Thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee members. Good afternoon. My name is Duane Thompson. I'm a rancher from Saskatchewan. I have the pleasure of chairing the Canadian Cattle Association environment committee. Joining me today is fellow rancher and chair of the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, Ryan Beierbach.
We are pleased to participate in your committee's freshwater study. CCA represents 60,000 beef producers across Canada. We are world leaders in sustainable production for high-quality beef, with one of the lowest greenhouse gas footprints in the world per unit of production, at roughly half the global average. While contributing significantly to the Canadian economy and environment, the beef industry accounts for only 2.45% of the country's total greenhouse gas footprint. Beef producers steward over 44 million acres of grasslands, which store at least 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon and contribute to the largest portion of wildlife habitat and biodiversity, comprising 68% of wildlife habitat on just 33% of total agricultural land in Canada.
As the committee has heard from us before, we take our commitments to environmental stewardship seriously. Water management is a key part of the stewardship. We have made strong progress, but we're not about to rest on our laurels. The Canadian beef industry has created ambitious goals toward 2030 that look at the whole picture of an environment, from emissions intensity reduction to conservation of grasslands and other considerations, including fresh water. Water and water security is critical to continued agriculture production but also to ensuring animal health, soil health and infrastructure, both on farms and in surrounding habitats. Our commitment focuses on how beef producers rely on fresh water, the infrastructure that surrounds fresh water and how that impacts food production and our environmental goals regarding fresh water.
With the new Canadian water agency in development and further attention being placed on fresh water, we need to ensure that farmers and ranchers are a key part of the conversation. We take into account the landscapes, how fresh water interacts with agriculture production and where key infrastructure support is needed. Beef farms and ranches operate across immense open and forested landscapes. Much of our lands, such as pastures, riparian areas and forest ranges, are natural water storage and filtration systems. Because of the need for water, our beef farms and ranches are established in large part in close proximity to water sources. Water needs to be accessed in many cases—moved or directed for drainage, crop irrigation and livestock watering—to manage ranch operations. While irrigation is mostly a provincial jurisdiction, the access to irrigation for cattle producers is important to note for your study's consideration.
Given the role that farmers and ranchers play in food production while conserving ecosystems surrounding the beef operations, we need to ensure that agriculture-related activities are taken into account when making policies and regulations. We pay particular attention to how the federal government's policies on water can unintentionally impact agriculture practices, infrastructure and food production.
On this point, I'd like to mention minor works and minor freshwater policy regulations. While these policies are not a focal point of the freshwater study, we have general concerns about routine activities and small projects on beef operations in relation to fresh water. We ask that members of Parliament consider the potential impacts of future and existing legislation and regulation on agriculture operations. Exemptions for agriculturally related routine activities should always be a consideration so as not to negatively impact fresh water and food production.
Further, beef producers have concerns about private bodies of fresh water on their land and how government policy may impact agriculture production. For example, where a normally self-contained lake on a farm or ranch experiences runoff or flooding, in the event of substantial overflow, the overflow runs downslope. It exists on private property and can branch into public areas. There is considerable concern that during such a situation, the public could claim navigable access rights to the albeit temporary flowing and possibly now navigable waters. We need to remove the ambiguity around that to prevent the misuse of these waters by the general public.