Good afternoon honourable members of the committee. Thank you for the invitation to speak about the opportunity of organic systems to increase agricultural resilience to climate change and promote soil health.
Because the success or failure of agriculture is highly dependent on the weather, climate change is expected to present farmers with substantial agronomic challenges.
Projected temperature increases, changes in precipitation patterns, and increases in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events such as drought and flooding are expected to reduce agricultural productivity.
Warmer, wetter climates and increases in carbon dioxide also favour many agricultural weeds, pests, and pathogens. The geographical range of both invasive weeds and insect pest populations is expected to shift and expand as increasing temperatures enable them to survive over the winter.
Research also demonstrates that rising carbon dioxide levels are likely to have a positive effect on the establishment and persistence of invasive weed species and that commonly used herbicides such as glyphosate show reduced efficacy in settings with elevated carbon dioxide. Increased pest, pathogen, and weed pressure may also have numerous environmental and human health implications if increasing the toxicity of pesticides and the frequency of their application are considered to be the primary solutions to these challenges.
Organic agriculture is founded on the principles of soil health and resource conservation and takes a whole-systems approach to management, utilizing a wide range of farming practices that protect the environment and promote ecosystem services. For instance, organic farms utilize techniques that reduce soil erosion and nutrient runoff pollution, and they support a diversity of wildlife, including pollinators and beneficial insects. In return, the farm benefits through improved pollination of crops, higher water quality, better pest control, and healthier soils.
Soil health is considered by many to be the basis of organic systems, making them particularly well positioned to adapt to many of the challenges associated with climate change. Organic farmers tend to use cover crops and crop rotations in place of mono-cropping, and to utilize compost, legumes, and manure in place of synthetic fertilizers. These management techniques not only lead to reduced greenhouse gas emissions and increased energy efficiency; they increase soil organic matter, the foundation of healthy soils.
Soil organic matter has a positive impact on the physical, chemical, and biological soil properties. It provides structural stability to the soil, reduces erosion, protects against soil compaction, and improves aeration, water infiltration, and soil water-holding capacity, all key characteristics that will be particularly important in times of drought or flooding. Soil organic matter also serves as a reserve for nutrients essential to plant growth, including nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulphur, and it makes up the base of the soil food web, providing a foundation for all soil life.
A growing body of research from around the world demonstrates that organic farms often have higher levels of soil organic matter, greater beneficial soil biodiversity, and overall improved soil health when compared to their conventional counterparts. One of the most recent studies to examine soil organic matter between organic and conventional farms compared over 1,000 soil samples from across the United States and found that, on average, soils from organic farms have 14% more soil organic matter than soils from conventional farms.
Soil quality results from the Long-Term Agroecological Research experiment in Iowa, which compares plots under organic and conventional management, found that after 15 years, organic soils were significantly healthier than conventional soils, based on a combination of chemical, biological, and physical soil health metrics.
Results from this study also suggest that improvements in soil health through the employment of organic farming techniques can provide exceptional benefits to farmers during extreme climate events. In 2012, despite serious drought conditions during the growing season, organic management enhanced agro-ecosystem resilience and maintained the capacity to supply nutrients to the crops.
In addition to promoting healthy soils, organic systems also utilize integrated pest, weed, and disease management. By omitting synthetic fertilizers and most synthetic pesticides, organic farmers are able to maintain higher levels of micro-biodiversity and macro-biodiversity in the soil and field.
Numerous studies have demonstrated that by supporting beneficial biodiversity, farms can considerably reduce the negative impacts of pests and pathogens. Thus, instead of relying solely on pesticides, organic farming provides multiple lines of defence to address emerging pest challenges.
Organic farmers are innovative. Many practices that have been long-standing tenets of organic production are now recognized as key management techniques for building climate resiliency and soil health across all of agriculture. What's needed is further research investment to continue to advance the development of sustainable organic practices.
Now I'll turn the floor back over to Tia to provide recommendations on what the industry feels is needed to unlock the potential of organic agriculture to foster healthy soils and contribute to climate change adaptation in Canada.