Evidence of meeting #85 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was great.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
I know that the University of Guelph has been working on the island as well, and one of our witnesses in our last committee meeting talked about poplar. Poplar and willow are two very similar species.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
I'm from Manitoba. I know they're everywhere; they're weeds.
Are you also doing anything around riparian zones, such as planting trees around streams, or is this being done just on the fields that you're working on? Would you connect with Guelph? That's more my question, I guess. Do you work with research centres across Canada?
Vice-Chair, East Prince Agri-Environment Association
We'd like to. Right now, we're working with AAFC in Charlottetown. We're working with the AC branch of Dalhousie University in Truro, and with a couple of the scientists at AAFC in Fredericton on various other projects.
You asked about where we put the willows. We have one of these willow projects on our own farm. We're putting them at the bottom of sloped land that's coming close to a watershed. The idea is that willows love nitrogen and just gather it up, so we're hoping they will pull that out and lower the numbers in the streams. We're going to measure that as we go.
Liberal
Vice-Chair, East Prince Agri-Environment Association
Yes, it helps with erosion, and it's a natural filter before anything hits the surface water.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Beautiful. Thank you.
To go over to the next coast, the west coast, I'm interested, Professor Smukler, in the same kind of question. The British Columbia government has had its carbon pricing programs in place a little bit longer. Is the economic benefit of sequestering carbon or managing the carbon cycle in the soil also part of your study?
Assistant Professor, Junior Chair of Agriculture and Environment of the University of British Columbia, As an Individual
Yes, and the economics are key, but they're not actually part of what I do. I study the biophysical components of sequestration in the soil. One of the major challenges, as was mentioned, is accurately measuring the rate of sequestration. I think that's key to the economics.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
You mentioned 20% of land being at risk in terms of soil degradation. Is there an action plan that's being developed for that? Is that something the federal government needs to be involved with?
Assistant Professor, Junior Chair of Agriculture and Environment of the University of British Columbia, As an Individual
I would hope so. I think that's a real opportunity for Canada as a whole to address some of its mitigation targets.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
I read your bio before the meeting. Coming from Berkeley, after working in the States, do you think there are best practices from the States that we can be drawing from? We heard at the last meeting about the forest management incentive programs. Are there other things that you've seen, in terms of water conservation in California, that we might be able to learn from in Canada?
Assistant Professor, Junior Chair of Agriculture and Environment of the University of British Columbia, As an Individual
At some point we might be in the same situation, or a similar situation, as California, but that's a long way off. Yes, there are practices in California that we could learn from, but I think California has a lot to learn first. They probably should look to Israel to figure out how to manage their water.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Yes, they have the drip processes in Israel. They've done some unique things around recovery of water in systems for irrigation. In terms of our study, should we recommend to the government to watch for best practices and maybe look to Israel?
Assistant Professor, Junior Chair of Agriculture and Environment of the University of British Columbia, As an Individual
That would be a good place to start.
Assistant Professor, Junior Chair of Agriculture and Environment of the University of British Columbia, As an Individual
They're doing it. They're the masters of that.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Staying on your topic, looking at the relationship between agriculture and ecosystems, we've heard a bit of testimony around the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act and the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration on the Prairies. Having some type of governance group that would help Prince Edward Island or British Columbia....
Does AAFC have a go-to group that either one of your groups would be working with in terms of the topic we are studying, or is this something that we need to recommend to the government, to set up a cross-provincial governance group as an opportunity?
Assistant Professor, Junior Chair of Agriculture and Environment of the University of British Columbia, As an Individual
It sounds like a great idea. I don't know of one.
Assistant Professor, Junior Chair of Agriculture and Environment of the University of British Columbia, As an Individual
No.
Board Member, East Prince Agri-Environment Association
We work with six or seven different researchers, so there are a lot of different ongoing projects, but I don't recall any specialized individual who would zero in on just one topic.
Vice-Chair, East Prince Agri-Environment Association
We do have one individual in our province, Scott Anderson, who is tasked with starting to make the bridge and has worked closely with our group in bridging us back and forth with the researchers, but there's no official thing. That's official, I guess, but....