environment
- Remarks delivered by Dr. Evan Fraser to the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry regarding the potential impacts of climate change.
Climate Change Mitigation
Climate change mitigation results in the reduction, prevention or sequestration of greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change mitigating actions can range from large scale transitions to renewable energy to a farmer planting perennial grasses on marginal annual cropland.
Agriculture can make an important, low-cost contribution to climate change mitigation by increasing soil carbon sinks, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and producing renewable energy. To realize this potential, farmers need incentives and support to implement best management practices that can result in reduced greenhouse gas emissions and increase soil carbon sequestration. These practices are increasingly being referred to as natural climate solutions. Natural climate solutions are actions that protect and enhance natural carbon sinks, such as forests, croplands and wetlands, reduce greenhouse gas emissions from land use, and are co-beneficial to other environmental and societal goals. In agriculture these practices include the adoption of no-till, cover cropping, nitrogen management plans, and avoidance of grassland conversion.
In Canada, Western provinces (especially Alberta and Saskatchewan) have already made significant strides towards turning their agriculture soils from a source of carbon emissions to a carbon sink, and this shift began as early as 1990. However, this achievement is currently being reversed as farmers intensify practices and change production systems (e.g. switch from perennial to annual crops) to meet financial and market pressures.
Dr. Rattan Lal: Arrell Global Food Innovation Award (Research) 2020
The potential of agroforestry to answer climate concerns
The impact of agroforestry on climate change mitigation and adaptation in Canadian agricultural systems has not yet been fully realized.
Solutions and Opportunities
Many different actors from farmers to researchers are innovating to develop solutions to climate change through agriculture, and to identify how agriculture can be a leading sector in providing opportunities to address climate change.
In order to realize the potential of agriculture as a solutions provider to climate change, scaling widespread adoption of natural climate solutions is necessary. Scholars and practitioners alike suggest that this requires robust measuring and monitoring systems, market signals to guide investment and action, and natural climate solution education and capacity development in agricultural communities.
During the 2020 virtual Arrell Food Summit we hosted a session called, “Climate Change Mitigation in Agriculture – a Cornerstone to Green Recovery?”
The focus of session was on how the agriculture sector could be a cornerstone sector of a Green Recovery and in realizing commitments made under Paris Agreement. However, it is evident that we need to better understand the scale of agriculture as a potential source for climate solutions and how best to harness it. The panelists discussed the current understanding of agriculture as a potential solutions provider in climate change mitigation and the steps that need to be taken to scale climate change mitigation actions such as implementing natural climate solutions.
Panelists included, Api’soomaahka (Running Coyote) William Singer III, Kainai/Blood Tribe of the Blackfoot Confederacy, Prof. Keith Paustian, Colorado State University, Gabrielle Bastien, Founder & Executive Director , Regeneration Canada, Shahira Esmail, Director of Global Consulting, Radicle, and Tim Faveri, Vice President, Sustainability & Shared Value, Maple Leaf Foods
Come back to this page soon to view a recording of this session!
Research at the University of Guelph