Agriculture Committee on Nov. 7th, 2017

[Ian Affleck]

In those discussions with those key trading partners, if we don't have the best system under the best science, it's very hard to wag our fingers at a trading partner and say, “You should go faster” and they say, “Well, you don't have any service standards.” You say you'll do it in two years, but you can't really point to a rule that says you'll have it done.

Also, we can't apply to China until we have Canadian approval. If it takes two to three years to get ours and then four to five years to get China's, if ours was done in a year, then that would shave a year or two off the end of the approval process. If we have a more streamlined and efficient system in those trade agreement discussions or in bilaterals, we can go forward and say, “We are not just asking you to do better. Let us show you what it looks like to do better. It looks like this.” If you don't have that, it's very hard to criticize someone else's system. I think that would be beneficial for us in those debates as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Barlow.

We will now hear from Mr. Breton for six minutes.

[Pierre Breton, Liberal, Shefford, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for being here today.

Some experts say that climate change could have some positive effects, for example extending the growing season and reducing costs in some areas like animal feed. What do you think of statements to the effect that it could also be an opportunity for us? We know that climate change brings with it a lot of negative consequences: major rainfall, floods, and droughts at times. However, there could also be positive aspects, and I would like to hear each of your points of view about it.

[Susie Miller]

In terms of the positive benefits of climate change, I think it all speaks to the ability of the producers to adapt. There are pros and cons to each one. For example, it can get warmer, but on the other hand, that may increase the pests, and therefore, it may require more pesticides or more crop losses.

The whole issue is adaptability and the ability of the producers. There has been a significant adaptation. For example, 25 years ago there were no peas, beans, or lentils grown in western Canada, in the Prairies, and now we're the largest exporter of red lentils in the world, not only because of the technology, but because of innovation.

From the perspective of the work we're doing on the CRSC, there will be pluses and minuses. Water conservation may become more important if there's less of it. If we increase our pesticide use because we have more pests—and I'm saying “if”—then we'll have to take more care in terms of managing that. It's all about adaptation and ability. Climate change may have good benefits, bad impacts, or just change.

[Dennis Prouse]

I ran into a grower at a conference who was growing quinoa in Manitoba. It surprised us, but this was happening.

To Susie's point, it's going to be a mixed bag. There are going to be positive impacts and there are going to be negative impacts. How do we help farmers manage those? I said to Madame Brosseau when we were speaking before the meeting started that it's a very nuanced and complex story that isn't easily told in 140 characters. That's the challenge. But there's no question that the growing zones are expanding in Canada, and Canada is uniquely positioned to expand our production and help feed the world over the next number of decades. The experts are clear on that.

[Ian Affleck]

To echo what was said here, and I think it was covered very well, it's about that turnaround time and how quickly we can bring a new variety to the marketplace for a farmer. Even a conventionally bred variety takes seven to nine years to bring forward. A biotech variety takes 10 to 15 years. If things are starting to change faster, it's going to take us a long time to catch up to that change. When you start to have more efficient regulation, you reduce the data requirements because of the history of safe use and you can bring that down to nine years. Or you add CRISPR, which takes some of the lab work down, and you get it down to seven years, so now you're reacting to that climate change much faster to take advantage of those challenges or opportunities and to manage the challenges that come on the other side of that coin.

[Pierre Breton, Liberal, Shefford, QC]

I am going to close with a statement that you also made.

This is not just an issue for Canada; it is an issue for the world. I feel that if producers, processors and the government work in collaboration, Canadian producers could find this to be a worthwhile challenge in terms of exports and in terms of being leaders in agriculture that has adapted to climate change.

Thank you for your testimony today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Breton.

If I may, I am going to make a comment too.

We can do a lot about climate change thanks to technology. But we also have to realize that the problem is real. Where I live, the Acadian forest provides wood for sawmills. However, if things continue as they are, in 20, 40 or 50 years, the forest will disappear from our area, together with the blueberries and the other things that grow there.

