"A Very Abnormal Event"

Dry Canola field  Photo: Dave Baxter/Postmedia

"All this should be bright yellow [field of canola plants missing their flowers]."

"There's a lot of crop that's going backwards right now. In many cases, it's beyond the point of no return. There'll be acres in Western Canada that will have zero crop come off, zero yield."

"That's billions of dollars of revenue. If we don't have water, and if we don't have feed, there's not much choice, right? [sun-and-heat-burnt pastorage for livestock]." 

"It's getting a little bit worse all the time."

Todd Lewis, head, Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan

"It's too hot for almost all of our crops."

"We need to get really serious about climate change because these kinds of temperatures, they're not viable."

Lenore Newman, director Food and Agriculture Institute, University of the Fraser Valley, Abbotsford, British Columbia

"In simple terms, it cooks them [extreme temperatures hitting Pacific oysters and clams]."

"[Oysters popped open in unrelenting heat so] opportunistic shrimp] moved in to clean them out leaving nothing but shells]."

"We're just t,rying to quantify the scale of the losses ... Oysters and clams together; it would be hundreds of thousands of dollars of losses." 

"You're effectively out of business for three years. It's really quite a hit for these people."

Jim Russell, executive director British Columbia Shellfish Growers' Association

 

"In the U.S. despite resilient production so far this year, a slow rise in natural gas rig counts due to a lack of appetite from natural gas producers to drill should limit U.S. production growth in the months ahead, thereby keeping the market tighter for longer."

Ed Morse, Citi Group global head of commodities research

After a heat dome and another separate week of unseasonably warm weather, some crops are stunted and drying in the fields like this barley field south of Edmonton, on July 15. Photo by Shaughn Butts/Postmedia

In British Columbia, temperatures soared to over 40 degrees Celsius: "It went so high that it actually impacted gas supply", Darren Gee president nd CEO of Peyto Exploration and Development Corp. said of the record-setting temperature that led to record-setting demand for electricity and abnormally steep natural gas prices, where a "heat-off" was experienced as a result of those sky-high temperatures impacting natural gas plants in Alberta as North America's West baked in stifling heat.

 

That and the critical issue of food supply wobbling under the influence of unprecedented heat. A heat so intense and so dry that it was followed by a myriad of wildfires. Weeks of devastating heat and drought hit Western Canada, and in Saskatchewan fields of canola have been effectively destroyed. The natural cycle of the crop awaiting bloom at this time of year simply hasn't advanced, the blooms withered in the heat and died. No flowers, no pods, no pods, no canola seeds and no oil, a world-wide export basic.

Record -breaking heat along with drought and wildfires struck across the Canadian Prairies and British Columbia, wreaking havoc on Canadian food production, farmers reporting stunted crops, cherries responding to the heat by cooking while dangling from trees, and mortality rates of 80 percent at commercial shellfish operations. Livestock have nothing to graze, on burnt pastures, leaving owners considering sending their cattle to slaughter, including breeding stock.

 

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Cortes Island shellfish farmer Dave Nikleva surveys the damage after a recent heat wave decimated his oysters. Photo by Rochelle Baker

 

The combination of extreme heat and extremely low tides left shellfish farmers with the prospect of major losses in Pacific oysters and clams stock, left exposed on the beach for hours. A mortality rate of 80 percent was reported in Okeover Inlet where the biggest issue is many shellfish farms operating three-year cycles. On that level deaths across all age groups means business collapses for a three-year period. An estimated 400,000 poultry in the province also expired as a result of the extreme heat. 

The fruit sector has been hit, with berries turning to mush in the heat, good for nothing but jam. Leaf loss in apple trees where leaves are dropped to conserve energy in response to the extreme heat, is expected to impact yields: "A very abnormal event", said agroclimate specialist Trevor Hadwen. 

Cherries are ripening in Summerland orchards. Because of the recent extreme heat, there are risks of damage to fruit crops, including fruit burning while on the trees. (John Arendt - Summerland Review)