Northern Agriculture Futures: Community-led Initiatives for Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Through Agriculture in Canada's North
Abstract
Recent and rapid warming in northwestern Canada is associated with many hazards to ecosystems and communities, including increased wildfire severity, abrupt vegetation change, and thawing permafrost. As food systems across Canada's north depend on the health of the land and waters and the availability of traditional foods, impacts to the land in response to changing climatic conditions are having negative effects on community health and well-being. However, in some cases climate change also is anticipated to create new opportunities as warming temperatures and soils as well as faster nutrient cycling may support more productive growing environments for local plant species and create suitable conditions for small scale agriculture. Local food production can provide fresh, healthy food to communities, but also avoids the high cost of purchasing food from the store and the environmental impacts of transportation to remote communities. Local production of food will not replace traditional foods, but can support the overall food system, and health of communities. Yet in the Northwest Territories (NWT), the potential for local food production depends on many factors, such as long-term capacity to grow food, the support for community initiatives and policies, and environmental factors including soil fertility. At present, no framework exists for making consistent predictions about the potential for food production under various climate change scenarios. If local food production is to increase in the future, it is important to identify the areas that will become more suitable for agriculture, build capacity to grow food, and develop policies and practices that help protect the land, soils and atmosphere. Led by local communities, an interdisciplinary team of researchers and local organizations is investigating soil characteristics and permafrost vulnerability across the southern regions of the NWT to identify areas of opportunity for present and future agricultural development, working with community partners to build the capacity to grow food and develop agricultural best management practices specific for their soil types through pilot-scale food growing projects and identifying progressive agriculture policies and best practices that work to mitigate future climate impacts in the NWT.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFM.B41B..06B
- Keywords:
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- 0402 Agricultural systems;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES;
- 0439 Ecosystems;
- structure and dynamics;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES;
- 1631 Land/atmosphere interactions;
- GLOBAL CHANGE;
- 6620 Science policy;
- PUBLIC ISSUES