We have the technology, I agree, but we also have to be aware that other measures are needed.

I want to thank everyone for being here. We had a very interesting conversation, which will continue, I'm sure.

Mr. Affleck, Mr. Prouse, and Ms. Miller, thank you so much.

We'll pause for a short break to bring in our next panel.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Let's start the second half.

I welcome the second panel with us today.

From le Conseil canadien de l'horticulture, we have Rebecca Lee, executive director. Welcome. We also have Jan VanderHout, member of the environment committee.

From le Conseil canadien de conservation des sols, we have Mr. Alan Kruszel, president.

From USC Canada, we have Martin Settle, executive director, and Geneviève Grossenbacher, program manager.

We'll start with the Canadian Horticultural Council. You have up to 10 minutes.

[Rebecca Lee, Executive Director, Canadian Horticultural Council]

Good afternoon, everybody.

Thank you for the opportunity to appear today to discuss the impacts of climate change on Canada's horticultural sector.

The Canadian Horticultural Council, or CHC, is a national association that represents fruit and vegetable growers across Canada involved in the production of over 120 different types of crops on over 27,500 farms, with farm cash receipts of $6 billion in 2016. For almost 100 years, CHC has advocated on important issues that impact Canada's horticultural sector, promoting the continued success of our industry as it delivers healthy, safe, and sustainable food to Canadians.

The horticultural sector stands behind the federal government's goal in budget 2017 to increase agrifood exports to $75 billion by 2025. However, producers face many challenges, including environmental challenges and competition from countries with laxer regulations or regulations not based on science. The federal government can help address these challenges by recognizing all kinds of agricultural fuels in its national carbon policy and by supporting additional research and innovation in the horticultural sector.

[Jan VanderHout, Member of the Environment Committee, Canadian Horticultural Council]

Canadian producers have a vested interest in sustainable growing practices and environmental stewardship, and growers often invest in programs and new technology that help to mitigate these risks. For example, greenhouse growers have developed innovative ways to recycle the carbon they produce as food-grade CO2 for their plants. However, such sustainable innovation has not been recognized in a uniform way across Canada, resulting in disparate carbon pricing policies among provinces.

The added costs of these policies, together with the capital-intensive infrastructure needed for the construction of greenhouse facilities, make the sector vulnerable to carbon leakage, whereby companies, in an attempt to remain competitive, expand their operations in jurisdictions that aren't subject to carbon pricing, such as the U.S. and Mexico. Due to the global nature of the produce market, new costs of production are not easily passed on to consumers. This reality impacts the price of domestically grown food in the marketplace and, ultimately, Canada's competitiveness.

While fruit and vegetable growers are committed to environmentally friendly production practices, the are also dependent on favourable energy costs and a stable, supportive tax regime to remain competitive and stay in business.

CHC urges the federal government to include natural gas and propane in its list of proposed agricultural fuels exempt from its national carbon pricing policy, as these fuels produce exhaust that is partly recycled by greenhouses as food-grade CO2, enhancing plant growth. This exemption would minimize the regional disparity seen in the current pricing models and support Canada's upcoming food policy by increasing access to affordable food; improving health and food safety; conserving our soil, water, and air; and growing more high-quality food.

[Rebecca Lee]

CHC continues to advocate on behalf of growers through the Pest Management Regulatory Agency's process for the re-evaluation of crop protection products and for improvements to the policies that guide the PMRA's regulatory decisions.

CHC also continues to advocate for the harmonization of many aspects of the pesticide regulatory system, including maximum residue limits and joint international reviews. In this vein, we also continue to support the Pest Management Centre's minor use pesticide program and pesticide risk reduction activities.

Because plant health, biosecurity, and up-to-date pest risk assessments are all key components to market access and are important to the protection fo the environment, CHC develops and advances crop protection management policies and programs that support market access and promote the economic viability and competitiveness of Canada's fruit and vegetable growers, while providing safe, healthy food to consumers across Canada.

