Agriculture Committee on Dec. 7th, 2017

[Prof. Naresh Thevathasan]

Yes. That's what I was congratulating the minister for, the agricultural greenhouse gases program. That program started with the Conservative government, but the Liberal government is continuing that program, which is welcomed. That is what is kicking up a lot of research in agroforestry, where we are showing quantitative evidence of carbon sequestration potential at the system level. It's very important to understand the system-level carbon sequestration, which includes both above ground and below ground.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

In the United States they incentivized communities, landowners, and farmers. How did the incentives work for the people who participated in this?

[Prof. Naresh Thevathasan]

For each land use system, there were descriptive guidelines. In one of my recommendations I said that there should be science for adoption and for implementing agroforestry. Science fed that policy. For each land use system, they had clear guidelines for what their option should be, what the guideline should be, and what would be assessed by the USDA in order for them to qualify for the incentive. Some of them were cost-shared programs.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Last year, I had a private member's bill asking the government to take a leadership role on food waste. Often we have articles and reports in Canada, and in other countries they have taken some leadership on food waste. There are some estimates that 30% to 40% of the food produced is wasted and billions are lost annually. Also, when rotting food goes to landfills, it produces greenhouse gases.

Monsieur Desrochers, do you have any comments around food waste?

[Dr. Pierre Desrochers]

The issue is more complex than people think. I will give you an American example. If you buy oranges at your supermarket, and then you throw away the peel, this is often considered food waste. Paradoxically, the best way to fight waste in that case would be to buy orange juice, because in big processing operations they convert peels into livestock feed.

At the same time, if people were eating more frozen or processed food, there would likely be less food waste, but this is not the way our food retail system has evolved. People want to—

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Monsieur Desrochers. I'm going to have to cut you off.

Thank you, Ms. Brosseau.

Mr. Drouin, you have the floor.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for being here.

Your presentation was very informative. Forestry is an issue for me back home in Glengarry—Prescott—Russell. As you know, the Ontario government has set, I think, 30% of land mass for forestry. I'm not sure how other regions are doing, but we're at 23%. Obviously, we do need more land mass for agriculture, but what I'm seeing here is that you're promoting the combination of forestry and agriculture.

You have probably had some interaction with the conservation authorities. Back home, the conservation authority seems to be acquiring land and mass planting in one area as opposed to planting a little bit here and planting a little bit there.

In Ontario, what's been your experience in terms of educating farmers that they can combine, that their lack of revenue won't be that significant, and that they can combine both without having a major impact on the bottom line?

[Prof. Naresh Thevathasan]

Mass planting comes under a different definition. It will come under either reforestation or afforestation. I would slightly defer from saying that we are trying to bring forestry into agriculture, because the tree density I'm talking about is insignificant when you compare it with the tree density in a forest.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Yes.

[Prof. Naresh Thevathasan]

I'm talking about 50 trees per hectare or 75 trees per hectare, so it is not per se forestry.

What we are trying to do here is to capture the nutrient-cycling aspects, the carbon sequestration aspects, the biodiversity aspects, and the ecosystem services aspects that could be derived, even at a low density of trees in the agricultural systems, in order to reduce runoff, nutrient loading, and enhance bird diversity and microfaunal and macrofaunal diversity. This is what we are trying to achieve.

When it comes to the landowners, they were paid to remove trees in order to allow big machinery. Now we are trying to ask them to put the trees back, so there's a lot of education that is needed.

I should say that these trees, when they are integrated into the agricultural landscape, need a certain degree of management, like pruning of branches. If you look at these trees, the branches have been pruned. Why? We need to allow more solar radiation in order to continue productivity. The tree row orientation is also important. You can't plant east-west in Canada, because you will get less productivity. You have to plant either north-south or northwest-southeast, because we are in the northern hemisphere.

A lot of education is needed. There's a management aspect that's needed. Landowners are willing to do that, provided there's a policy to support it. The issue, as I said, is that they're asking why they should invest for the public good and what they get as a result of that.

The science is not disputed. Actually, the science has been proven globally. I just mentioned that in the COP22 conference in Morocco, agroforestry was given a session, and it's being promoted to be integrated into the agriculture policy of the sub-Saharan African countries, because that is the only way they can increase resilience to climate change in the agricultural sector.

Trees can modify microclimate. The evapotranspiration losses can go down, and there's more moisture. We have shown through research that 3% more moisture can be retained as a result of having trees. In a dry year, when agricultural crop productivity declines, the reduction in yield in a tree-based farming system is comparatively less because of the microclimate modification. It can increase diversity of soil micro and macrofauna, which enhances the organic carbon input as well, from the leaves, and in turn, the soil's organic carbon.

The science is there and landowner acceptance is there. They are not disputing anything that you say. They can see that their animals will benefit, because the silvopastoral system not only contributes to the heat stress reduction, but it also contributes to the cold stress reduction in the winter months. If you have coniferous trees, that contributes to windbreak and cold stress reduction, which enhances productivity in the livestock because of less stress.

Some have adopted such land use systems, but the issue is that there is no policy or incentives to back the adoption of them.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you.

Monsieur Desrochers, I was just reading some of your recommendations here, for example, the elimination of market distortions, such as subsidies and barriers to trade.

I am a little hesitant to see how that would actually improve land conditions. I would say sure, if everybody played by the rules, but in the U.S. their farm bill is full of subsidies. It's a game where nobody is going to eliminate, and everybody subsidizes their agriculture in one form or another.

