Agriculture Committee on May 13th, 2021

[Candace Laing]

Absolutely. I really highly encourage us to be paying attention to what New Zealand and the Netherlands are doing in monitoring methodologies. Our commitment to you is that we are trying really hard to get the data out of the farm level that I think can feed back into really important research in agriculture.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Ms. Laing, and thank you, Mr. MacGregor.

We'll go to our second round now, with Mr. Steinley, for five minutes.

Go ahead, Mr. Steinley.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Laing and Mr. Taylor, thank you very much for your presentations.

Most of my questions will be for Ms. Laing because it's nice to have another farm kid from Saskatchewan on this committee at this time, to bring some Saskatchewan common sense to the standing committee in Ottawa for a bit.

I'd like you to go back and talk a little more about the 4Rs, because maybe not everyone has a big grasp on, first of all, how much this can do to help our environmental practices on the farm. There is a lot of availability out there to share data such as you're talking about. That's how we got to rotational grazing, crop rotation and other good environmental standard practices that we use now.

Could you walk us through the 4Rs and how much that can help us going forward into the future?

[Candace Laing]

Yes, absolutely.

The 4R nutrient stewardship is really this suite of best management practices: right source, right rate, right time, right place. They really help us reduce nitrous oxide emissions among other things, such as water quality, etc. The role they have to play and how they're linked with NERP protocol is really important.

One of the things we're exploring in our carbon program is engaging growers at all different stages of implementing the practices, from advanced growers to growers who are looking at the basics. The 4Rs are really outlined in that way. There's a basic, an intermediate and an advanced level. We work with all of those growers to see how we can continue to advance on practices.

As I mentioned before, there are some costs when you get into the intermediate and advanced practices. Growers might not have everything they need to calculate variable rates, which is a very good practice, but maybe they don't have all the equipment, etc.

We really help by working through those barriers, making the plan, and then combining that with soil organic carbon protocol work and other products to get the full carbon asset out of the farm operation.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

The business of farming has changed a fair bit from when our fathers used to farm out in Rush Lake.

Another thing I want to talk about is how you have.... Could you highlight some of the detailed work you've done with Nutrien, with your carbon program and plan, and how you have done some incentivizing to make sure farmers are already doing work on their carbon footprint?

I know you mentioned the carrot, not the stick. I'm a very big believer in that.

How have you guys incentivized farmers to even watch and increase their environmental practices on farm now, before there is any government intervention?

[Candace Laing]

We've invested in.... As I mentioned, we're paying growers directly for participation, and for their practices right now, because this is what they need to be ready for. This is what our customers need to be ready to participate in. We anticipate the onset of the carbon market. We need them to be ready, and we've got a lot of work to do.

Let me mention that nobody has figured out all the challenges, but that's what we're putting our shoulder into through our pilots. We are very open, both with government, other partners, value chain players and supply chain partners, in pooling our knowledge and figuring some of this out.

Even where we are doing insetting—collaborating with a food company where we can work together, intervene, help the growers scale practices, and then make a claim against our own emissions footprint—the rules aren't set for that. We have to work with those standards bodies and work through on how we're allowed to even do the carbon accounting around those pieces.

We are all in on this because we really believe it is the lever to which we'll scale sustainable ag practices more broadly.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

I have a few quick questions.

First, another innovation in Saskatchewan is carbon capture. Are you looking to add that to some of your facilities to lower your carbon footprint into the future by utilizing carbon capture?

[Candace Laing]

Yes, we're doing that where we can. Obviously, our sites in North America are co-located with trunk lines. That's the easiest option for us, and we're sequestering many tonnes with that already.

Looking beyond that, at a couple of different opportunities beyond those nitrogen sites, I don't have any more to offer on that.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Lastly, there's going to be a big irrigation project coming to Saskatchewan, obviously, to help ensure we have better and higher yields.

Are you working with the Government of Saskatchewan, and is irrigation another part of the puzzle—something we can do more efficiently and more environmentally friendly?

[Candace Laing]

Yes. Water for ag is next up, given that we use 70% of the world's fresh water. Again, those water outcomes, we believe, will be stacked on top of a carbon outcome.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Ms. Laing, and thank you, Mr. Steinley.

We'll move to Mr. Blois, for five minutes.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses.

I'll start with Ms. Laing. You highlighted the opportunities that exist on the offset, but you talked about verification and said that it was going to be a challenge for us—I say for us, but certainly for farmers and the industry—to be able to illustrate the good work that is happening.

Can you speak a bit about the digital tools, and elaborate on that for us?

[Candace Laing]

Certainly.