Climate change and growth in international trade also mean the introduction of many new pests in Canadian horticulture. Regulatory agencies must respond to these new invasive pests and plant diseases more quickly than ever before. These challenges are increasingly important and costly to manage as we endeavour to reduce our carbon footprint and feed a growing global population.

CHC urges the federal government to provide adequate funding for the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and the Pest Management Centre, to ensure access to appropriate crop protection tools and adequate inspection services. Without increased support, these agencies will be limited in their ability to respond rapidly to invasive pests and plant diseases, which in turn jeopardizes the health of our industry and Canada's ability to meet export targets.

Finally, I would like to provide comment on a few other areas where CHC continues to advocate for our producers' growth in a safe and sustainable way.

CHC urges the government to support research by increasing funds for the Canadian agricultural partnership. During consultations on the governments's next agricultural policy framework, we outlined how we need additional support to advance the environmental sustainability of our sector. We believe that this can be achieved by aligning programming between the Canadian agricultural partnership and the pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change.

Access to water and advanced irrigation technology will be critical for fruit and vegetable growers to be able to deal with more severe and more frequent extreme events. Government policy support and infrastructure projects are needed to secure a supply of good, clean water for agricultural purposes. CHC recommends that Canadian agricultural water infrastructure investments be supported by low-cost loans through the newly created Canada infrastructure bank.

CHC also urges the government to support innovation in the horticultural sector. For example, tree fruit growers have put together a proposal that would innovate and grow the apple sector in Canada, which would in turn increase agrifood exports.

We encourage the government to work collaboratively across departments and with industry stakeholders to leverage our combined resources and expertise to ensure that Canada is presented with climate change and conservation polices that are balanced and without unintended consequences for farmers, Canadians, and the global food supply.

Thank you for your time. We look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you so much, Ms. Lee.

Now, with the Soil Conservation Council of Canada, we have Mr. Alan Kruszel.

[Alan Kruszel, Chairman, Soil Conservation Council of Canada]

Mr. Chair and committee members, thank you very much for the opportunity to be here today. The council is very delighted to be able to take part in your study on soils because we are very interested in soils.

I am Alan Kruszel. I'm the chairman of this fine association called the Soil Conservation Council of Canada. I have a farm about an hour and half southeast of here, near Cornwall, Ontario, where we grow cash crops.

I'll say a little bit about the council. We are the only national soil care organization in Canada. We provide leadership, improve understanding, facilitate communications, encourage sound policy, and work collaboratively with anyone who wants to talk about soils. We are the face and voice of soil conservation in Canada.

We've done a couple of different things over the last number of years. I'll highlight them quickly for you.

We co-hosted the sixth World Congress on Conservation Agriculture back in 2014 in Winnipeg, where more than 400 attendees from more than 100 different countries all came together to talk about conservation agriculture and what we can do to improve things around the globe.

We hosted a conservation practitioners meeting with our friends from the CRSC, Susie's group. We talked with agriculture groups and environmental groups like the World Wildlife Fund and Ducks Unlimited to see if we could come up a shared vision for the ag landscape across Canada. We were very proud to be able to come out with a joint statement on that vision.

We've hosted national and regional soils summits. Our most recent one was held in Lloyd's riding back in August. We had more than 180 people come in to talk about the costs and consequences of soil degradation across Canada.

We have a really fun project going on called “soil your undies”. We'll talk a bit more about that later. It's actually a scientific test where you bury cotton underwear in the ground. You leave it for a few months, dig it back up, and see the results of the decomposition. If it is very decomposed, in general you can assume that there's some pretty healthy biological activity going on in your soils. It's lots of fun.

In French, it's called Salissez vos bobettes.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

You take them off first, though.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Alan Kruszel]

You certainly do.

Unfortunately, ladies and gentlemen, soil conservation is not something that is done. We have made great strides in this country on conserving our soils. We are no longer the dirty thirties. We have made some vast improvements, but there is an enormous amount of stuff that still needs to be done.

