Environment committee  Again, I think this goes back to some fundamentals in sustainability. Number one is soil health. Number two is water use efficiency. Number three is greenhouse gas balance. Number four is farm viability. For these programs that we're putting forward, farmers need to be viable.

Environment committee  We're utilizing satellite technology or remote-sensing technology to do bio-vegetation index maps. We take soil samples based on the zones that are in those bio-vegetation index maps. Satellites give us the maps. We go into the field and soil-test, and then agronomists like me wi

Environment committee  I think it's important to understand that every breath we take is 78% inert nitrogen—every breath you take, every move you make, it should be a song. The Haber-Bosch process turns that inert nitrogen into fertilizer that ultimately supports 50% of the protein in every man, woman

Environment committee  There are all kinds of remote-sensing technologies, as well as bioengineering down the line, such as what's happening in Argentina with a company called Bioceres, which is producing wheat that's resilient to drought and saline soils. That's an example of genetic engineering movin

Environment committee  Absolutely. I've been working with farmers since my hair was a dark colour—it's not now—and in all of the places I've travelled to in the world, whether it was Kazakhstan or South America, I've never met a farmer who wants to spend any more money on crop inputs than they need to.

Environment committee  Absolutely. Yes.

Environment committee  Absolutely. Yes.

Environment committee  Yes. What are the alternatives?

Environment committee  My concern with this whole thing as an agronomist is, “30% from where?” My understanding is that the coefficient they're using to calculate the reduction of 30% has a minus-30 and a plus-40 error in the standard deviation of the coefficient. This means that with just the coeffici

Environment committee  Yes, I'll quickly do some cowboy math. For every 1% increase in organic matter in soils, farmers pull out of the air approximately 20 tonnes of carbon dioxide. I'll repeat that: For every 1% increase in soil organic matter, 20 tonnes of carbon dioxide go into the soil. In western

Environment committee  When you think about the forest—and my esteemed colleague talked about biochar and the utilization of biomass—you burn wood, and somehow that is a cycle that everybody recognizes. The half-life of methane is 10 years. The half-life of carbon dioxide is 1,000 years. Carbon dioxide

Environment committee  Yes. There are a number of measurement devices that are being experimented with right now. If I was asked categorically if there was one that you would depend upon, I would say no. They're still trying to do regression analysis to find out if these measurement devices.... Satelli

Environment committee  Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, I'm a professional agrologist and a certified agriculture consultant. In 2006, I was recognized by Alberta as a distinguished agrologist, in 2014 as Canadian agri-marketer of the year, and in 2021 as one of Canada's top 50 most influent