Evidence of meeting #16 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was soil.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Small-Scale and Urban Agricultural Entrepreneur, City of Greens Farm, As an Individual
We don't right now because we haven't put any greenhouses up, but it is in our plan to extend the growing season by having low-cost greenhouse systems that don't require a lot of heat through the winter. We're just working towards that right now.
Conservative
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
That's very good.
You mentioned “regenerative farming” a lot. Can you give me one example of what you're actually doing from a regeneration perspective?
Small-Scale and Urban Agricultural Entrepreneur, City of Greens Farm, As an Individual
We've taken what was essentially an acre of grass or lawn that had to be mowed or cut and we've built a bio-intensive market garden on it. We don't till up the soil. We add high-quality compost. We grow cover crops in between annual crops. These cover crops help build up the soil while also providing nutrients and soil life that help grow our annual vegetable crops.
We really focus on harvesting and cycling nutrients on site. We catch and store all our own water in ponds and diversion systems and then use those inputs to irrigate our farm. We're integrating chickens and laying hens right now, using the outputs from them to generate and develop our own compost so that we don't have to be dependent on buying it from outside sources.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Kody Blois
You have 10 seconds, but thank you for being on time and thank you for your line of questioning.
Mr. Turnbull, we go over to you.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
Thanks to all our witnesses for being here today. It's really great. I especially want to say kudos to Ryan Cullen for being here. He's a local Durham region resident and food champion in our local community.
Mr. Cullen, I'm going to start with you. In terms of small-scale, bio-intensive farming using—as you said—holistic and regenerative methods, I think you said in your opening remarks that a small-scale farm using those methods is highly viable. Am I correct in that?
Small-Scale and Urban Agricultural Entrepreneur, City of Greens Farm, As an Individual
Yes, absolutely. To throw some numbers out there, on a one-acre market garden, we should be able to produce enough food for 50 to 100 people. Economically we can generate over $100,000 of annual vegetable crops with 40% to 60% margins, depending on the skill of the grower, costs of inputs and things like that.
Yes, they are viable, and we make a good living and employ a small number of people just on our scale.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
Thank you.
In terms of seasonal extension, I know that previously I talked to you, and you showed me a greenhouse that was running on geothermal energy. I know that greenhouses are challenging to keep going and are costly in terms of the inputs, but if we use renewable energy.... Was that greenhouse successful from your perspective?
Small-Scale and Urban Agricultural Entrepreneur, City of Greens Farm, As an Individual
Yes, very much so. We built a passive solar greenhouse using a standard, off-the-shelf, hard wall style greenhouse. We started growing in the dead of winter, and we were able to successfully maintain temperatures above 0°C by storing all the heat into the soil using heat pumps and geothermal under the soil as a heat source and sink. We were able to, weekly, grow salad greens in there throughout the winter.
Going forward, this is really where, especially in Canada in our cold climate, we need to focus some of our innovation and technology. We grow crops year-round that we otherwise aren't growing now. We can be less dependent on imports with very basic, simple technology and greenhouse systems that already exist. Applying other technologies like geothermal and HVAC systems from other industries and coupling them with greenhouses, we can grow year-round and have that viability.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
Thanks, Mr. Cullen.
Professor MacRae, I'm going to go to you now. I noticed on your website that you talked about the need to move from what you call more efficiency stage strategies to substitution and redesign stage strategies.
Could you describe what you mean by that?
Associate Professor, Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, York University, As an Individual
Yes, there's a transition framework that usually has to be applied to any kind of change process. Part of our challenge is that we often don't use transition thinking. The idea here is that we start with relatively straightforward changes that improve the efficiency of the processes broadly speaking. That's just the first stage, because what we have to do in the longer term is start to substitute certain kinds of processes and practices for ones that aren't working very well.
The third stage, the redesign stage, is where we're really taking a lot of ecological ideas, and my colleagues on the panel have spoken to some of these dimensions. We're using those ecological principles and practices to redesign the way our various systems are working. It's really a three-stage process.
Obviously the substitution stage is more complex and takes longer to implement. Redesign is more complex again, but if we're thinking in transition terms from the very beginning, then it's easier to imagine how things might unfold in a reasonably evolutionary way without too much disruption.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
Thank you, Mr. MacRae.
If climate change can indeed be fought on the farm, which I think we're hearing from Mr. Cullen is certainly the case, what are the biggest changes to policy, Mr. MacRae, that are needed in order for us to incentivize the right types of behaviour on the farm?
Associate Professor, Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, York University, As an Individual
I think we need to have transition advisory services all across the country. Obviously the provinces have a big role to play in this, but, because of the Canadian agricultural partnership, there's an opportunity for the federal government, especially at this stage of negotiations, to promote and help to fund these transitional advisory services. They work very effectively in Europe. That's a key piece.
I think the sustainable diet scenario that my colleague on the panel has mentioned is also very important. In other words, farmers want to be producing things that consumers will want to eat, and if consumers are asking for things that fit into a sustainable diet scenario, that will obviously be a market-based kind of incentive.
