Drought in the valley

Back in the 1970s and 1980s, when I was reporting on all things agriculture around the Annapolis Valley, I heard farmers bragging that, unlike in the Okanagan, we didn’t have to irrigate our crops. Well, that was then. 

Now, climate change is imposing a very different scene. In the summer of 2025, the rain just would not fall. Some parts of Nova Scotia received more rainfall than others. The Annapolis Valley, especially across its northern side, got very little. On our farm we measured one 10 mm rainfall, and one of 4 mm, during July and August. 

Signs of drought

My son, on his small farm with a handful of employees, usually offers almost every kind of vegetable for sale. This year, he hasn’t had a head of lettuce to sell, and leafy greens that came up withered and died. His third staggered carrot seeding never germinated, nor did several other crops. He was able to keep some of the more valuable crops, like eggplant, alive by watering and working from before dawn until after dark.

A drive around the area shows corn crops that are more brown than green. Soybean fields offer a dismal aspect, too. One neighbour is planning to mix his soybean crop into the corn silage, with the hope of adding a bit of protein to the silage that will feed his dairy cattle. Even then, he will likely have to spend more than usual on grain from Western Canada. Another neighbour is hauling 600 gallons of water up the North Mountain every day for his small herd of cattle. I’ve even seen fields of cattle with huge bales of hay. These farmers are tapping into their winter supply already, feeding it on top of dead grass that should have offered late summer grazing.

In the past decade or two, tree fruit growers have moved away from planting larger apple trees to instead grow orchards of high-density ultra-dwarf trees. These have insufficient roots to carry their own weight, so they are wired to trellises. At my house, our big old-fashioned trees are cropping well despite the drought, because their massive roots can reach down into the moisture below. Meanwhile, the high-density apple trees, especially on lighter, sandy soils, are dying off. All these crop failures, and especially the loss of trees, which represent a huge financial investment, herald a disaster for many growers. It’s not just the trees that are lost, but their future crops for a number of years.

In mid-August, a wildfire grew over 3000 hectares only an hour’s drive from where we live. On the 17th, we drove to church in a blue fog of smoke as the wind blew in our direction from the fire. Helicopters and fixed-wing planes flew in, some from other countries, to help suppress the out-of-control fire. It’s hard not to feel seriously threatened when we’ve never seen this before. What is this situation telling us to expect in future? What will life have to offer my little great-granddaughters when they grow up?

My 90-year-old neighbour tells me his father-in-law once told him about an unprecedented drought in the early 1900s. The current one seems to be just as bad.

Climate change might also be responsible for making the weather harder to predict for meteorologists and farmers. It used to be that while working outside we’d see dark clouds setting in overhead, along with that particular smell in the air that says rain is coming soon. The clouds did it this year, too, and the smell and the feeling were there, but the rain would not fall. We kept praying that the “chance of showers” on our weather forecasts would result in rain gauges measuring water, but we were disappointed over and over again.

Questions for the future

With environmental scientists telling us that this is the new normal, how will future farmers grow their crops? Can drought-tolerant varieties be bred fast enough to keep up with the rapidly changing conditions? Can the aquifers underlying farm land supply enough water to irrigate so many crops? 

What does a drought mean for Canada’s food supply? It’s not just us; a number of American states are running out of water, with President Trump threatening to annex us in order to seize – among other things – our water. Will droughts cause war? As someone born during World War II, I don’t relish the thought of the subjugation that this last question poses.

What can we do to ameliorate this existential threat of insufficient water? Trump’s solution is to deny there’s an issue, and to double down on fossil fuels and mining. Is there a fatalism at work that assumes we may as well eat, drink and be merry while the planet still exists? 

The Christian role

It seems to me that the Christian church is not using its prophetic voice as well as it could. Rather than focusing on endless gender wars or minuscule doctrinal differences, shouldn’t the church be calling for better stewardship of our fragile planet? From the pulpit, I hear vague admonitions in the direction of the environment, but no concrete solutions. 

Maybe Christians are not numerous enough to actually affect the overall picture, but we still need to examine our own wasteful habits and call our leaders to action. We need to get specific, to stop assuming that we have a moral right to an international vacation every year, to stop feeling entitled to cruise travel because we want to see Prince William Sound or the Norse fjords. In a recent Dutch magazine, it was refreshing to see a cruise line admit that cruises are eight times as polluting as living at home, even though they fudged it by saying that greener fuels and methods were now being developed. 

Getting specific

We all know that it’s a bad idea to buy water in plastic bottles, when only a small fraction of plastic is ever recycled. Additionally, there’s excessive wrapping on practically everything we buy. Hardware stores used to carry nails and screws in bulk, scooped out by the pound and sold in paper bags; now, we buy a dozen screws in a rigid bit of plastic. And what about our groceries – how many metal cans do we buy to prepare our meals? While it’s more work to buy dried lentils in bulk and prep them, it saves landfill space. As for plastic freezer bags, the most environmentally responsible way to buy milk is in plastic bags. One four-liter bag holds three smaller bags, all of them made of heavy plastic that’s easy to reuse. Some of us older women do this routinely. In fact, those who remember war, or the impoverished postwar years, could be giving lectures on how to use our resources better.

These solutions are getting very specific, very direct. It’s too close to home, too much work for people with jobs and other responsibilities. We are so used to convenience foods that we can no longer be bothered to consider our impact on planet Earth. We’re all guilty of it; I love going for a Sunday drive with one of my sons.

This small, suffering world of ours needs a break from us. It’s well past time for us to change our mindset, our habits and the things we’ve taken for granted since the industrial age began. Christians, and the Christian church at large, should be leading the way in calling for environmental change.