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Greetings from C-CIARN Agriculture We have had a very positive response to our upcoming roundtable, How Producers Meet Challenges from Climate Change, taking place February 25th as part of Grain World (Fairmont Hotel, Winnipeg). Be sure to check out the programme and consider if you can make last minute plans to attend. The theme of our meeting is raised time and again during the Senate Standing Committee on Agriculture and Forestry. Several members of the C-CIARN Agriculture network are appearing before the Committee. We would appreciate copies of your presentations. We also can provide access to transcripts —just contact C-CIARN Agriculture with your requests. For those close to the University of Guelph, be sure to look at the seminar series we are sponsoring with Plant Agriculture. Henry Hengeveld will start us off on March 5th. His recent article in Better Farming,--Our changing climate normals - harbingers of more to come-- might be interest to some of you. More research findings related to climate change impacts are being released. Research reported in Science has separated effects from technological developments and effects from climate change on crop yields, concluding that the importance of the climate change has been underestimated. “Dr. Christopher Field, director of the Department of Global Ecology, noted: "What makes this study unique is that they looked at several regions that have experienced the same changes in technology, but different changes in climate. This allowed them to separate the contributions of climate and technology to yield trends, which has been hard to do in the past.” When the investigators factored in climate changes over the study period, they found that the gains in crop yield from improved management practices were about 20% lower than previously believed. "Most future projections of food supply are based on recent trends in crop yield growth, ignoring the effects of climate," remarked Lobell.” These findings are paralleled with work completed by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Climatic Data Center. In their analysis related to climate change and rural poverty, scientists concluded: “...that climate explains most of the variation in agricultural production... The evidence from the United States and Brazil reveals that climate influences income, and plays a role in determining rural poverty... This is evident even in the United States, which has plenty of access to capital and modern technology.” With respect to research tools, an updated, online version of the Global Warming: Early Warning Signs map illustrating global climate change indicators or "hot spots" such as sea-level rise, melting glaciers, heat waves, floods, and shifting plant and animal ranges, is now available. Once again we look forward to seeing many of you in Winnipeg on Feb 25th. All for now, Ellen Wall Co-ordinator, C-CIARN Agriculture (Canadian Climate Impacts and Adaptation Research Network for Agriculture) Blackwood Hall (Room 202) University of Guelph Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1 Phone: 519 824 4120 ext 58480 Fax: 519 763 4686 www.c-ciarn.uoguelph.ca |
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