Agriculture Committee on March 28th, 2022

[Dr. Thomas Bruulsema]

Certainly the 4R program is relevant to nutrient losses that may impact water quality. I've been involved very intensely for almost 10 years now with Lake Erie and the issues of recurring algal blooms in the western basin of the lake, which occur from agriculture from both the U.S. and Canada.

The first certification program for our nutrient stewardship was established in response to that, and it's still an active and growing program in both the U.S. and here in the province of Ontario in Canada.

By ensuring that the phosphorus is applied at the right time and in the right place has just as much influence on the amount being applied; in fact, it has even more on the losses of the dissolved phosphorus that impact the lake.

We're continuing to do more research as well in both Ontario and in Manitoba with regard to the Lake Winnipeg situation as well.

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

Thank you.

My final question is to CropLife Canada.

In the opening statement you made mention of gene editing and the role it can play in building resistance to the ravages of climate change.

In the final minute that I have, can you provide some tangible examples of how that's worked, just so that our committee can use those as examples, please?

[Ian Affleck]

Absolutely. Thank you.

One great example is just recently the Government of Saskatchewan has invested $300,000 with the Global Institute for Food Security for nitrogen efficiency.

This is the tool that Mr. Graham spoke about where plant varieties can work hand in hand with the 4Rs to help in the right place at the right time and help meet those goals.

As we look toward more resilient plants that can manage climate change—so you're getting greater productivity per hectare, protecting those green spaces—we see that the practice of plant breeding is about getting better varieties in the hands of farmers, and gene editing is just one more tool in the tool box that's going to help plant breeders continue to equip farmers with that moving forward.

With that, I'll put in a short statement that we are making great progress on clarified guidance around these products with the Government of Canada. It has stalled a little bit on the finish line. The policy is completed but is yet to be posted. It was due December 8, and we're waiting for it, but it's an exciting time to unleash more of those tools where they can continue to help with those environmental targets.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you very much, Mr. Affleck.

We're going to go to Mr. Falk now for five minutes.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses this morning for your presentations and for all that you do for Canadian agriculture. We appreciate it.

I'm going to start with CropLife Canada, if I may. Dr. Taylor, in your opening comments, you mentioned that in the last 40 years our GHG emissions have remained relatively stable, whereas our crop outputs have increased.

Do you have ratios on GHG per bushel, or any data like that available?

[Dr. Justine Taylor]

That data came from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. I believe in the same work where they presented that result, they have it broken down per crop. You would be able to find those specific details.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

That's very good.

Is there also data available for the emissions that are produced by agriculture and how much of that current crop absorbs or sequesters those emissions?

[Dr. Thomas Bruulsema]

Crops absorb carbon dioxide from the air. That's a very important point, because it's photosynthesis that limits the carbon that's available to build the carbon in the soil. It's only when the carbon is sequestered in the soil that it's considered taken out long enough, because everything that crops produce eventually gets consumed by a cow, or by people and is transferred back to CO2.

In a sense, it doesn't count, but the part that gets sequestered in the soil is the part that counts.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Do we have data on that?

[Ian Affleck]

I might add to that, Ted.

You're asking great, specific questions. Stuart Smyth, a researcher at the U of S, is currently mapping a lot of these exact numbers right now through the western provinces, because we have intrinsically known a good deal of this to be true, but the specifics are so important. We're seeing that information roll out more and more of our research institutions right now.

[Dr. Thomas Bruulsema]

Mr. Falk, to answer that question of whether we account for it now, the Canadian national inventory currently counts for some carbon sequestration, particularly in western Canada soils. What it does not count is farmer activities that may have an influence. Known activities, like the use of nitrification inhibitors, are not reflected in the national inventory.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

We still have some work to do in that regard.

[Dr. Thomas Bruulsema]

Agreed.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Very good.

I will shift over to Fertilizer Canada now. In your opening comments, you also indicated that we're going to need a 50% increase in food production from 2005 levels to meet anticipated world population levels.

Sixteen years later, having finished a 2021 crop year, how are we doing?

[Clyde Graham]

This has been a challenging year. I don't have the exact status, except that I think, generally, agriculture is increasing its yields. The key thing we have to do—we've had the discussion about biodiversity—is sustainable intensification.

