Agriculture Committee on May 13th, 2021

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

I've read some of your research, and you talk about “triple bottom line wins”, which is operation cost savings, the job protection you just mentioned, and footprint reduction as well. You also referred to energy efficiency work being “skewed towards procuring the least expensive opportunity assessments”. In your opinion, if we focus on the least expensive opportunity assessments rather than the most economic environmental benefits, we're not maximizing that potential.

Can you tell me a bit about that paradigm shift and expand on that, and on how we need to focus on those economic and environmental benefits?

[Bruce Taylor]

On the least expensive opportunity assessments, yes, basically you want to look for the value and not the cost of the audit. In the cheapest audit you cannot find new opportunities. You can only recommend what you've always recommended before. You can't measure anything.

You actually want to buy that value, because that gives you the right answer later on. When you do that, your average payback is under one year. You want to design the programs...and it's any of them, whether it be food or water. We do them all at the same time, because it's much more efficient. We're in the plant. It's minute by minute. We measure everything. We get the opportunities. You want to have that step of what you should do versus how to get this done. When you get to how it's done, if it's the right thing, then you don't even need help to do it. If it's the wrong thing, you need a lot of expensive help to put that in.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Many of the projects you referred to seem to want to reduce water, reduce energy and reduce waste, mostly food waste. Is that the standard you've been applying to most of these companies?

[Bruce Taylor]

That's correct. We also do toxic use reduction. They all intertwine. If you reduce the toxic, you need less ventilation, so you need less energy. They're all together. We don't try to pry them apart. We assess them all together. It's the most efficient way to go about it. There are no programs that are designed around that. We just cobble together what we can as programs come and go.

I would encourage you, when you're doing your programs, to think of conservation. Each of those 50 factories will save $350 for every tonne of carbon they avoid. That's without a carbon tax. That would be on top of that. When you look at your scales, it's plus 100 to minus 100 on the marginal abatement for carbon. The food loss is $350 avoided per tonne of savings. These are the most lucrative things these factories can do, and they then protect those factories' jobs.

On meals, we pitched to do 150 factories across Canada in all the sectors—baking, protein, primary agriculture, vegetables and whatnot—and there would be enough savings to give two meals to every homeless person in Canada for 20 years. That's the projected savings based on scaling that we did conservatively, assuming we get half as much savings as we did for the first 50. The federal government would get $25 of taxes for every dollar it spent on that program. The participating industries would get $19 of additional revenue for every dollar they spent on implementing those things, based on what we've already done at the first 50.

I'd really encourage you: Don't delay. We're doing it in the States also. We just did a protein company in Kansas where we cut the total food loss by 30%. That's great. It makes them more efficient. Why can't we invest in this in Canada?

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

That's what we're studying now. It sounds practical and affordable.

I believe that is my time, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

It's pretty close.

Thank you, Mr. Louis and Mr. Taylor.

We'll go now to Monsieur Perron.

You may go ahead. You have six minutes.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To start, I'd like to thank the witnesses for sharing their expertise today. We are very appreciative.

Mr. Taylor, you gave the example of the arena in London, Ontario. I was thrilled to hear about it. You said it was important to focus, not on the cost, but on the value being created.

Can you elaborate on that idea, taking into account government policies that could be introduced?

[Bruce Taylor]

Sure. Thank you.

We just actually responded to a challenge from this committee. They put it out to get 24 things. Unfortunately, we got a letter on Tuesday, saying that we weren't selected amongst the 25, so I'll take a really good look at those criteria to see what we're going to do.

As far as cost, that program would have been $2 million, and it would have saved 25 times that on taxes to the government. The government itself would have saved $17 million a year for those facilities, and we had partners across the country....

I apologize, Yves; I forgot the original question.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

In your opening statement, you said it was important to focus less on the cost of measures and more on their return over the long run. That is what we are hoping to do. The idea is to invest in the long term and help farmers better protect the environment—not through punitive measures, but through incentive or payment programs.

