Regional Adaptation Program
The Regional Adaptation Program (RAP) brings together producers, agricultural organizations and government staff and agencies to collaboratively identify priority climate impacts and strategies and to implement actions that support agricultural adaptation.
The program has two key phases:
- developing an adaptation plan specific to the region (regional adaptation strategies), and
- implementing projects to achieve priority strategies and actions identified within the plan
Each region’s strategies and actions reflect the particular climate change impacts in that area, as well as the adaptive capacity and adaptation challenges and opportunities facing that region’s agriculture.
Regional Strategies
Three new regional adaptation strategies will be developed between 2018 and 2020:
- Bulkley-Nechako & Fraser-Fort George (completed August 2019)
- Kootenay & Boundary (completed June 2019)
- Vancouver Island (estimated completion winter/spring 2020)
Following completion of the strategies, $300,000 has been allocated for each of these regions to implement projects that will accomplish activities identified by the strategies as high priority.
Regional Projects
Between 2013 and 2018, six regional adaptation strategies and 41 regional projects were completed under RAP, with more than 400 individuals participating in the planning process.
Implementation of priority projects is ongoing in five of those regions, which have each been allocated $200,000 to continue adaptation programming between 2018 and 2023:
How RAP is Funded
Funding for the Regional Adaptation Program is provided in part by the governments of Canada and British Columbia through the Canadian Agricultural Partnership, a federal-provincial-territorial initiative. Funding is administered by the Investment Agriculture Foundation of BC and the BC Agricultural Research & Development Corporation.
RAP projects also have other co-funders and in-kind partners, identified in each project’s detailed description.
How RAP Works
The ability of producers to adapt to climate change is often linked to physical infrastructure, informational tools and resources and decision-making processes that are beyond the individual farm level, for example, addressing challenges associated with future water supply.
The Regional Adaptation Program cultivates partnerships across the BC agriculture sector, government departments and jurisdictions to tackle these large-scale issues through the following steps:
- Confirming local partners and forming an advisory committee with a cross-section of representatives from key agricultural groups and local and provincial governments.
- Holding a series of workshops throughout the region to gain broad producer input into priority climate change impacts and preferred strategies and actions.
- Drafting the Regional Adaptation Strategies plan and meeting with key partners to discuss near-term priorities.
- Launching projects to achieve those priorities, with the support of technical experts, agricultural groups, non-government organizations and local governments.
- Receiving ongoing guidance from the advisory committee — now functioning as a working group — for input and expertise and to assist with priority project selection.
Detailed information about completed strategies and active and past projects, including project results and informational resources, can be found on each region’s page.
