Agriculture Committee on May 9th, 2022

[Leah Taylor Roy]

Are there still ways to increase...?

I agree. Our agricultural sector, I have to say, has contributed a lot to carbon sequestration and helped with climate change. There's a lot more that can be done, and I think that's what we're exploring.

How are they rewarded for what they've done, and what's the balance going forward? What more can be done without hurting that sector in some way?

You were talking about the reduction in nitrogen fertilizers. Can you explain a bit about the impact that reducing nitrogen fertilizers would have on carbon capture, or whatever?

[Dr. Ed Gregorich]

I think my colleague, Dr.—

[Dr. Mervin St. Luce]

Yes, I can take this question.

[Leah Taylor Roy]

Thank you, Doctor.

[Dr. Mervin St. Luce]

As my colleague explained, carbon sequestration requires carbon input, and that carbon input would depend mostly on the crop. The crops depend on the nutrients, especially nitrogen, for biomass reduction in carbon—I mean, reduction in nitrogen fertilizer. There can be a reduction in biomass production, but it depends on the environment. It depends on the soil. Different soils have different levels of organic matter, which is the storage potential of the soil, both in terms of the nutrients, the holding capacity, and the food for the microbes to “do their business”, as we describe it.

There is no one answer to this. There is no one-size-fits-all answer, especially in western Canada, where we have brown soils, black soils and black-brown soils. It depends on the level of organic matter. Having less fertilizer applied, for example, in a black soil zone may not impact yield as much as having less fertilizer applied in a brown soil zone, which has very low organic matter. It also depends on moisture, which is the main driver, especially in western Canada.

We want to keep biomass production, but we have to do that in co-operation with lowering the soil's potential to provide nutrients for the crop.

[Leah Taylor Roy]

Is it possible to increase...? How would we go about increasing the biomass in the brown soils?

[Dr. Mervin St. Luce]

That's a very good question.

We have to meet the crop demand, and that is a very difficult process to enact. Research has been ongoing in this area for many decades, and we are still pushing forward to be able to match the crop demand with the supply from both the fertilizer and the soil.

We definitely want to maintain yields, especially with the new varieties that have high yield potential. We are updating the fertilizer recommendations, as time goes by, for new varieties.

As we all know, climate change is having some impact. Whether it's drought or excess moisture, that can also have a major impact. Even if we have the right amount of fertilizer applied, unless we have the right conditions, we will not get the optimum yield that we targeted.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you, Ms. Taylor Roy. Thank you, Dr. St. Luce.

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

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Saindon, we spoke earlier about the on-farm climate action fund. Does this program recognize past contributions of agricultural producers?

We want to improve practices, but some people have been innovating for many years. If the program doesn't recognize those contributions, would it be possible to do so?

We've had witnesses on this committee who assured us that they could measure the current agri-environmental performance of soils and that their method was feasible.

Could we have your comments on that?

[Dr. Gilles Saindon]

Thank you for the question.

Some appreciable gains have been made over the years as a result of initiative taken by agricultural producers. We recognize that.

Currently, we refer to these contributions as net gains, meaning that we have soils in balance at a certain level and a greenhouse gas emissions record of X in Canada. Everything that was done in the past represents a net gain. As Dr. Gregorich said, we have to ensure that we don't lose those net gains.

When it comes to new funding—

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

I 'm sorry to interrupt you, but I don't have much time.

You say we need to make sure we don't lose any net gains. I, for one, feel that these individuals should be encouraged to maintain their practices. Much like when we allocate funds to a producer to allow them to plant trees, we need to make sure that they will be able to keep them in the long term.

Don't you think that support and encouragement should be provided permanently, or over the long term in other words?

[Dr. Gilles Saindon]

I understand your question, but I don't really have any guidelines for preserving net gains made on farms. When we provide funding to foster new farming practices, we'd like to see those practices sustained for as long as possible. Yes, in the current environment, these initiatives should be permanent.

As to whether the funding will be aligned with that, I'm not in a position to answer that question.

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

Thank you, Mr. Saindon.

I'd also like to talk about transportation. We've spoken at length about carbon storage and better agricultural practices. I mentioned grassland earlier. Any of the witnesses who would like to tell me if anything else can be done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from livestock besides using 3‑NOP, please go ahead, I would be interested.

I'll give you an example. Let's say cattle are grazing in a remote area. An ecosystem is created. Now, if you move that cattle hundreds or even thousands of miles away by train or truck, that's bound to hurt agri-environmental performance.

In your studies, do you take into account transportation-related factors peripherally connected to farming?