Today, we're going to focus on a couple of things—tillage and organic matter losses. Those are the biggies that we want to talk to you about today. These are still huge issues. If I keep spewing off words like “organic matter”, think carbon. If we are losing carbon from our soils, that is a problem. We are still losing quite a bit of carbon from our Canadian agricultural soils.

Western Canada is doing better than eastern Canada, I have to say. So to our colleagues from the west, congratulations, you've done a pretty good job, although there's still work to be done. Recently, the council has noticed that there is a little bit more tillage going on in western Canada than there used to be. There are vertical tillage tools coming out now that are quite prominent around Alberta and Saskatchewan, on land that was previously not tilled, direct seeded, with no disturbance at all. That's a little worrisome as far as we're concerned.

No-till adoption—planting without any tillage—in eastern Canada, however, is still very, very low. Our estimates are that about one-third of cropland is planted using no-till practices—that comes from the census—but there is much, much less permanent no-till area.

Another issue we've discovered, which we're going to bring to your attention, although I'm sure those of you who live in urban ridings have seen this, is that urban sprawl is removing productive land from agriculture. It's a huge, huge issue. We have to do something about that.

We talk about tillage as something that is the equivalent of an earthquake, a hurricane, a tornado, and a forest fire all occurring simultaneously for the world of soil organisms. It's a huge, huge issue for soil organisms. Tillage is bad for the soil.

One of the foremost experts on carbon is Dr. Rattan Lal of Ohio State University. He suggests that since modern agriculture has happened, we've lost somewhere between 50% and 70% of the original carbon that was stored in our soils. That is an absolutely huge amount of carbon that has been lost to the air, and most of this has been due to tillage.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO, estimates about a 0.3% loss in annual crop yield due to soil erosion. That 0.3% doesn't sound like very much, but when you take that on a global scale, that works out to losing around 4.5 million hectares of production every year. Four and a half million hectares is nearly 10% of Canada's cropland every year being lost to soil erosion. That's a huge, huge issue.

What we are trying to do on our farm, and what we've been promoting, is no-till practices, trying to keep the soil covered as long as absolutely possible. We've planted cover crops on our farm to try to hold soil in place, to try to provide nutrients back to the organisms in the soil. This is what we're trying to promote in the areas where we can get these things to grow.

As for opportunities, we obviously have work to do to increase no-till acres across the country. There are huge benefits for climate change to going no-till. You're going to use less fuel to get your crop into the ground. You're going to have carbon sequestered in the soil and out of the air. These are win-win situations.

There's an opportunity to gain a better understanding of the costs and consequences of soil degradation. We're not really sure how much degradation is costing us in Canada. There have been some estimates from Dr. David Lobb at the University of Manitoba which suggest that Canada is losing around $3 billion—that's billion with a “b”—per year in lost production due to soil degradation, so there obviously is still work to be done to maintain our soil health.

Research needs are constantly evolving. We need to work harder to bridge the gap between the research folks and the producers who are trying to use this research. Extension at Agriculture Canada isn't anywhere near what it used to be. There's incredible research being done at all the centres across Canada, but farmers aren't hearing about it as quickly as they should. I live an hour and a half from the Ottawa centre, and I hear hardly anything about what's going on. We have to improve communications between researchers and farmers.

We have to get some extensions and demonstrations out to the producers, host field days. Farmers will adopt technologies when they see that they work, especially if you take them to their peers who have tried them. You have to get this stuff out to their peers. That's very, very powerful for farmers.

Unfortunately, we still see some great information that sits on shelves and never gets out to the folks who could make good use of it. Producers really do want to do the right thing. However, change is very slow to happen, and most don't realize how detrimental some of those conventional practices and conventional tillage are to the soil.

We have a couple of very simple recommendations for the committee to consider.

The first is to make soil conservation health a key commitment under the Canadian agricultural partnership. The new Growing Forward 3, or whatever you like to call it, is coming out in April 2018. This is the time to make sure that soil health and soil conservation play a key role in that very large agreement.