Canada does not have 300 million people like the U.S. does. I'd be afraid that, in getting rid of supply management, we would actually sell off to the U.S., and they would be acquiring all of our farmers here.

[Dr. Pierre Desrochers]

There are two things. As you probably know, some countries have actually gotten rid of systems that were fairly similar, like New Zealand and Australia, and New Zealand has taken over the dairy products. They have better conditions to produce dairy products.

I've travelled in Wisconsin and parts of the upper Midwest where, honestly, conditions are not so different from those in Quebec. I've never understood the argument that Quebec couldn't compete with regions that had similar climates and similar soil conditions. What makes Quebec producers less effective is that they're smaller and they don't generate the kinds of economies of scale that you've seen in liberalized markets.

I'm with you in that I don't like the U.S. farm bill, but at the same time, if I'm looking at that as a taxpayer, I don't see how having dairy products that are more expensive and penalizing our food processors is actually good for us.

As you probably know, the cost of sugar in Canada has historically been lower than in the U.S., because we don't protect our corn and sugar beet producers. A lot of candy manufacturers a few years ago relocated to Canada, because with the cost of sugar being lower they could produce candy here and ship it back to the U.S. The same was true for chocolate.

Canada's dairy products ended up in Canadian chocolate that was being reshipped to the U.S. It's Canadian dairy products, and if our dairy products had been even more competitive, I believe that we would have shipped even more chocolate to the U.S.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Desrochers. I'm sorry to cut you off again. That was a good conversation.

Mr. Barlow, you have seven minutes.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate the good information from both of you—

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Mr. Barlow, in fact you have five minutes.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Oh. Well, that's just going to mess up the entire system.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

I have a quick question for you, Mr. Thevathasan.

[Prof. Naresh Thevathasan]

You can call me Naresh.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thank you. There's a really interesting program in western Canada that, ironically, was brought forward by some energy companies. They found a way to reintegrate rough fescue grassland into some of the range through what's almost like plugs. Is that part of agroforestry or is that something different? Do you know if that situation has started to catch on? I know it was about five or six years ago that they were starting to have some success on those types of plots.

[Prof. Naresh Thevathasan]

Perennial grass is not agroforestry per se. Agroforestry is the integration of trees or shrubs into the agricultural landscape. The perennialization of grasses will also contribute to soil carbon sequestration and soil erosion control. Several of the ecosystem services I mentioned will also contribute to that.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

It's interesting that two major energy companies in Alberta are funding that project as a way of reclaiming oil well sites by bringing those native grasslands back. I think that also shows that there is a good diversity of companies and groups that are funding that type of research.

Mr. Desrochers, I didn't have a chance to go too much into this before, but you were talking about the impact that carbon taxes and those things could have on agriculture. It's interesting that agriculture, in terms of its GHG emissions, has pretty much stayed steady for the last 15 to 20 years at around 70 megatonnes. Despite that, their production has grown exponentially. Certainly our concern, and the concern that we have from speaking to our producers, is that they're the one group that will likely be paying the carbon tax over and over and over again. Cattle liners, fertilizer companies—they'll all be charging them, and they can't pass that on to anyone.

Can you talk a little bit about how important it is to ensure that if we want to meet the goals we have set, which I think are important, our agriculture producers need to have the tools to succeed? Some of these policies that we're seeing come through.... As you said, we've never seen the carbon tax achieve anything it says it's going to achieve in any other jurisdiction. In fact, our producers have been successful without having to worry about it. Can you talk about the importance of that?

[Dr. Pierre Desrochers]

Again, I'll speak only in general terms.

If the past is any indication of future trends, we need more innovation and more economies of scale. Let the best and more creative farmers take over, grow the scale of their operations, and become more efficient over time. We've reached a point now—it's funny that we're discussing these agroforestry issues—where a number of experts these days talk about “peak farmland”, meaning that despite the fact that the world population keeps increasing, we've probably reached the maximum amount of farmland that we will ever need if past trends and increased yields keep on improving.

Many parts of the world obviously have other disadvantages as compared with Canada in terms of infrastructure and a less corrupt political system. Competition will come from many places, and it will come hard. Historically, we've mostly had only to worry about competition within Canadian provinces, or perhaps from the U.S. I'm sure you're all knowledgeable about what has been happening in Argentina and Brazil and New Zealand and other places. These people, as far as I know, will not be burdened with those other taxes and will be able to drive our producers out of the market if we keep asking the impossible of them, which is to become ever more efficient while burdening them with regulations and taxes that their competitors don't have to face.

Again, look at past trends. Look at how much progress has been made in the past. Let's lay the foundation to make sure they can do more of that in the future. Let the most creative and the most entrepreneurial agricultural producers grow. It's nice to want to save the family farm and to want to keep supply management, but that's just not the way to go, in my opinion.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

You also talked about the concerns with regulations and red tape. For us to embrace innovation, I think all of us have dealt with the time it takes to certify new innovation in terms of our constituents, whether it's seed breeding or neonicotinoids and glyphosates through PMRA. Is that something we also have to—

[Dr. Pierre Desrochers]

Oh, yes. I mean, I took it for granted that you were all familiar with those issues. Let's look at best practices elsewhere and let's try to import them here.

Again, I understand that you're all representing your constituents, but at the same time...or maybe it's more my job to do some popular education in terms of explaining why these advances are creating fewer problems than those that existed before.