Something to Chew On - Drought

 

When we think of the climate breakdown it's usually in the context of what the media covers. The Fraser Valley floods are one example. The highways that were swept away in flood torrents, there's another. Wildfires and smoke blanketing the country, sure. Even record-setting heatwaves make great headlines.

What about drought?

It may not be sexy but oh is it punishing. The continuing drought on Canada's prairie has caused a drop in wheat and canola production - a 35 per cent drop.

This summer's drought drove down crop yields for the entire country, the federal agency says. Several major grains grown in Western Canada had the largest yearly yield decrease on record.

Canola production fell 35.4 per cent nationally, and wheat production was down 38.5 per cent, according to data released earlier this month.

Soybean production for the country as a whole was down 1.4 per cent, but in Manitoba, where the drought was the most severe, soybean yields fell 17.1 per cent. Barley and oat production also dropped significantly.

"This drought is the worst in 50 to 60 years," said Trevor Hadwen, an agroclimate specialist with Agriculture and Agri-food Canada, a federal department that provides advice to farmers to better handle extreme weather.

While drought is a normal occurrence in Western Canada, it is becoming more widespread and severe, Hadwen said. This summer's dry spell stretched from Vancouver Island to northwestern Ontario.

Will the Prairies bounce back or is drought becoming the region's "new normal"?

"The models, the science, are playing out in real time," said Ian Mauro, an associate professor with the university's geography department. "This is serious stuff."

"The science ... shows that we're going to have a hotter, drier and more fiery Prairies," he said. A worst-case scenario is the drought continuing year after year.

In 2012, Harper's magazine published an article, "Broken Heartland: the Looming Collapse of Agriculture on the Great Plains." The author focused on the rapidly failing Ogallala aquifer that underlies 8 of the states comprising America's Grain Belt. He painted a picture of a "last man standing" condition as, without abundant, free groundwater, farmers had begun giving up the land, the strongest buying out the weakest,

The most chilling part of the article dealt with the region's history of mega-drought. It seems that the region has experienced many droughts of 60 year duration.  It was a fluke that, when white settlers moved in, the region was enjoying a rare wet period that lasted until recently. Nobody, it seems, bothered to question why the prairie was grassland, why the trees were sparce and stunted, why the land had been given over to massive herds of migrating bison. No one wanted to look that gift horse in the mouth and so the bison were killed off, the lands were fenced off and tilled.

Could we be witnessing a return to an old normal? If so, the ramifications are troubling. Farmers would take the worst hit but Canada's food security will also take a hit.

It's not as sexy as watching rampaging flood waters sweep away a highway but it may be far more important in the long run.