The second is to work with stakeholders to develop a long-term national strategy on how to better promote soil conservation and improve soil health. The Province of Ontario has recently launched its soil health and conservation strategy. We would encourage the federal government to look into doing something very similar.

Third is to provide some funding for a national study to reassess the cost and consequences of soil degradation in Canada, with an emphasis on greenhouse gas implications, and to enhance the knowledge and demonstration and dissemination of this knowledge, and the latest BMPs, best management practices. There are some great best management practices being developed at Ag Canada and other research stations that need to get out to producers. We need more funding to get those extension people out there to show these things.

We have a final thought. It's a quote from Maya Angelou, a poet from the United States. She said, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” That is very, very apt for agriculture. Farmers are trying their very best to do the best they can. They need to learn that there are better ways to do things, and they will adapt.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you.

I must apologize. We will distribute this document, but it was only in English. We have to translate it first, and then we will distribute it to all the members.

Also, Mr. Tim Nerbas of Saskatoon, I think that was Mr. Longfield's—

[Alan Kruszel]

That was ours, Mr. Chair.

He was supposed to join us by video conference, but there was an issue with the video conference in Saskatoon.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Okay, thank you.

Now we'll move to USC Canada.

You have 10 minutes, and you can split your time if you wish.

[Martin Settle, Executive Director, USC Canada]

Thank you very much.

Members of the committee, parliamentarians, staff, and guests, we want to thank you for this opportunity to speak to you about biodiversity as a key strategy for climate resilience as well as a best management practice for the stewardship of our soil and water resources. I particularly want to speak to it as modelled by some of our work at USC Canada.

I am pleased to be here with Geneviève Grossenbacher, our program manager for policy and campaigns at USC Canada, who is herself an ecological farmer based just north of Ottawa.

USC Canada is a Canadian success story. You may know of us. We were founded by Lotta Hitschmanova as the Unitarian Service Committee back in 1945. We’ve inspired generations of Canadians to contribute to issues of global concern. Our work on agricultural biodiversity overseas has in part been funded by Global Affairs Canada since the early 1990s. Our work with Canadian farmers is much more recent. It was launched in 2011 and is funded by The W. Garfield Weston Foundation and by donations from individual Canadians.

We’re here primarily to ask the Government of Canada to support programs that conserve and enhance on-farm agricultural biodiversity. That biodiversity is our most precious resource, and it provides the best insurance policy for managing the uncertainty and risk presented by our changing climate.

I am an accountant by training. In finance and investment, we are advised to maintain diversified portfolios. Diversified portfolios reduce risk, and they ultimately lead to the most consistent long-term success. That same principle holds true in agriculture. Biodiversity simply provides for resilience.

This is actually the nature of genetics. Seeds are tiny packets of potential. They contain some traits that we can see, but others, such as the ability to survive drought or the resistance to pests or disease, appear only when a plant experiences stress. The more biodiversity we keep in our seed supply, the more likely it is that our crops will have the traits they need for a wide range of conditions. But biodiversity is not static. Selecting the best seeds, saving them, and replanting them the following year keeps those crops evolving and adapting as the conditions change around them. The more diversity of seeds farmers can access and the more diverse traits these seeds have, the better Canada's food supply can adapt to climate stresses.

A broad range of plant genetics can ensure that crops yield good harvests even in challenging conditions, but biodiversity in and of itself is not enough. As we think about our agricultural methods, we must also pay attention to the health of the soil ecology and water systems that are quite literally at agriculture's roots.

Evidence is growing that the integration of biodiversity practices within ecological agricultural systems provides significant benefits to the health of water and soil. The IAASTD—if you don't know that acronym, you can ask Gen to explain it later—report from 2008 was one of the first broad reviews of scientific literature that came to that conclusion. More recently, the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, IPES-Food, published a report entitled “From Uniformity to Diversity”, which references many studies that provide a comprehensive argument for farms of all scales to employ biodiverse ecological techniques. The benefits of such an approach include: strong potential for carbon sequestration; increased diversity and quantity of beneficial microbiotic organisms in the soil; improved water absorption and retention; decreased runoff and contamination of surface and groundwater; and increased species diversity of plants, insects, and birds in surrounding ecosystems.