Do you have any concrete recommendations for us? What can the government do to help farmers?

[Bruce Taylor]

Yes. You have one on the table right now. If you invested $2 million, you would help 150 food and beverage manufacturers across Canada save enough for two meals for every homeless person in Canada for 20 years, avoid 49,000 tonnes of embedded carbon per year and save $17 million dollars for those producers. Over the 20 years, that would be 460 million meals. You'd get $25 for every dollar invested, so the federal government itself would get $50 million of taxes if the tax rate were 15%.

That's the existing proposal on the table right now, and it's ready to roll out. The partners on that project are Maple Leaf, Eden Valley, Wellington Brewery, Bimbo, Labatt, Agropur, Bonduelle, Nature Fresh, Humber College, Holland Marsh Growers' Association, Alberta Food Processors, Food and Beverage Canada, Sustainable Waterloo Region and whatnot, right? It's ready to go.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Sorry to cut you off, Mr. Taylor, but I have a limited amount of time.

You also mentioned methane gas generated in landfills. Your food loss prevention program would also have the benefit of reducing methane gas emissions. Is that correct?

[Bruce Taylor]

That's correct. It actually avoids the problem in the first place.

The food that goes to the landfill turns into methane, but the food doesn't have to go to the landfill in the first place. It should be eaten as food. If you eat that food, you get back everything invested in the supply chain up to that point—the grocery store, the distribution, the manufacturer and the agricultural step.

Food is meant to be food; it's not meant to be a resource to turn into something else.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Thank you. That's fascinating.

Ms. Laing, you made two recommendations.

First, you said protocols should be stackable and accessible. You recommended that, as new government programs are created, farmers be able to access multiple programs at a time. That was how I understood it.

Second, you think policies should be incentive-based as opposed to punitive. I wholeheartedly agree. I think incentives will lead to much better results than punitive measures.

Ms. Laing, when you talk about stackable protocols, are you referring to nitrogen and carbon dioxide, for instance?

[Candace Laing]

Yes, that's stacking the protocols. If I may, I will just for a minute come back to the 4Rs and provide an example, because we're a company involved in implementing the 4Rs. Our experience with growers is that when you take one thing to them that is manual and another process, and they're working against the clock on their one-shot-a-year income, it is really hard to overcome some of those challenges.

There are two reasons, I think, to stack the protocols. There's the one I spoke about, but this other one is that really making it easy for growers and integrating it into their full crop system and crop plan is really important, so the approach to getting environmental outcomes is carbon first, but on top of carbon we can stack water and biodiversity.

The gain there is that it makes sense for the grower, but the economics then are stacked as well, and from our company's point of view when we're on the ground with growers, boots to boots with them, why wouldn't we bring all the tools and the suite of options available for carbon outcomes on the farm? Those include bringing regenerative and soil health practices to sequester carbon, and nitrogen-management practices, along with technology and products—biostimulants—that together can generate the best impact for carbon outcomes, and more broadly, other environmental outcomes as well.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Thank you.

In your presentation, you talked about how important it was to measure greenhouse gas emission reductions. To do that, farmers need to be able to transfer the data via automated or IT systems.

Deploying a system like that on a large scale would be complicated. Do you think it could be done for the many small farms that are out there?

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Go ahead, Ms. Laing, with a quick answer if you can.

[Candace Laing]

What we have been working on through our pilots—and I caught part of the question—is actually to build out new digital tools that help match up with the requirements in the protocols, so it's less manual and really easy on growers, as is the other component, whether that's soil sampling, baselining, etc., to all sizes of growers.

In our pilots we have all sizes of growers engaged and involved.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Ms. Laing.

Thank you, Mr. Perron.

Now we have Mr. MacGregor for six minutes.

Go ahead, Mr. MacGregor.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to both of our witnesses for guiding us on this journey with this new study.

Mr. Taylor, I'll start with you. I am very interested in the subject of food waste, and it's been really intriguing to listen to the success you've had with production facilities in reducing their waste.

