Climate change could threaten our ability to eat local

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VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – We’re all told to try and eat local but growing fruits and vegetables here could soon be far more challenging if government doesn’t step in with more help for farmers in the way of funding and research.

Those are the findings in a new report on climate change and how it could affect the food you buy.

The report finds rising seas, fewer water sources, and changing weather patterns threaten Lower Mainland farmers by increasing the flood risk and by eating up useable land. Add to that tighter regulations, less funding, and fewer people becoming farmers – you get a strain on the future food supply.

Co-author Erica Crawford is with the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, a group of university researchers.

“This is a priority, I mean this is our food,” she explains. “When you look at where our food comes from now, places like California that are big suppliers, they’re already facing issues around drought and water supply.”

“What we’re stressing in our report is what policy makers and decision makers can do in BC to improve the resilience of the agriculture sector, and really there’s a broad range,” she adds.
They include continuing to protect and add to land in the Agricultural Land Reserve, reserving water for farmers, and enhancing climate change research.

The BC Agriculture Council says the report highlights concerns farmers have been raising.

“As farmers we are in the business of adapting, but conditions are changing more rapidly now, at a time when both the federal and provincial government have scaled back their roles in agricultural research, extension and funding,” a statement reads. “We need to take steps to strengthen our sector in view of climate change, with better communication linkages between the policy makers and farmers.”

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