The authors of the IPES-Food study describe a virtuous, positive feedback loop created within biodiverse ecological agriculture and leading to continued improvements in soil fertility, productivity, and ecosystem health, while providing secondary benefits to communities downstream. These improvements and benefits all lend themselves to supporting the adaptive resilience of our food production, farmers, and rural communities as we move into this era of climate change.

This is a unique moment. Yesterday COP23 opened, reminding us of the significant climate commitments Canada has made as part of the Paris climate agreement. The launch of the new Canadian agricultural partnership and the development of a food policy for Canada presents an opportunity for Canada to launch programs that incentivize agricultural innovation toward addressing climate change. We must seize this opportunity to support on-farm biodiversity.

USC Canada's Canadian field program, the Bauta Family Initiative for Canadian Seed Security, is a model for how Canadian farmers can work together to adapt to the impacts of climate change. Through participatory plant breeding, farmers are developing new seed varieties that are locally adapted and perform well in low-input conditions. This low-cost approach to genetic innovation can have a significant impact. For example, in partnership with the University of Manitoba over just the last five years, farmers in our program have been developing wheat varieties selected for their heterogeneity and their performance in low-input environments which, when tested against conventional varieties, show greater early vigour, better disease resistance, and greater concentration of micronutrients, all the while being competitive on yields in both drought and flood years.

To gain the benefits of biodiverse agriculture, research and investment cannot be focused on single traits within limited varieties of a very few crops. Innovation and adaptation must happen across the breadth of crops used in agriculture. Participatory plant breeding, putting the leadership for crop diversification back into the hands of farmers, ensures that the scope of breeding work encompasses many more varieties and allows for innovations to adapt to the specific local context. The 184 farmers engaged in our participatory plant breeding program have adapted over 400 different varieties to local growing conditions, ranging from Vancouver Island to Cape Breton and Newfoundland, and to the extreme north in Alberta. The process is replicable and scalable, and does not require huge financial resources. It can, however, have enormous impact by keeping diversity alive and adapting to new conditions, and creating new diversity through innovative farmer-research partnerships.

USC Canada has been working with farmers in marginal environments around the world for more than three decades. We know that many of the challenges of agricultural practices, soil erosion and degradation, high levels of water consumption, contamination, declining input efficiency, and even financial vulnerability, all of these can be mitigated by embracing biodiversity and supporting ecological practices. To this end, the Government of Canada should support programs that conserve and enhance on-farm agricultural biodiversity and, more specifically, invest in systems of knowledge development and transfer, like participatory plant breeding, to continue expanding agricultural best practices and to develop new varieties of climate-resilient crops.

USC Canada has been innovating on the ground with farmers and researchers for many years. Our experience substantiates expert findings that biodiversity and ecological practices are essential to feed communities today, and to protect the soil and water resources we need to feed future generations. We hope your findings will contribute to creating an enabling policy environment to support our work and those of others in our field, to make Canada a world leader in on-farm research for food security and climate adaptation.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Settle.

We'll begin our question round, which is for six minutes.

Mr. Berthold is going to share his time with Mrs. Boucher.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Yes, I am, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

Mr. Kruszel, this question is for you. I liked your presentation very much.

According to the Soil Conservation Council of Canada, at the moment, human activity causes much more damage to soils than climate change.

[Alan Kruszel]

Is human activity causing problems? Yes. Are there solutions? Certainly.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Is the damage to the soil mainly caused by humans cultivating it or does it come from the climate change we are facing? One of the questions we are dealing with here is the effects of climate change on the soil. But you have talked a lot about the effect of human activity on the soil.