Thank you very much to the members of the committee for inviting me to testify today. It is a pleasure for me to be with you.
I have provided two documents to the committee. The first is a letter written to Senator Robert Black this spring regarding land degradation and the need for monitoring. The second document is a PowerPoint presentation in which we provide our latest research findings.
I am speaking to you today as a researcher from Université Laval who works in the field.
There is one thing that I want to highlight in relation to the bill. In our document, we announced that agricultural soil compaction levels were reaching very high levels. Our study concerns Quebec, but we suspect that the same is true for eastern Canada, Ontario and, in some cases, for heavy soils in the Peace River and Fraser Valley areas. At the time of the study, we estimated soil compaction levels to be in the 30% to 90% range; we did not know the exact figures. However, our latest surveys in the major grain corn growing region of southwestern Quebec indicate compaction levels of about 80%.
Figure 5 in the PowerPoint presentation I sent to you indicates that, given the thresholds reached, denitrification could result in a loss of 10% to 60% of the nitrogen in the nitrogen fertilizers that are applied.
Through my testimony, I want to emphasize that it would be very relevant to encourage monitoring with respect to soil quality and compaction levels if we want to effectively combat denitrification, which is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. In this case, taxation should instead be based, through concerted efforts, on improving soil quality.
That is the essence of the point I wanted to make today.