Good afternoon. My name is Carl Stewart, and thank you very much for this invitation.
I farm wheat, canola, soybeans and peas in Manitoba. I'm also a director for the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association. We represent grassroots wheat farmers. Our goal is to promote policies that strengthen the sector, help Canada be a world leader in wheat production and ultimately benefit consumers with healthy and affordable food staples.
I gave a great deal of thought to this invitation. As farmers, we deal every day in science, the science of soil preservation, crop management and fertilizer. We care deeply about science and technology, because those help us become better farmers and deliver higher quality and better yields.
We have always worked closely with Agriculture Canada, a department that was—was—in the business of leveraging science to make Canadian agriculture safe, healthy and productive. I'll say more on that later.
Good science doesn’t just come from scientists in research labs or universities. Good science also comes from the citizens who practise it. Doctors, for example, are scientists insofar as they apply what they learn in constantly evolving and experimental settings with their patients to see what works best.
We are worried that science is taking a back seat to ideology. I’ll give you an example. The current federal government says that it wants farmers to reduce fertilizer use to help it meet commitments to greenhouse gas reduction. The trouble is that there is no science that backs up that policy position.
It’s simple. With less fertilizer, we will grow less wheat. World demand for wheat will not decline, so less Canadian wheat will be produced and more will be produced overseas by countries whose farmers use far more fertilizer than Canadian farmers. It’s called carbon leakage. Cutting our fertilizer use will cause more fertilizer-based CO2. It’s a simple calculus, but it’s not being applied by our government.
Recently we learned that Agriculture Canada, which used to be committed to using science to help Canadian farmers grow more crops, has now changed its mandate to “mitigating and adapting to climate change”. That scares farmers, because now Ag Canada cares less about what grows in the Palliser triangle and more about Paris accords.
As for citizen science, well, there may be a role for it, but we worry that citizen science can easily be captured by the dominant ideology of the day. Instead, we would advocate, as far as agriculture is concerned, that we leave the science to scientists and practitioners. The greatest benefit to consumers will come from scientists and practitioners working together to increase the food supply to keep it safe, healthy and affordable. Let’s keep ideology out of the food supply.
Thank you.