Kristen Villebrun and Wendy Bush hoped they wouldn't have to pray for Chedoke Creek, but four years after they first raised alarm about the water's condition, they were part of an Indigenous full moon ceremony to do just that. About 50 people showed up near Princess Point on the dark and frigid Monday evening for the monthly ceremony, which was particularly special as it focused on Chedoke Creek. The body of water that runs into Cootes Paradise had about 24 billion litres of sewage and storm water runoff leak into it due to a gate being left open.
Water is often the most crucial factor in controlling crop yields. The amount of water used by crops can be affected by several factors including the availability of stored soil water, amount of precipitation during the growing season, crop rooting depth and various environmental aspects such as day length, amount of solar radiation, humidity, temperature and wind.
In the last few years, droughts across Europe and in the U.S. have caused crop yields to drop significantly, while population growth puts serious pressure on the global freshwater supplies that help power our agriculture industries. These conditions have forced everyone in the food business, from grower to retailer, to think about how best to use and maintain what limited resources are available—and that includes a new wave of snack companies that are turning to drought-resistant crops for ingredient inspiration.
Although drought is a natural part of the climate cycle in the Prairies, climate researchers are warning that droughts will become more common and more intense. "When we think about climate change, I think we can be expecting to experience more drought in the future," says James Famiglietti, a hydrologist with the University of Saskatchewan who has been studying global freshwater availability for over a decade. "[Drought] will become the new normal." But farmers have many tools to deal with this threat. From water reservoirs to drought-resistant crops, farmers the world over are practising various adaptation measures to remain viable.
