Expansion of Agriculture in Northern Cold-Climate Regions: A Cross-Sectoral Perspective on Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract

Agriculture in the boreal and Arctic regions is perceived as marginal, low intensity and inadequate to satisfy the needs of local communities, but another perspective is that northern agriculture has untapped potential to increase the local supply of food and even contribute to the global food system. Policies across northern jurisdictions target the expansion and intensification of agriculture, contextualized for the diverse social settings and market foci in the north. However, the rapid pace of climate change means that traditional methods of adapting cropping systems and developing infrastructure and regulations for this region cannot keep up with climate change impacts. Moreover, the anticipated conversion of northern cold-climate natural lands to agriculture risks a loss of up to 76% of the carbon stored in vegetation and soils, leading to further environmental impacts. The sustainable development of northern agriculture requires local solutions supported by locally relevant policies. There is an obvious need for the rapid development of a transdisciplinary, cross-jurisdictional, long-term knowledge development, and dissemination program to best serve food needs and an agricultural economy in the boreal and Arctic regions while minimizing the risks to global climate, northern ecosystems and communities.

Use, calibration and verification of agroecological models for boreal environments: A review

“…Boreal regions will experience increasing environmental and agricultural pressure in the coming decades due to agricultural land use expansion and intensification (Unc et al, 2021). This pressure will mean that ecological and socioeconomic implications of farming become ever more important; models used in boreal conditions need to be able to deal with the contrasting soil and extreme seasonal climate conditions including snowfall (Jégo et al, 2014), the subzero temperatures as low as −35°C to −45°C, as well as site-specific livestock management in boreal ecosystems (Figure 1) if they are to be fit-for-purpose.…”

Northern Food Systems in Transition: The Role of the Emerging Agri-Food Industry in the Northwest Territories (Canada) Food System

“…Historically, a local or regional agri-food industry has been a minor economic sector in most northern regions, playing a relatively limited role in most northern food systems (Gerlach and Loring, 2013) and the regional economy (Unc et al, 2021). More recently, the convergence of various factors is making the promise of northern agriculture on a commercial scale a reality.…”

“…As local production scales up, the opportunities for a local value-chain (processing and distribution) also increase. However, both the benefits and the tradeoffs of northern agri-food expansion need to be further evaluated and explored at a community scale to ensure that new or expanded local agri-food industries contribute to and support a resilient and sustainable food system (Tendall et al, 2015;Unc et al, 2021).…”

“…The benefits of developing and expanding new agricultural landscapes in the North must be considered against the potential undesirable consequences (King et al, 2018;Hannah et al, 2020). One of the major trade-offs from expanding or establishing agricultural regions in the North is the potential release of soil carbon from clearing and cultivating previously undisturbed lands as this has implications for achieving climate change targets (Guo and Gifford, 2002;Hannah et al, 2020;Unc et al, 2021). Furthermore, northern ecosystems provide a myriad of unique and essential ecosystem services that sustain the northern ecosystem and are critical to Indigenous culture and traditions and could be negatively impacted by land conversion to agricultural production (Powlson et al, 2011;Hannah et al, 2020;Bélisle et al, 2021).…”

Climate opportunism and values of change on the Arctic agricultural frontier

“…Across the world's Arctic regions, agriculture is presently small scale, low intensity, and directed toward the needs of local communities, making the notion of an Arctic “breadbasket” capable of meeting statewide food demand, let alone provisioning the global food system, seem far‐fetched. Nonetheless, recent studies are investigating shifts across a range of factors, such as precipitation, temperature, soil quality, and pests and plant disease burden, that could significantly move the northern margin of agricultural production within this century (Unc et al 2021). New methods of modeling environmental changes in response to accumulating carbon emissions identify polar regions among “climate‐driven agricultural frontiers” worldwide.…”