We can't really produce.... All of the good farmland in the world is more or less under cultivation right now. If we can't find ways to grow more food on that existing land base, hungry people will cut down forests and they will drain swamps, wetlands and other habitat.

We're progressing to probably achieve the increase in food production that will be required by 2050, but we have to be very careful about how we do it, so that we don't affect other important environmental imperatives.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

As a follow-up on that question, the farmers I know in my region are very fertilizer-sensitive. Especially with the cost of fertilizer today—it's pretty much double what it was even a year ago—they are not going to put any more fertilizer in the ground than yields a return.

My question is whether you are seeing more and more smart applications. I looked at some technology a couple of years ago where every square foot of a field was being analyzed and there was application based on every square foot of the field from a fertilizer perspective.

Are you seeing more and more of that, where farmers are being much more...not only cost-sensitive, but environmentally friendly, so as not to over apply?

I guest that would be part of 4R.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

You have 20 seconds left.

[Clyde Graham]

I think 4R is being adopted. I think various practices under 4Rs are improving. It took 20 to 25 years to get zero till recognized as a key practice. I think we're coming up to about 16 years on the 4Rs right now, so I think we're making good progress.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you, Mr. Graham.

We're going to go to Ms. Valdez, please, for five minutes.

[Rechie Valdez, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Good afternoon, Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses who are here today.

I personally appreciate all the work you do, because you are at the forefront of innovation in a way that reduces the impact of climate change in agriculture. Thank you so much for that.

My first questions are for CropLife, either Mr. Affleck or Dr. Taylor.

Can you explain what regenerative agriculture is and how plant science supports regenerative agriculture?

[Dr. Justine Taylor]

Ian, do you want to take this one, or would you like me to? I'll start, and then I'll throw it over to Ian.

It's a good question. Regenerative ag itself is a little bit nebulous in terms of a definition. There seem to be a lot of interpretations of what is or is not encompassed and what are the must dos and the nice to dos, but in general the use of our tools, in our belief, supports the concept and the philosophy behind regenerative agriculture, which is no-till, cover crops and ensure that you're protecting those natural spaces on your farm. From our perspective, we believe our tools and future innovations, for that matter, would be in alignment with the philosophy behind regenerative ag.

[Ian Affleck]

Yes, I think if regenerative ag, at the end of the day, is about making your soil better than you found it, all of our tools are.... That's an agricultural goal to start with, as Ted talked about. His members are all looking to make their soil better than when they started.

The danger there—and I think this applies to the broad discussion—is that, if ideological policies trump science-based policies, then you can start applying systems to regenerative agriculture that might not lead to your outcomes.

I think I'd link that to what we've seen in Europe with their farm-to-fork policy. There are great end goals they might want to hit by making the world a better place, but, if you allow ideological policies rather than science to lead, it falls apart rather quickly. We've seen with the instability in Europe with Ukraine that they've hesitated to install the policy, and they've rolled back some of their measures that they had before, because they weren't really science-based measures that took into account that productivity element that was mentioned before.

As we move forward with climate and environment goals, we have to bring that productivity element with it, as Clyde mentioned, or it won't withstand any variability that we encounter, whether it be world markets, droughts or you name it.

[Rechie Valdez, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you so much for that.

You kind of touched on a few things, but I really wanted to know what the long-term benefits are with using regenerative agriculture.

[Ian Affleck]

I think I can give an example from growing up on a potato farm. I know that, when we had a bad field that wasn't performing well, my dad would go with a couple of years of rye grass, plow it down and bring the organic matter back up. That's the whole idea of regenerative ag: look for ways to enrich the soil, keep the carbon there, and keep the organic matter there in any way possible. When you can use better crop protection tools and better varieties, that's going to allow you different pathways to get to that same outcome.

Investing in your soil is like investing in the bank. That's where the crop productivity comes from, and the more healthy the soil, the better off we are. I think innovation is what's going to get us there, as there isn't any magic wand that's going to deliver it. It's going to be a combination of different innovative tools and practices.

[Rechie Valdez, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you, both, so much.

Mr. Nault, congratulations first on all of your progress and success.

An expert said in an article that, if we treat soil carbon as a renewable resource, we can change the dynamics. Can you share what your organization's technologies are doing to enable farmers to understand their soil and how that helps them in their future planning?