Thank you for the question.
Indeed we do need a paradigm shift. We need a real transformation in agriculture and in just about every sector to make them less dependent on fossil fuels and to lower emissions. Agroecology is a key part of that, a focus on working with nature, getting more of what we need from biology and less from industry, on fewer petroindustrial inputs and more of what we need from biodiversity, soil organisms, and so on.
As for some of the ways the government can support that and really take an ambitious run at this idea of transformation, we've proposed a new agency, called the Canadian farm resilience agency, or CFRA. It's patterned on the PFRA.
The last time we had a massive environmental disaster in agriculture was the 1930s and the dust bowl. Coming out of that, the government created the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration to work with farmers to really change how things were done, to work on water supply, tillage, everything around the farm, putting in trees, and so on.
We think that was a very good model. Here we are in the 21st century and we have another climate crisis. We think CFRA could provide free soil testing, as well as independent extension agrologists—that is, agrologists who aren't focused on just selling more inputs, but instead, helping farmers to transition to a low-input, low-emission model. They could run demonstration farms where low-input, low-emission practices were refined and showcased, and so on.
The CFRA is an example of how government could lead that kind of transformation and how it could engage in what we talk about in terms of near wartime levels of work and effort on this front.