Farming for the future

The foul weather is still in the offing when a man at a rest stop asks if riding in high winds is difficult. I tell him it’s not so bad if the wind is constant, because you can lean the bike into it and keep going, at least up to a point. The hard part is the unexpected gusts that push you around, shoving the bike toward the shoulder or into oncoming traffic.

And this, I realize, is what farming is like in the climate change era: we will lean into the prevailing wind and, until it becomes too severe, we’ll cope. But when the sudden gusts occur, the results will be felt not just in the fields and barns, but on Webster Street and beyond.

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Ray Ford is the pasture columnist for Small Farm Canada magazine. He raises sheep and pigs on pasture on his part-time farm near Powassan, Ont.