Better data needed for policy makers to understand the importance of rural industries.Ottawa—While the impacts will likely be greatest in northern regions, climate change is already affecting the livelihoods of many of the country's rural residents, says a report from the Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation.“Many rural communities rely on a variety of environmental resources and services to support local livelihoods, from agriculture to forestry, fisheries to fresh water,” says the report. Climate change “is expected to increasingly impact these sectors in a number of ways. In so doing, it will affect the livelihoods of millions of rural Canadians in natural-resource dependent communities through impacts on wildlife, growing seasons, weather patterns, and extreme events to name a few.”Governments need to undertake research into how rural communities can anticipate these challenges and embrace practices and solutions that lead to “more socially resilient and environmentally sustainable rural futures.”Doing so is vital for urban Canada because the rural part of the country provides food and products that supply and create jobs in cities and town, the report said. Any measures taken in rural areas to improve the environment benefits urban areas as well.While a warming climate could lead to a northward expansion of agriculture, it could also increase productivity in new and existing arable lands, the report said.A warming climate could also benefit the growth of aquaculture in rural communities. It currently accounts for about 20 per cent of total seafood production Canada with the value of aquaculture production rising from $591 million in 2003 to $1.3 billion in 2016. Most production occurs in smaller coastal and rural communities.A move to increased land-based aquaculture take the pressure off wild fish stocks but there are many unknowns at the ecosystem and community level about the possible impacts of such a shift as well as major gaps in the understanding of the possible roles that hatcheries and aquaculture could play in rural community development, the report said.“The same climatic changes that are opening new agricultural frontiers in the North could also create new opportunities for the development of lake-based aquaculture by First Nations and others.“Many communities will likely start considering small-scale aquaculture as a community development option as global demand for protein continues to expand. Policy-makers would be wise to direct attention to supporting these exploratory initiatives with an eye towards filling data gaps while safeguarding environmental sustainability.”While the jobs and economic value of sectors such as agriculture, forestry and aquaculture are known on a national scale, more precise data at the community level is sparse, making the real or potential impacts of climate change on rural economies impossible to evaluate, the report said.One possible solution has emerged in Ontario with the Golden Horseshoe Food and Farming Alliance (GHFFA). It's a partnership among the Toronto Region Conservation Authority, the Friends of the Greenbelt, the Ontario Agriculture Ministry and the regional municipalities and Federations of Agriculture in Niagara, Peel, Halton, York, and Durham, and the cities of Hamilton and Toronto.In 2014, the GHFFA identified a significant gap in data for local and regional agri-food value chains, the report said. That situation led to the creation of ConnectON Asset Mapping Program to address these gaps and support municipal and regional economic development.There are more than 40 municipalities involved in ConnectON, which has spread through Southern and Eastern Ontario. Municipalities have the ability to upload, update, select, filter, sort, and map their own agrifood and manufacturing business asset data.Alex Binkley is a freelance journalist and writes for domestic and international publications about agriculture, food and transportation issues. He's also the author of two science fiction novels with more in the works.