Evidence of meeting #87 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 crops.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Maybe we could have a comment from the fertilizer standpoint of saving on water use. In some circles in civil society, all fertilizers are bad. They are chemicals. Could you speak to the value of fertilizers in mitigating climate change and helping reduce water usage?
Senior Vice-President, Fertilizer Canada
The reality is that in 2050 we're going to have 9.6 billion people on the planet, according to the estimates. There is very limited arable land available. We can't make more farmland than what we have.
Countries like Canada are going to have to play a critical role in producing the food that's going to be required for those people to have healthy diets, and we can't do that without fertilizer. We also recognize that, in improving the yields and the production in places like Canada, we're going to have to use fertilizer more wisely, and that's where the 4R program comes in.
Our scientific research has shown that, by using the right source of fertilizer, applying it at the rate that the crop needs, putting it in the soil—in western Canada it's often underneath the soil—and also making sure the timing is right, you can reduce the losses of nitrous oxide, which is one of the emissions from fertilizer, by about 25%.
Senior Vice-President, Fertilizer Canada
Yes, you can maintain soil health and, in fact, improve the economics for the grower at the same time.
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Mr. Graham, I'll start with you. When you look at the context that this study is operating under and the fact that we ultimately want to make recommendations on how we can increase soil and water conservation and address climate change, it seems that our use of fertilizers is an obvious place to start.
If you look at the history of agriculture over the last few decades, you see we've definitely learned from previous bad examples. The fact remains that, when we manufacture fertilizers, we burn fossil fuels. When we transport them to the farms, we burn fossil fuels. Farmers have to burn fossil fuels to apply them to the fields. We've also had the creation of dead zones in the ocean from runoff.
There is a rising movement in the world looking at the overall system of soil health, the complex interaction among microbes, fungi, and carbon sequestration—how they all work together. Given that you represent an industry association, could you live with the fact that we may eventually have to recommend a decrease in use of fertilizers?
I appreciate what you're trying to do already, but there are a lot of voices out there recommending that we get off synthetic fertilizer, or at least significantly reduce our dependence upon it. What would you say to that?
Senior Vice-President, Fertilizer Canada
The reality is that 100 years ago we didn't use fertilizer and we were running out of food. We also mined the soils in western Canada in the 1930s. We had terrible soil loss, partly due to drought but also to the fact that the soils were completely depleted. We grew crops year after year, and there was nothing going back in. We took the crops out, but we didn't put anything back in.
The way the world works, you can't do something with nothing. Yes, our products have a carbon footprint, which we're trying to reduce. Yes, there is a cost to growing food. However, we also have an imperative to grow that food for people, for economic development in Canada, and to feed people around the world.
There isn't enough manure and there aren't enough other sources of non-fertilizer nutrients to feed the population that we have now, and there is certainly not enough of those materials to feed the 9.6 billion that we expect to have. We're probably going to have to make some choices about where we spend carbon. I would say that feeding people is probably a better choice than some other choices in society about where we use carbon. I don't think there's any future that we can foresee where simply reducing fertilizer use is going to have a good outcome for humanity.
NDP
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
I did see that quote that you had in your study, that the population by the year 2050 is going to increase to so many billions of people and we're going to need to increase food production by 70%. However, current studies show that 30% to 40% of our current food production is lost as a result of wastage in industrialized countries. There are some studies that say that the food scarcity problem in a lot of countries exists because of poverty levels, not really their ability to grow food. There's a real imbalance.
We in the west are lucky to have advanced agriculture techniques. Our farmers, generally and comparatively, are well off. But there have been studies conducted by the United States Department of Agriculture where the yields that have come about from fertilizer use have been so massive that farmers have actually had to sell their crop at a loss. That kind of makes you scratch your head as to whether the system's really working.
Do you have any comments on that?
Senior Vice-President, Fertilizer Canada
Sure. If you look at Mr. Wiebe and the prosperity that I think his family farm has—and farms have across Canada—you'll see that a big part of that prosperity comes from fertilizer use.
I think we tend to think a lot about these problems in terms of food supply and scarcity, but in a place like Africa where they're getting yields that are a fraction of what we can grow in western Canada, with the same amount of rainfall in many areas, we're simply not utilizing the farms in those areas the way we should. A big part of the problem is that they're not using fertilizer.
If places like Africa are going to develop economically, the smallholder farmers who have farms of an acre or two acres are going to have to have the means of production to grow a surplus so that they can have a decent income, they can send their kids to school, they can have health care, and they can contribute to their society. Prosperous societies around the world have prosperous agriculture. The two things go hand in hand. Pesticides and seeds are important, but fertilizer is the critical element in allowing that kind of prosperity to develop.
NDP
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Mr. Wiebe, you've already touched on soil. In your opening statement, you talked about the cycles of drought and too much rainfall that you've gone through. Are there any examples of soil conservation that you can see where soil practices are alleviating that problem, where the soil can actually deal with too much rainfall and withstand a drought? What are the best practices that you think the federal government can really concentrate its research on?