Do you feel we could improve our regional processing infrastructure to keep transportation at a bare minimum?

[Dr. Gilles Saindon]

Yes, transportation is a major contributing factor to our greenhouse gas emissions record, and we do account for it. The more economic gains there are in terms of transporting the original or processed product, the more positive the effect.

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

If any other witnesses would like to respond to my question, they're welcome to do so.

They say that, for better carbon storage, it's preferable to use plants with deep and wide root systems and that some plants are more effective than others.

Is this taken into account in best practice incentive programs aiming for fair prices or fostering crop rotation?

Are these criteria used when planting? How do you encourage this?

What research has been done into this?

[Dr. Louis-Pierre Comeau]

If I may, I can try to answer the question, Mr. Chair.

Yes, we do take that into account. As mentioned earlier, each region is different and has its own unique characteristics. In many regions, the deeper roots of some plants are more effective. It may be different in other areas. That's why we have 20 research centres across Canada—it's a big country—with researchers in every province and every region. They study the ecosystems so they can make specific recommendations based on each microenvironment.

As my colleague Mervin St. Luce mentioned, there's no one size fits all approach, but we do have researchers working hard across Canada to make specific recommendations on this.

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

Thank you, Dr. Comeau.

Speaking of microenvironments, I'd like to talk about small farms. Earlier, Mr. Lehoux raised the issue of access to technology and precision farming.

Could you elaborate on that for us?

What's the current situation in that regard and how can we make technology more easily accessible to small producers?

[Dr. Louis-Pierre Comeau]

We don't focus on the access to funding issue in the scientific research division at Agriculture and Agri-food Canada, but we do work hard with all our partners to make knowledge accessible to all farming operations, large and small.

We study precision agriculture on farms, regardless of size, and we share our knowledge with them.

We partner with both small and large farms. We do our best to help as many people as possible.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you, Dr. Comeau and Mr. Perron.

Mr. MacGregor, you now have the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The theme of my first question is going to be very similar to what Monsieur Perron just asked.

We've clearly established that higher soil carbon content allows our farmers to better withstand extreme weather events. The higher soil carbon content allows us to both retain more water during drought years and act as a sponge when we get excess precipitation events.

What I also want to know about is the plant breeding side of things. We know that looking after healthy soils is going to help us better withstand that, but I also want to know about the role in plant breeding. We know that these extreme weather events are going to become more and more common in the future. Are our current crop genetics going to be able to withstand this rapid pace of change that is affecting western Canada in particular? What can research tell us about plant breeding techniques that might better help future crops adapt to these rapidly changing climates?

[Dr. Gilles Saindon]

I'll take this question on the plant breeding side.

You're absolutely right that it's an important component. For good production, you need good soil, you need good management conditions and you also need good genetics. It's a constant balancing act in this particular case.

As an objective for some of the components in breeding, we have researchers working in the area of nutrient use efficiency and people working on water use efficiencies. We know that these components are genetic—they're controlled within the plants—so it's a component of our breeding program, and it's one of many. We also have to have resistance to diseases and to insects, and we have to choose accordingly. That's a component that is already in some of the programs.

What we're probably going to see more and more is increased effort to look at the root systems to try to have plants with bigger root systems. This will help with sourcing water and nutrients, adding carbon to the rhizosphere after harvest and leaving more residue. We'll try to keep that in balance with the portion of energy that goes into the grain that is harvested—

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

Can I interrupt? I have a quick intervention on that.

One thing I also want to know about is whether, in the face of this rapid change, traditional plant breeding techniques can keep up with the rapid change, or do we need, policy-wise, to explore the promise that technologies like CRISPR may provide to us?

That's what I want to know from our scientists, because this is a very big question for our agricultural sector over the next decade.

[Dr. Gilles Saindon]

On this particular component of plant breeding innovation and the use of biotechnology in general, yes, all of these tools are very useful. However, when you look at yields, it's usually many genes at a time, so to fix them one gene at a time may also be quite a challenging task.

We welcome any technology that would be able to bring these genes faster to a finished product.

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

My next question is similar in theme to what Mr. Turnbull asked. He was talking about agro-ecological principles.

I have farmers in my own riding, and I know farmers in every single province, who are engaged in what is called “regenerative agriculture”. They are really trying to lead the way in upsetting the paradigm. What they would like to know is, if they're putting in all this hard work and they're driving the change, what is AAFC's understanding of the term “regenerative agriculture”? What kinds of policies and programs is it going to put into place to help those farmers meet their goals and try to put this paradigm shift into greater practice across Canada?

I don't want a political answer.