I have a small organization in my riding called the Cowichan Green Community, and they've partnered with local supermarkets to take their food that has gone past the date but is still quite viable. With a grant from our provincial government, they are repurposing that food and selling it. They're really just tackling this as much as they can and then, when they get to a point where the food is no longer fit for human consumption, they have partnerships with local farms so that it can be used as animal feed. That way, a very small percentage, if any at all, is left over for the landfill.

They are getting close to having it commercially viable. It has taken some government assistance to scale up their operation, but if we wanted to replicate that model to other small communities across Canada, do you have any suggestions about what we could include in our report for the federal government?

[Bruce Taylor]

Yes. We're working with one in Guelph right now, called Our Food Future, I think.

Basically we're working with half a dozen small manufacturers in that town, like a dairy, a brewery, a canning plant and a cidery. The circular economy means, instead of just making stuff and having it end up in landfill later on, it forms a circle, but most people don't think about the size of that circle. You want that circle size as small as possible.

If its beer, keep it as beer; if there's grain left over we'll manage that, but let's first maximize the yield. That's where there's this food loss prevention, and that's where the highest value is, but then with the residuals, how do you make this ecosystem for that? That's a demonstration one right now that the federal government is helping out with, and it's a model of the circular economy, which is a buzzword that's growing. Regenerative is another one, but food loss is a really big one right now. There's a lot of liability.

We talk about feeding the 10 billion people. If you're wasting a third of the food, there's your food right there. Let's not burn down the Amazon; let's just make better use of food we're already growing.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

I've spoken to some local farmers, too, who are trying to set up a system for any excess manure or rotting food. They're going to put it in tanks and try to capture the methane, because of course, unburned methane is a horrible greenhouse gas vis-à-vis carbon dioxide. They're trying to find a partnership whereby they can pump into Fortis B.C.'s gas line so that we're using “carbon-neutral” fuel versus a fossil fuel.

Are you aware of any other successful projects across Canada, or anything we can be doing in that regard?

[Bruce Taylor]

Yes. There's a whole ecosystem of that right now. It's a whole ecosystem of how we can take organic waste and manage it.

What we're advocating is how we can take organic waste and prevent it. That's the missing thing from most programs right now. It's where all the social value is, and economic and environmental value. It's very overlooked.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you for that.

Ms. Laing, maybe I'll turn to you. You were mentioning the emissions that result from your production of nitrogen fertilizers.

Could you go into a little more detail about the reduction targets you have in the next decade or two? Ultimately, is it just really about trying to electrify your power source? Can you provide a bit more detail?

[Candace Laing]

Yes, absolutely. When we look at reductions for nitrogen, we look at it from what happens between now and 2030, and then almost from 2030 to 2050. The reason is that there are some technological considerations. If we're going to scale green ammonia, the point at which we'll have enough access to renewable energy is likely more than 15 years out.

In addition to that, as I said, as regards technology, through the International Fertilizer Association we've just put into public consultation a nitrogen technology road map that outlines the time period between now and 2050. It's really interesting, but it's to how far we can get in absolute emissions by 2050 as a sector.

At Nutrien we are committed to setting science-based targets and are engaged in a process with peers and partners, the science-based target initiative, to build out the portion of our carbon budget that makes sense for our company and sector.

While we do that work and develop a sectoral approach, we have set this 30% intensity target by 2030. Between now and 2030, we're focused on abatement—any more abatement we can possibly invest in. As well, we have some carbon capture.

We have some capacity for production of blue ammonia where we have sites co-located with carbon trunk lines. For sites that aren't co-located, we have to look at longer-term options, to get into other options for blue and low-carbon fertilizer.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

I have one quick question, which will be my final one here.

You mentioned the plots of land in a couple of provinces and the research you're doing with that. Would you like to see the federal government devote a few more research dollars to soil science, really trying to get an accurate map of Canada's soils or sequestration potential, and so on? Is there more that we can recommend to the federal government in that area?