Where we're using existing protocols—for us right now, that's the NERP and the conservation cropping protocol—I think when those protocols were originally developed, it wasn't with digitization in mind. Right now, we're looking at how we are rebuilding our platforms to really make this less of a burden on the grower and integrate it into their system.

Sorry, I forget the second part of your question.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

It was about what it might look like for farmers. Is it applications in terms of being able to perhaps track the type of nitrogen or potash used, for example? Is that the idea?

[Candace Laing]

It's the verification, yes. That's what I wanted to share with you, too. Even though we're just doing a pilot, we actually have a mock verifier engaged with us, so we can build out the credible pathway as if we were generating a true carbon asset or credit at the end of this growing season.

We are building the ability to provide evidence of practices into the digital platform. All the evidence that links to the protocols is then built into the digital platforms, as well as linking with some of the other aspects, which are the soil samples.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

I want to get to the offsets, because you talked about stacking. How are those conversations going with ECCC? I get where you're coming from. You're saying that each practice is going to lead to carbon offset, so we don't want to restrict farmers to perhaps just going after one. We want to pursue multiple and make sure we support those efforts.

How are those conversations going at this stage?

[Candace Laing]

We've been engaged in many conversations. We talked to ECCC this week and last week. If I had an ask and could be so bold, we need to think like a farmer in this, and not be piecemeal in our approach.

While we might have some desire to have protocols be separate, we really need to push through and also think of how that brings the biggest environmental impact and carbon outcome out of the farming operation. Why wouldn't we go for that? It's a bit harder and a bit more work to pull it together, but that's definitely what we need.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

We won't have time to get into the details, but if you have any thoughts to share on that for our report—on that side of trying to think like a farmer, if I can keep it at that level—I think this committee's certainly receptive.

Quickly, there's been a lot of conversation around a price on pollution and some of the inherent challenges at the producer level, but also the opportunities. It seems, from your perspective here today.... I applaud the work that Nutrien is doing to prepare farmers to take advantage of the opportunities there are around the price on pollution.

Is it fair that, while there are some difficulties and technicalities that we have to work out, this does really present an opportunity if the policies are struck in the right way?

[Candace Laing]

One hundred per cent. Agriculture can be a climate leader. I think we owe it to our sector, with the role that sector plays in our economy in Canada, to help make this happen.

In everything we've looked at from our work with growers, carbon finance is going to be a key to unlocking and getting us faster to what we're all after, which is scaling sustainable agriculture and getting those carbon outcomes. If our breadbasket can be a carbon sink—coming back to being a farm kid from Saskatchewan—and if the world looks at Canadian agriculture as a climate solutions provider, not a culprit.... We just need to do the hard work to get there.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Yes, there are great opportunities and I think you hit on those.

Mr. Taylor, I have about 45 seconds left. What I heard from you, and I'll try to summarize, is that we have to, as a government, not only invest in the types of mechanisms we're talking about with Ms. Laing, but also consult and try to reduce actual food waste. That alone will help drive a lot of the emissions that might be necessary that could be tied to agri-food businesses and processing.

[Bruce Taylor]

That's correct, yes.

It's kind of shocking. Let's say we did a lobster factory in Nova Scotia. We just sat our people at the end of the line. Kody, you're going to do the claws and Tim will do tails. We just sat there and took out the meat that was left. It was over $300,000 per year of lobster. Can we justify hiring an employee for that?

If you save that, how much herring do you save to catch that lobster in the first place? You save it all the way up the chain as soon as you save it, no matter where you save it. Even if you save it in your house, you save it all the way back to the fertilizer step.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Taylor and Mr. Blois.

Mr. Perron, we now go to you for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Taylor, in 30 seconds, could you tell us a bit more about food waste?

How could farms integrate that principle without hurting profitability or margins? It sounds like it could actually help them.

[Bruce Taylor]

We've averaged $230,000 per year of savings to the bottom line for 50 factories in a row. We do water; we do energy; we do toxics; we do whatever. Food is the most lucrative of anything because they have invested everything to get it right to that point. If it falls off the line five feet before the package, but you were able to keep it on the line, basically, boom. You have a market for it and everything.

It's the most lucrative investment that any of these facilities can make. This ranges from multinationals to small ones. We average $230,000 per factory of additional profit, with under a one-year payback. The only difference is they don't know about it.

When we went to Campbell, they had 200 ideas in their suggestion box, literally. When we did our studies, we said, yes, you have 200, but these seven are what's really going to make a difference for you, which came out to more than $1.6 million, or whatever it was. It's that kind of strategic thinking that needs to be layered on.

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

What can the government do to help the farming sector put that into action? What measures need to be taken? What approach should the federal government adopt?