I'm going to do just a brief introduction first. I'm going to reach into the knowledge that I have from a number of projects that I've been working on over the last few years.
I was a contributor to the Ontario soil health strategy. I'm a member of the prison farm advisory panel. I provided a lot of input into the Ontario strategy to address climate. That includes the carbon tax and the rest of the subsequent regulations that are coming about.
I've attended meetings with the International Joint Commission, dealing mostly with Lake Erie, but they focus on all the watersheds that cross the two boundaries. I've participated a lot in the sessions leading up to the development of the Canada agricultural partnership for Canadian agriculture policies, which are coming in this year.
This is just background that I am using to develop my thoughts for today.
First of all, I would like to bring forth a bit of background so that you can understand where we're going to go. If we know where we are now, then we know how to develop a plan for where we're going.
A few years ago, and I think it was in 2014, Ontario was producing 165 million tonnes of carbon equivalent greenhouse gases. Of that 165 million, Ontario was sequestering 16.5 million, 10% of the carbon equivalence that was being produced.
Agriculture conceivably can double the amount of carbon that it's currently sequestering—agriculture in Ontario only. Those are the figures I have. When these numbers were established, Ontario at that time was sequestering 0.5 to 0 .7. Even if Ontario doubles the capacity to sequester carbon, it is still only 1% of the total carbon that's being produced.
I realize that this session is strictly on developing a plan for mitigating climate change, but we have to realize where we are first before we can develop a successful plan that can measure how we can mitigate it.
Carbon sequestration in the soil is like adding water to a leaky bathtub. The more you put in, the more it will go out. The thing about carbon sequestration or greenhouse gases is that the more you put in, the faster it goes out as well. We have micro-organisms, we have fungi, we have bacteria that are constantly eating that organic carbon as it's coming in.
Even if we attempt to sequester carbon, which is almost impossible in getting to the level that we want, meeting what Ontario is producing, or even meeting what Canada is producing, we really need to see what we can do to effectively reduce the impact of these events that we're seeing now with the climate changing.
I think what we need to focus on is the soils. If we can have good, healthy soils, they will absorb more water in the case of an extreme weather event, and they'll retain more water in the case of a drought.
I'd like to talk a little about the extreme weather events that we are going to see. This past summer I believe I counted three events of over 100 millimetres of rain at one time. It used to be that 35 millimetres was an exceptional weather event.
We're seeing that the jet stream is stalling as it's moving from west to east. That means more precipitation for longer periods. That means also longer dry spells.
The key to mitigating these extreme weather events is soil.
Ron talked a lot about practices to enhance the soil capacity. We're talking about no-till; increasing buffer zones in water courses to reduce the runoff, to slow the runoff; forest cover; tree lines. But the key, the big thing here, is knowledge.
We have to know what practices we can employ to reduce the transfer of nutrients into the water courses, whether it's soil erosion, whether it's the nutrients in the soil. The way to do that is to increase the soil's organic matter, the carbon in the soil.
Enhancing the soil's capacity to mitigate the effects of extreme weather events needs to have an increase in soil carbon. It requires more energy, not less. We're seeing carbon taxes being imposed not only on all participants in our economy, but farmers as well. However, farmers need more energy, not less, and they need an encouragement to enhance these soils' capacity to mitigate the changes in extreme weather events. We're seeing the carbon taxes as more of a stick than a carrot. If farmers are going to grow your carrots, they need carrots. We need more encouragement and a lot less discouragement. We need the methods and the knowledge to improve the soil.
I want to talk a little about—and this is where it ties into my previous experience—