Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks for the invitation to appear.
My name is Candace Laing, and I am Nutrien's vice-president of sustainability and stakeholder relations, coming to you today from Saskatoon. I would like to acknowledge I'm coming to you from Treaty 6 territory and the traditional homeland of the Métis.
As a bit of background for anyone who is less familiar with our company, which is just a little over three years old, Nutrien was created through a merger of equals between Agrium and the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan, previously two of Canada's leading agriculture and mining companies. Together, as Nutrien, we've become the world's largest provider of crop inputs and services. Our business spans operating segments including our retail division, known as Nutrien Ag Solutions, and the manufacturing and mining of potash, nitrogen and phosphate fertilizers.
Though our company has grown—we now span 13 countries and three continents—our operations in Canada remain extensive. We have six potash mines in Saskatchewan, four nitrogen manufacturing facilities in Alberta, and nearly 300 ag retail outlets, primarily across western Canada. This is in addition to two corporate offices in Calgary and Saskatoon.
Our purpose as a company is to grow our world from the ground up. With nearly 10 billion people expected by 2050, we have a big challenge in front of us. Feeding this growing population without increasing land use and while tackling climate change is one of our biggest challenges and greatest opportunities. The future of agriculture depends on industry leaders, partners and governments taking concrete actions to support sustainable farming practices. Last month at Nutrien, we launched our feeding the future plan. This includes commitments to help reduce our carbon footprint. We see these commitments as critical in driving the next shift in agriculture. We've set out to decrease emissions directly related to our operations, while supporting growers with our products and services so they can store more carbon in their soil and reduce emissions with better nutrient management.
Some of our commitments, set to be achieved by 2030, include enabling growers to adopt sustainable agriculture on 75 million acres globally; a comprehensive carbon program that empowers growers to accelerate climate-smart agriculture and soil carbon sequestration, where growers are rewarded for their efforts through the generation of carbon credits and assets; and at least a 30% reduction in our greenhouse gas emissions per tonne of product produced, while we're also pursuing the transition to low-carbon fertilizers.
[Technical difficulty—Editor] speak to the emissions-reduction and sequestration opportunity in crop production, and what Nutrien is doing to accelerate the nature-based climate solutions from agriculture and reward growers for those efforts.
This growing season we are piloting our carbon program. We targeted 100,000 acres in North America, 20,000 acres of which were in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Interest from growers has been extremely encouraging and exceeds our target for acres applied. We are now executing our pilots on 200,000 acres across North America, 45,000 acres of which are in Canada.
The carbon program empowers growers to accelerate climate-smart agriculture and soil carbon sequestration. At Nutrien we work directly with our growers to build customized crop plans that reduce their carbon footprint. We assist in verifying carbon performance, and currently we are paying growers directly for their participation, anticipating we need to be ready to support [Technical difficulty—Editor] in a compliance or voluntary offset market.
Nutrien's long-term goal is to put learning from these pilots to work and scale the program globally to build real, lasting change and impacts. A significant component of our pilots includes troubleshooting existing offset protocols and their barriers to adoption. The nitrous oxide emissions reduction protocol, or NERP, in Alberta's carbon compliance framework is world leading, yet it has not been transacted on in 10 years due, in part, to the significant administrative burden and relatively low return on investment for growers.
Early findings from our pilots have shown us two things. First is the value of digital tools. They capture and create credible evidence, making it easier for growers to measure their carbon reduction progress. Digital [Technical difficulty—Editor] when most offset protocols, like NERP, were first developed. Embedding them, as we are, with existing and new protocols will make carbon credits more accessible to growers.
Second, we have learned that protocols must be stackable. Our pilots stack soil organic carbon and nitrogen management protocols to deliver the highest emissions reductions. Stacking protocols makes economic sense for the grower, who may not see enough value and return in a single protocol in order to invest in the practice changes.
We are in regular communication with Environment and Climate Change Canada and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada on our findings, as well as with provincial governments. The NERP has not been prioritized for development in our federal offset program, but at Nutrien we are hopeful that learnings from our pilots will accelerate this.
Adopting the NERP will also help the federal government achieve its goal of reducing nitrous oxide emissions from fertilizer by 30% by 2030. Let me be clear: Reducing N2O emissions by 30% is extremely ambitious and perhaps even unachievable without compromising crop yields and thereby threatening global food security and our position as a global leader in agriculture. However, we believe that by creating a value in carbon assets from agriculture, we can make significant progress. More to the point, we can help Canada tap into the significant opportunity in agriculture to deliver on our nationally determined contributions.
In summary, our recommendations to the committee are as follows.
Number one, partner and work with us. Enable Nutrien’s carbon program by helping create a suite of stackable, accessible agricultural protocols within the federal offset system that combine both nitrogen management and carbon sequestration.
Second, ensure that any policies to reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions use the carrot and not the stick. We need policy support to help us scale climate solutions while we maintain productivity and enhance grower resilience.
We have an opportunity to give credit to Canadian producers, who are already among the most sustainable in the world.
With that, I'd like to thank members of Parliament for their time today, and I am pleased to answer any questions.