Agriculture committee  Mr. Chair and committee members, thank you very much for the opportunity to be here today. The council is very delighted to be able to take part in your study on soils because we are very interested in soils. I am Alan Kruszel. I'm the chairman of this fine association called th

Agriculture committee  You certainly do. Unfortunately, ladies and gentlemen, soil conservation is not something that is done. We have made great strides in this country on conserving our soils. We are no longer the dirty thirties. We have made some vast improvements, but there is an enormous amount o

Agriculture committee  That was ours, Mr. Chair. He was supposed to join us by video conference, but there was an issue with the video conference in Saskatoon.

Agriculture committee  Is human activity causing problems? Yes. Are there solutions? Certainly.

Agriculture committee  Yes.

Agriculture committee  It is human activity. The most important factor is the destruction of organic matter in our soil. If we are able to recover the organic matter and enrich our soil with carbon from the air, it will mitigate the effects of climate change.

Agriculture committee  No, not yet.

Agriculture committee  Correct. We are trying to promote zero tillage as a way to face up to climate change better. If we can put in more organic matter, the yields will be more stable. If there is too much water, the water can drain away more quickly. We can have yields even during droughts. We really

Agriculture committee  Right.

Agriculture committee  Certainly, pricing carbon incentivizes change on the agricultural landscape, in particular, if you can do some kind of offset system or something where farmers get paid to sequester carbon.

Agriculture committee  Our concern would be, once that happens, what incentivizes them to keep it there?

Agriculture committee  We've seen that, occasionally, with other systems, not necessarily carbon, but somebody gets a payment to do something, it's great, and it lasts for a couple of years, but then once the payment disappears, they revert to what they were doing previously.

Agriculture committee  There has to be some way to continue that, either a payment or something, to make sure that the change actually stays in place, to make sure that carbon stays secure.

Agriculture committee  That's right.

Agriculture committee  For sure. Diversity of crop cover is obviously very important. We promote, very strongly, crop rotation. In Ontario, where I am from, crop rotation is not phenomenal. We have a lot of corn, soybeans, corn, soybeans. That's not a crop rotation. We'd much rather see a three or four