"I began to get concerned that we're worried about the effects of agriculture on climate, and not enough about the effects of climate on agriculture, if it's changing," said Mussell, research lead with Agri-Food Economic Systems Inc. "The other thing with the art of farming is how we manage to keep things going under a range of circumstances and understand what these circumstances may be—adverse or otherwise—that we may encounter." CONFLICTING DATA He began with the question: Is the Earth warming? The answer was "Yes." Data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) from 1951 to 1980 indicated mean temperatures rose by 1.2 °C. In Canada, temperatures have risen by about 1.7 °C since 1948. As Mussell noted, those increases have occurred overwhelmingly in the North and during winter. It's not the daytime highs that are increasing, but low temperatures that are rising. The basic message is that crop heat units (CHUs) are increasing on the Prairies, and there are more days exceeding 25 and 30°C, the two markers that meteorologists use. It's also getting wetter—and significantly wetter—but it's mostly in the North, and there are specific parts of Canada that are much wetter—yet there are some that are drier. Nothing is consistent."The difficulties we've had—right or wrong—around public Ralph Pearce How agriculture adapts to climate An economist weighs in Dr. Al Mussell started his session at the 2025 Southwest Agriculture Conference with a confession: he's not a climatologist. Yet his prowess as an economics researcher provides a foundation to address some questions about climate change and its effects on agriculture. ONTARIO GRAIN FARMER INDUSTRY NEWS 12 acceptance of our ambitious climate-change agenda is that it's not popular in rural Ontario, but it's really unpopular in Western Canada," added Mussell. "So far, there's no evidence of increased drought. The monolithic drought in Western Canada occurred after World War I and lasted years. There is some expectation in the literature that there will be future droughts, perhaps more frequently but shorter-lived, and we haven't experienced them yet." LONG-TERM CHANGES The bulk of the changes in temperature and precipitation have occurred over longer periods of time. From 1971 to 2000, CHUs, with a May 1 start date, averaged 3400 at Ridgetown and 2800 at Elora. "A few years ago, we had Weather INnovations rerun this," said Mussell, displaying a map for 2011 to 2020. "At Ridgetown, that is 3800 heat units and Elora would be about 3200 heat units. When I came to Guelph as a student in the late 1980s, north Wellington and north of that was marginal for grain corn. But it isn't today." Some of that results from improved breeding and shorter-season hybrids, but part of it is more heat. The other factor in the CHU picture is the effects of a year's first killing frost. With the 1971 to 2000 CHU map, the totals were measured until the first killing frost. The map
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