The U.S. election results — a hoax? COVID-19 — a hoax? Climate change — a hoax? Are these the same group of people?
Now that I have your attention, let’s look a little closer. The U.S. election involved recount after recount and many court and Supreme Court decisions, but all the results seemed to be the same. No hoax. If you ask the families of the 300 and some odd thousand people who died with COVID-19 or complications involving COVID-19, they will say “It’s no hoax.” If you talk to the nurses and doctors who work with COVID-19 patients day after day; they will say “It’s no hoax.”
Is climate change a hoax? A philosopher once said . . .
“You should look back before you make any big decision about the future.” A century ago, my grandfather always propped the outside storm door which swung out open before a snow storm. Often after a snowstorm there would be enough snow against the door that he couldn’t push the storm door out and the alternative was to jump out the upstairs window to get out and shovel the snow away from the door. During the last few years we didn’t get big snows like that.
When I came home from agricultural college some 50 odd years ago, we grew corn silage but there was not enough heat units to ripen a crop of grain corn. It was in the mid-70s before the first crop of soybeans was planted in Pontiac County and until the 1990s, farmers in our county were never sure to get enough heat units or dry fall days to harvest a field of soybeans. In 2020, there are more acres of soybeans in our county than grain corn. To get a grain corn crop insured in the 1980s it had to be 2,400 heat units or less.
In 2020, there are fields of 2,800 heat unit corn grown in the Pontiac.
When our ancestors built a new barn, they were concerned about having it warm enough to keep the water bowls from freezing in the winter. In 2020, farmers are very concerned about enough ventilation, open walls, and even cold water misters to spray on the animals in the summer. All vehicles driven in the winter came equipped with a block heater to plug in from November until March. The last ten vehicles that we owned were never plugged in.
Maybe it is because I grew up on a farm that I was always observant of the weather. We watched for changes in the sky and the phases of the moon because it usually got colder a few days leading up to a full moon. I quickly learned that we have no control over the weather, but accept what we get and happily work with it.
When our UPA or farmers association in Quebec, announced two documentaries, (one in French and one in English) looking at how climate change during the next 30 years, 2020 to 2050 could affect our farmers, I made sure to mark it on my calendar. The documentary was an hour long with dozens of charts and records of temperature, rainfall, length of growing seasons through the last century.
I will only mention a few items that are imprinted in my mind. As we have noticed during the last few years, there has been an increase in floods and wild fires. It is predicted that these will increase in number and intensity. Because there will continue to be an increasing number of long dry spells and more intense rains it will be very important to improve the organic matter and water holding capacity of our soils. This will allow the soil to absorb more rain without run-off and flooding and because the soil can hold more water, it will sustain the water requirements of plants longer to help they survive longer dry periods.
Since World War Two, the chemical and pharmaceutical companies have been telling the farmers that chemical fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides are necessary to improve our crops. For thousands of years there have been billions of miniature worms, bacteria, and other micro life in each handful of soil that could break down organic matter and turn minerals in the soil into plant food. The fertilizers and sprays used on our crops also kill some of this soil life. If enough residual chemicals and sprays remain in the soil this soil life will not return and good soil turns to worthless dust that cannot absorb water and will also compact into a very hard to work soil. Remember that farmers used to work the soil with horses or little tractors. Now farmers use tractors that are ten times as heavy and ten times as much horsepower.
In the 1970s, animal farmers learned that if they looked after the health and needs of bacteria and other life in the gut of the animal it was more important than supplying the feed requirements of the animal. Farmers have forgot, but told that they could forget the needs of the life in the soil that provide free fertilizer. We noticed the hole in the ozone layer heal over when we greatly reduced burning fossil fuels.
I still wonder and worry about the power of those deniers and if they think about their grandchildren.
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family for generations.
gladcrest@gmail.com