Another thing that I think is going to be very important down the road and that has also been used very effectively in other jurisdictions is transition payments because, for a lot of growers, the transition period is the most financially risky. To help finance that transition phase while they're taking advantage of these transition advisory services is another key dimension of the process.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
Mr. MacRae, on your website you talk about the importance of soil organic matter and probably the need to replace some of the nitrogen-based fertilizers or gradually transition off those in a way that makes sense for the agricultural industry.
Do you have any ideas about how we could embed that in policy?
Associate Professor, Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, York University, As an Individual
One of the problems right now is that, as I mentioned off the top, our program designs are not really based on systems adoption.
For example, you have Mr. Cullen's kind of system. We don't really incentivize that kind of transition process, and there are many ways in which we can do it. There can be direct payments. We can use different kinds of tax-based incentives. Of course, some of them will be administered at other levels of government, which is why there's this key requirement for better policy integration. There are many instruments out there that can be used to create those kinds of incentives.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Kody Blois
Thank you, Mr. MacRae.
I apologize. We're out of time.
Thank you, Mr. Turnbull.
Mr. Perron, you have the floor for six minutes.
Bloc
Yves Perron Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to thank the witnesses for joining us today to give us their important testimony.
Mr. MacRae, I'd like to let you continue, because you're on to something good. You just mentioned that there aren't enough incentives, that the transition will be long-term and that incentives need to be maintained.
I don't know if you heard what was said during the first panel. If every innovation made on farms were rewarded with an amount of money that would be available to farmers as entrepreneurs, farmers could use that money to implement a future innovation. In this way, the aim would be to constantly improve environmental performance. Do you think this would be a good model?
Associate Professor, Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, York University, As an Individual
Yes, I do think it's a good model.
Part of the idea with transition payments is that it's not a long-term process. It's usually transition payments within a three-year window, and sometimes those payments can be reduced over time.
The idea with transition payments is not to completely substitute for what the market can provide to farmers. It's more to take away some of the riskiest elements of the transition process, and then once they're through the transition, many farmers are in a much better position to take advantage of those market opportunities.
Bloc
Yves Perron Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
Would you recommend to the committee that these amounts be decentralized and not necessarily found in government‑mandated programs? In the future, producers could benefit from this money to make a new improvement, which would in turn be recognized, evaluated and rewarded. That would keep the fund available, much like the way the AgriInvest program works right now. Do you think that would be a good model?
Associate Professor, Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, York University, As an Individual
It's very important that transition payments be associated with certain kinds of recognized sustainability protocols and that those protocols be authenticated. That creates the kind of market confidence that consumers will often need.
If you get this integrated approach where the farmer is getting transition advice from these transition advisory services, which would probably have to be provincially focused given jurisdictional requirements, and there are payments, the payments could be coming from multiple sources. We already have the Canadian agricultural partnership model, which is an FPT model, so you could have the money coming from different places. Then if the farmers are themselves certified and can identify their products in the marketplace, that strikes me as a very strong, integrated package.
Bloc
Director, Perennial Agriculture Institute
It's an interesting question.
It seems to me that there aren't any one-size-fits-all practices. I don't think it would be appropriate to mandate that all farmers must implement a particular practice, because each piece of land is a bit different and each farmer's needs and their market, and so on, are different as well. I suspect that in crafting policy it would be important to leave the flexibility for the farmer to play a key role in determining which practices are right for them and for their land. That's what I think.
Also, there might be a sort of ladder. You might begin with a practice like cover cropping and then step up to adding shelterbelts and continue adding additional practices over time. It would be useful to build in a mechanism that allows farmers to continue to ratchet up their climate impact in that fashion.
Bloc
Yves Perron Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Toensmeier.
Mr. Cullen, I'd like to hear your opinion on the same topic, please.
Small-Scale and Urban Agricultural Entrepreneur, City of Greens Farm, As an Individual
Thank you.
Any kinds of incentives we can offer to farmers.... As Mr. Toensmeier said, every farm is different; every context is different. If there is a general set of practices that can be outlined in a framework from within which to operate, then, I think, farmers like me can identify certain practices and be contributing certain practices, and then be rewarded for them.
What's important, too, is some sort of green-tape cutting to make it easier for farmers like me to erect greenhouses in certain municipalities or use different types of innovations and infrastructure that might not otherwise be recognized, allow it to be more easily implemented without the costs of permits and regulations and things like that, and give farmers more creativity and more opportunities in different contexts, especially someone like me, who farms in an urban and peri-urban context.
Bloc
Yves Perron Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
Thank you, Mr. Cullen. I understand your intent. Basically, you think that the system should be decentralized. So there is unanimous agreement on this idea.
I have one last question for you. You talked about organic farming. You don't understand why you have to pay for organic certification. I'd like to hear more about that, as well as the funding for the organic standard, which hasn't been renewed by the federal government. What do you think of this?