If global warming is coming,
Canada has the advantage

David Suzuki and his adoring environmentalists aren’t doing Canadian agriculture any good by promoting an end to global warming. One of the world’s biggest winners, if you believe that global warming is on the way, will be Ontario agriculture. In an article in the April Atlantic magazine, called "Who wins — and who loses" Gregg Easterbrook says that any country in the high latitudes, especially Canada, Greenland, Scandinavia and Russia will benefit from global warming. There is no doubt eastern Ontario over the past two decades has become warmer. Back in the 1970s, crop heat units averaged about 2550 at Kemptville College but in the last three or four years farmers in the region have been looking at 2800 heat units. The season has lengthened, too. Twenty-five years ago the killing frost date was set at September 21st. The past few years it’s been a week later. Better crop varieties have contributed to higher yields, but the lengthening season is enabling farmers to increase yields. Ten years ago a farmer who averaged 110 bushels of corn per acre felt pretty good about the achievement. But last fall Ontario farmers averaged 139 bushels. These are only short term statistics and there’s no guarantee the number of heat units will continue to rise or even hold up. Only a few years ago corn was considered a risky crop in Renfrew County and dependent on early maturing varieties. Greenland farmers are already cheering the melting of the glaciers. The phenomenon has given them two more weeks of growing season. A few degrees more on the earth’s surface would parch most of Africa, Mexico, Brazil and the south western U.S. But with our water resources, we’d become the new Garden of Eden. What is new in the climate debate is that the once skeptical National Academy of Sciences is saying the signs of climate change are now significant. Nonetheless, take the climate change predictions with a grain of salt. Man is woefully inadequate when it comes to predicting. People have been predicting the end of the world for centuries. England’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in pre-war times misread Hitler’s intentions. A whole lot of people screwed up on Y2K and dozens of farmers protested the use of high moisture corn in dairy cattle in the 1970s because they believed it would burn out the cows. The fact is that temperature can go either way. From the Medieval warm period to the little ice age at the time of discovering the New World, global temperature changed. Despite alarm over global warming, global temperature has increased less than 1 degree from the coldest day of the little ice age. But one thing is certain: Our governments are doing nothing to prepare for Canadian agriculture’s apparent advantage. But what can the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture do? It has been reduced to a regulatory agency. Federal and provincial governments have forgotten their agricultural roots and are blinded to the future, even without the eventuality of climate change. Easterbrook has a blunt warning. He says "Lest we forget, all modern societies, including the United States, are grounded in agriculture." That’s something to ponder, Suzuki.