Director, Grain Growers of Canada
It's far too difficult a question to ask me that quickly. We know the impacts are generally positive of the soil management packages that we've been employing for 20 years. Last year was a good example where we had reasonable reserve winters but also because our soils were that much healthier, we were able to deal with the fact that we got very little rain last year.
Now we're dealing with no reserves, but that's another question.
Liberal
Joe Peschisolido Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Mr. Graham and Mr. Wiebe, thank you for your presentations.
I'll begin with Mr. Graham.
You put aside the issue of funding and you talked about the importance of government integrating the 4Rs in the whole approach. Can you elaborate a little on that?
Senior Vice-President, Fertilizer Canada
In provinces like Prince Edward Island, Ontario, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan, we've set up working groups with provincial environment and agriculture departments and farm groups to work on how we change the practices to implement the 4Rs in those areas. While the federal government has been very generous in terms of providing funding for research, they haven't really integrated the 4Rs into the way they talk about these issues in the department itself, unlike provinces like Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta, Ontario, Prince Edward Island where they're really more engaged in extension.
We think that the 4Rs has to be part of an international approach. It's being used in the United States and in parts of Europe. We'd like it to benefit farmers around the world. It's not a proprietary program. We essentially do the science and give it away, and we're engaged in extension efforts around the world.
We just think the federal agriculture department could get behind the program more. It's voluntary and we could see more recognition by the federal government for it.
Liberal
Joe Peschisolido Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Mr. Graham, I don't remember exactly whether you discussed all these elements that you have in your sustainability report. I was intrigued about certain things that you're doing with the private sector and how government can help. For example, you have 4R demonstration farms, you have 4R designation programs. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that?
Senior Vice-President, Fertilizer Canada
The demonstration farms are where we provide a very small incentive, about $1,000, a very small amount of money for the size of some of the farms we're dealing with, for them to take a field or part of a field and implement 4R practices to see how it works at the farm scale. It's very important not just to see the evidence that the 4Rs works, but it's also to have a place where other growers in the area can come by and see what's going on. We have field days where farmers can go out. This is traditional extension that's gone on for decades and decades where farmers learn about these kinds of practices.
Liberal
Senior Vice-President, Fertilizer Canada
Right, and that's where we're asking growers to work with a professional, a certified crop adviser—they're generally the kind of people who are making fertilizer and other recommendations to growers—to develop 4R plans that are specific to the farm, and then verify that the farmer is following the plan, learning and going through a process of incremental improvement. That's where we'd like to get to 20 million acres by 2020, which would be 20% of the crop production land in Canada.
Liberal
Joe Peschisolido Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Mr. Graham, in my area of Steveston—Richmond East, there are a lot of organic farmers and particularly in Steveston. They would argue that you really don't need artificial fertilizer, that the whole system is organic and that if you do things properly, you can not only feed the local community but you will get a surplus and then be able to feed others. Can you deal with that statement?
Senior Vice-President, Fertilizer Canada
There is nothing wrong with organic agriculture. We need to use manure, and in some cases we may have to start using sewage by-products in order to help grow the food we need, but the reality is those products are usually in the wrong place. They're not really near the major crop-producing areas. Their livestock tends to be aside from the major crop areas. It's very expensive to move very low-nutrient-content products long distances, and the scale of agriculture that goes on in places like western Canada, Brazil, and Russia just doesn't lend itself to that kind of small-scale solution.
There is nothing wrong with using manure or compost to grow crops. The problem is you can't feed 9.6 billion people doing it, and that is the big problem. If you have a farm where you have a few goats and a few chickens, all the manure stays there, you feed yourself, and you don't send any food away, then you can have a sustainable agricultural system. But if you have to take that grain and ship it around the world, you have to find a way to replace all the nutrients that leave the country to feed people elsewhere.
Liberal
Joe Peschisolido Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Mr. Wiebe, you talked about weather being the greatest risk. In life and in farming, we obviously cannot eliminate risk, but we can manage it.
I want to follow up a bit on Mr. MacGregor's point about management practices and perhaps give you an opportunity to deal with the question that he asked with a bit more time.
Director, Grain Growers of Canada
I've thought about it a little. To help me manage my weather risk, I subscribe to a weather service from Kansas. You may ask why I would want to subscribe to a weather service that's based in Kansas. It has value. It made me money over several years by following a much more detailed recommendation forecast.
You can't change the weather, but you can interpret things differently. Why I have to go to Kansas for that is a question I'll leave with you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan
Thank you Mr. Wiebe and Mr. Peschisolido.
Ms. Nassif, you have six minutes.
Liberal
Eva Nassif Liberal Vimy, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Graham, earlier, in your presentation, you talked about the use of 4R nutrients.
Can you tell us more about the use of 4R nutrients and whether this practice is universal? Can you please explain how 4R fertilizers are used?