As we head into a new year, farmers are going to start putting a pencil to plan for what to grow in 2022.  
The scribbles best be in pencil because plans need to be elastic in the sense of being adaptable and have options to change plans because the year ahead certainly appears to be one very much in flux in terms of conditions for seeding come spring.  
We are aware that much of the Canadian Prairies were dry in 2021, too dry in many areas, and that meant lower yields, and the lack of moisture even impacted quality of the crop produced with a lot of canola having lower than expected oil content which is largely due to drought issues.  
The snow that fell in many areas over the Christmas week is a good start to improving moisture come spring, although having shovelled more of that snowfall than I wanted to, it was evident it was a light snow meaning it would take a lot of snow to melt into an inch of actual water.  
While snow is perhaps more comforting in making people think moisture conditions are going to be better, it ultimately comes down to rainfall through the growing season to produce a crop, and timely rain is becoming less assured, at least by some of the research out there.  
In a recent article at  www.producer.com a story reported on an online Saskatchewan Agriculture Agronomy Update, where “Dave Sauchyn, research coordinator at the Prairie Adaptation Research Collaborative, gave a synopsis of climate models and observations to help producers understand what their farms will face.  
“He recently compiled average world temperatures in month-long increments from January 1880 to the end of last month.”  
In the article Sauchyn was quoted as stating “Ever since the mid-1970s, every single month, this is thousands of months, have had a warmer than average temperature with one tiny exception … I think that’s December 1984.”  
While some see global warming as some sort of conspiracy-generated bugaboo, Sauchyn’s data is rather startling, and for an industry such as agriculture which relies so completely on weather conditions being favourable to be successful, it has to be worrisome.  
The same article went on to suggest “a warmer climate over land increases drought severity.”  
It is one thing for temperatures to be hot, some crops even like the heat, but less moisture at best reduces yields, and at its worst is a crop killer. You can even have more moisture in certain times, such as winter, but still face crop issues if rain is not timely when it’s hottest in the summer.  
So short term – like planning for 2022 cropping – moisture is an immediate concern, but longer term it might well mean fundamental changes to farming on the Prairies – begging the question will the industry be ready for those changes?  •
— By Calvin Daniels