Thanks very much, Corey.
Good evening. I speak to you today from Treaty 6 territory, the traditional homeland of the Métis, and the centre of the prairie provinces.
I grew up in Saskatchewan and did my first two degrees here before moving to California for my Ph.D. I returned to USask as a professor of soil science and eventually started as dean of agriculture and bioresources in the summer 2020.
The prairie provinces are home to 81% of Canada's farmland. I’m here to talk about how agriculture and ag research are part of the solution for achieving Canada’s climate goals. I speak as both a dean whose college transcends any perceived boundary between environment and agriculture, and as a scientist whose research has always focused on that interplay between soils and their environment.
With that, I’ll begin my comments where I’m grounded—in the soil. In 1937, Roosevelt said, “A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself.” Soil performs a myriad of ecosystem services, only one of which is supporting plant growth. Soil plays a crucial role in global water and nutrient cycles, in particular, carbon and nitrogen cycles, which are essential for plant growth but problematic when mismanaged.
On the Prairies, we celebrate the no-till success story, a widespread change in management that served to drastically reduce erosion, conserve water and nutrients, and increase carbon storage: a win-win-win. But to further enhance soil carbon sequestration and any associated benefits, we must further our understanding of what drives carbon dynamics, how agronomic decisions affect the quantity and the quality right down to the molecular level of the carbon that is stored.
Moving on to plants, the crop development centre here at the University of Saskatchewan is another incredible success story. When you drive our endless prairie highways flanked by fields of cereals, oilseeds and pulses, the impact of crop breeders is everywhere, but crop breeding is about more than increasing yield or commodities. With genomic advances, we are able to isolate specific traits and look at how they perform under different environmental conditions. This will allow us to develop crops that have a higher probability of success under climate extremes. Furthermore, what traits contribute to greater carbon sequestration, or require less fertilizer and the associated energy inputs, or are more resilient to other emerging threats coming with climate change, like new pests and pathogens? This is all part of climate change adaptation, and research in this area is going to be crucial in the years ahead.
Let’s move up the food chain to animal agriculture. It gets a bad rap from an environmental perspective, but here’s the thing: of that 81% of Canada’s ag land that's here in the Prairies, over one-third of it is used for pasture or forage. It feeds animals who feed us. Pasture tends to be grown where we can't produce other crops due to climate or soil limitations, but perennial grasses and forage crops are also massive carbon sinks, meaning animal agriculture is actually the most environmentally appropriate use of a large proportion of our very large land base. Rather than just focusing on eating less meat, can we better understand the role of animal agriculture as part of the ecosystem? How can we optimize grassland and forage productivity and by extension soil health and carbon sequestration? Can we tweak diets and supplements even further to reduce methane production?
Finally, not everything we grow is consumed by humans. Canola crushing for our fryers or our biodiesel also produces canola meal that can be used as animal feed. Plant-based protein extracted from field peas has starch as a by-product, which can be turned into pill casings or compostable packaging. Wherever possible, can we integrate stewardship of the land and water and plants and animals into a closed loop system? Are we doing everything we can to capture value and minimize waste? Our bioprocessing scientists and our economists can help us by identifying opportunities for fully utilizing what we produce, and by understanding all the costs and benefits of our decisions, both direct and indirect.
Our long-term success requires research that spans boundaries and the very success of prairie agriculture is built on collaborations among university and government researchers, industry and the farmers and producers. Programs like CAP and agri-science clusters are examples of funding mechanisms that have worked really well and should be continued.
We continue to look for more ways to facilitate cross-sector collaboration, including things like infrastructure.
In Saskatchewan, we are currently looking at opportunities for a new plant growth facility that would support shared research needs of university, Ag Canada, NRC, and the private sector. Right now, our biggest challenge is a workable shared governance model. How can we make this easier?
In closing, in the Prairies, our researchers and ag industry are already part of the climate change solution. We are willing and able to do more, but we need the infrastructure, support systems and funding in place to do the necessary research, and then the policy to translate it into action.
Together, we can and will dig deeper, and explore new ways forward, recognizing that the best opportunities will grow our collective future, contributing to both economic and environmental sustainability.
Thank you.