Don’t jeopardize long-term research for a hospital site, writes Ed Gregorich.

Fast-growing global population. No additional land for agriculture. Climate change. These three pressures, linked through the process of food production, will become more daunting as we move toward 2050. That is the year, predicts the United Nations, when the world population will reach 9.7 billion.

To feed that many people, as much as 50 per cent more food will be needed. Much of that food will come from agriculture. Yet other UN data shows that the amount of land suitable for agriculture has plateaued. In the future, our children and grandchildren will live in a world with many more people to feed from the same agricultural land area we use today.

This challenge alone will be difficult, but climate change will impose additional stresses. These stresses include more variable weather, with long periods of drought happening more often. We are already experiencing recordsetting high temperatures, and these will become all too common in Canada’s agricultural zones.

What can answer the challenges of increasing food production on the same amount of land under a changing climate? The onus falls on agricultural research to find ways of making our agricultural systems more efficient.

Research on system efficiencies — better crop varieties, better farming methods — is being conducted on the Central Experimental Farm. This research focuses on developing highly productive, resilient agricultural systems able to withstand the vagaries of a changing climate.

Time is a critical variable in environmental research. Changes caused by farming practices take a long time to show up in soil health, plant growth and yields. It may take decades to reveal an ongoing negative trend, such as the depletion of a soil’s productivity. It may take even longer to reverse the trend and register a degree of recovery.

Scaled up, this means that many years are needed to assess and understand the subtle effects of agricultural management practices on the wider environment. These effects include greenhouse gas emissions and soil carbon sequestration, both important factors in the relationship between agriculture and climate. It also takes a long time to evaluate the effects of climate change on agriculture. Long-term field studies allow researchers to assess the impacts of farming practices over many years.

One of the few long-term agricultural field studies in Canada is located on the Central Experimental Farm. Long-term studies offer the best experimental setting for improving crop yields and promoting soil health. They help us understand whether an agricultural system is sustainable and resilient. “Resilience” refers to an evolving ability of an ecosystem to absorb change (even to thrive with it) and still deliver functions.

Data collected from longterm field studies such as those on the Experimental Farm become more reliable and more valuable the longer the study is conducted. These data are often used to validate the computer models used to make economic and environmental predictions related to farm production.

The Farm’s long-term plots have evolved over the years from single experiments into a broad research platform. This platform enables scientists to measure and evaluate things that were not possible (or even thought of ) when the plots were first established. For example, molecular techniques are now being used to study the soil microbiome, leading to a better understanding of organisms that cause crop diseases.

Shutting down the Farm’s long-term field studies would set the research clock back to zero. Moving to a new location is not a comparable option. It would take a lot of money and many years to create a new study site and get experiments running again. Only then would the research clock again start ticking. Onequarter of a century of accumulated knowledge would be lost, along with its analytical and predictive powers.

That’s knowledge needed by Canadian farmers to continue producing healthy, nutritious food well into our uncertain future — knowledge that will help feed a hungry world.