Agriculture Committee on June 1st, 2021

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

Setting up a calculation system is likely to be quite complex and controversial.

Are there groups working on this at Dairy Farmers of Canada?

[Pierre Lampron]

Yes, it is indeed complex. That's why I'm not really going into it.

Based on what I've read in the reports I look at, I understand that we don't always consider what nature has been doing all along in agriculture. That's the important thing.

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

Without looking at absolutely everything that's been done in agriculture, we could consider a certain time period or developments over the past 20 years, for example, to recognize the pioneers in the field.

How would you feel if we were to continue with the approach that doesn't recognize anything done before 2018?

[Pierre Lampron]

What's always been done should be recognized. It would affect producer motivation. It would be a little disappointing.

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

All right, thank you.

I'd like to ask Mr. Qualman about this matter.

In your opinion, is there any way to establish some sort of baseline and look at where each farm stands? This could be done through credits for some, and debits for others, as an offset credit exchange.

[David Wiens]

We do have a life-cycle analysis that's being done already. That is available for individual farms to work out what that life-cycle analysis looks like on their farm. I certainly think that's an area that would help us identify where the individual farms are at.

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

Mr. Qualman, I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter.

[Darrin Qualman]

As for paying farmers for their past work and their ongoing work, there's nothing wrong with that. That's a very, very good thing. It should be done. However, doing it within the offset credits system is really disastrous. When you credit someone for doing something they've already done or would have done anyway, at the very same time you're giving a large emitter a licence to continue emitting in excess.

So there's nothing wrong with the idea that farmers should be recognized, but it shouldn't be done within the offset credits system.

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

In that case, how would we recognize them?

Earlier, you talked about respecting soils and characterizing them. We've had other witnesses from the organic farming community. They told us about microbiological characterization of soil. That might be a solution.

Is there another way to establish a baseline?

[Darrin Qualman]

Not within the offset credits system; there are just so many problems with that. For instance, if you credit farmers with putting carbon into the soils within the offset credits system, the regulations as they're written call for 100 years of monitoring and reporting. That's potentially 100 years of liability, possibly unlimited liability, and possibly 100 years of locking farmers into farming in a certain way.

All of these things need to be incentivized—cost-sharing, incentive payments, and we'd need a large suite of agro-environmental incentives—but the offset credits system is not the right way to get this done.

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

Based on your approach, we need to reduce the number of inputs on farms. The unit of measurement could be the number of inputs on each farm. That would therefore provide a benchmark for people to improve upon.

[Darrin Qualman]

As for reducing inputs, the key is giving people alternatives. That's why it's so important to not just ask people to use less of something but to also show them how to use crop rotations, biological soil, nitrogen fixation, intercropping, cover crops and a whole suite of enhanced management techniques so that they can maintain the same output while using fewer and fewer inputs. That's where these agro-environmental programs could help to do the research, demonstrate, and then incentivize and make these practices common in the countryside.

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

Mr. Lampron, you reduced your inputs by increasing forage quality, adding algae as inputs and so on.

Could you tell us about that quickly?

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Your response will have to be brief, Mr. Lampron.

[Pierre Lampron]

I'd like to go back to what Mr. Wiens said.

Life cycle analysis includes lots of things. It's an internationally recognized standard. Of course, it's not perfect, but it's constantly improving. We need to take stock of what's going in and what's going out. Maybe that's a solution to consider.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Lampron and Mr. Perron.

Mr. MacGregor, you have the floor for six minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Chair; and thank you to our witnesses.

I'll wish the Dairy Farmers of Canada a Happy World Milk Day. It seems appropriate to do that right off the bat.

Mr. Qualman, I'll start with you. I thought it was quite illuminating that you made the comment that agriculture is not the problem; it's our inputs. That struck me.

We have had previous testimony in May from Danone, which has invested some of its own money in helping farmers change their practices into regenerative agricultural methods. They have reported that those farmers have enjoyed the benefits of better soil health, lower input costs and higher yields. There seems to be a holy trinity right there.

It seems from your perspective, and I've read a lot of the literature from the NFU, that what is needed is a paradigm shift. As this committee is going to be writing its report and making its recommendations to the federal government, could you expand on some of the ways that the federal government can best serve in helping with that paradigm shift?

I know farmers already have a lot of base knowledge. They are quite independent and we don't want an Ottawa-knows-best approach, but we do want to identify those particular methods out there that are working in those three specific areas.

If you can expand on that concept, I think that would be quite helpful. Thank you.

[Darrin Qualman]

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.

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

Yes, and one where farmers are the active participants and very much co-drivers in this kind of change.

You also took some time to make comments about the major problems associated with use of nitrogen fertilizer. We certainly are acquainted with Fertilizer Canada. They have been a regular witness before our committee and much has been made about their 4R certification program. I would agree with them that it has led to significant improvements. What I'm concerned about is whether there is too much industry-led research out there vis-à-vis public research into this area.

One of the struggles you have when trying to explain this paradigm shift is that farmers might be comfortable with the way things are being done now. They know how to apply their fertilizer. They know approximately the yields they will get.

What are some of the struggles we have in trying to show them that alternative methods in fact can have these improvements?

[Darrin Qualman]

Yes, the 4R efficiency measures are important. They do a lot, but efficiency alone won't get us to where we need to go. The federal government very wisely put in a target of a 30% reduction in nitrogen-related emissions by 2030. Efficiency will get us part of the way, but really reducing absolute tonnage is going to be needed in order to meet that target. Tonnage is going the other way. I mentioned that in Saskatchewan we've quadrupled fertilizer use in just three decades. In Canada, it's doubled over about the same period of time. Those trend lines are going in the wrong direction.

We need 4R, but we need much, much more. Again, that's for things like these independent extension agrologists actually coming to the farm, standing in the field with the farmer and taking a whole-farm, whole-system look—not just at how much fertilizer is going onto a field of canola, but at how that canola works within a larger cropping system of rotations, cover crops, soil health plans and all of that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Qualman. I'm sorry, but we're out of time.

Now we'll go to the second round with Mr. Steinley for five minutes.

Go ahead, Mr. Steinley.

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

Thank you very much.

I appreciate the witnesses' being here today.

My first question is for Mr. Qualman.

We've had Mr. Parry come in from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and say that agricultural emissions have remained steady from about 2005. Would you agree with that statement?

[Darrin Qualman]

I would, but I would add that emissions are up by about 23% since 1990.

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

Okay, but since 2005 they've remained steady.

I agree with you that there are a lot of practices.... I'm from Saskatchewan. I grew up on a dairy and beef farm around Swift Current, Saskatchewan, so I know that we've been doing cover crops, tree rows, crop rotation and rotational grazing for years now as good practices to help conserve our soil.

You did make mention of the 100-year carbon, I guess, journey that's supposed to be part of the offset program. Could you imagine locking in farm practices from 1921 until 2021 and what that would do? Do you have any comments around the carbon-offset framework and how trying to lock farmers into certain practices is just not the right path to go down with this particular policy?

[Darrin Qualman]

I completely agree. Briefly, the liability problem is huge because a farmer could sell a bunch of offsets now, and the price might be pretty low at, say, $10 a tonne. However, that carbon might for some reason get released decades from now, and the price might be $50 or $100 a tonne, so they might end up having to pay back many, many times more than they received, so there's a long-term unlimited liability problem.