Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Agriculture and Forestry
Issue 11 - Evidence
LETHBRIDGE, Wednesday, February 26, 2003
The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry met this day at 1:30 p.m. to examine and report on the impact of climate change on Canada's agriculture, forests and rural communities and the potential adaptation options focusing on primary production, practices, technologies, ecosystems and other related areas.
Senator Donald H. Oliver (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: I would like to call to order this session of the Senate Standing Committee on Agriculture and Forestry. We have just arrived in Lethbridge, and we are continuing our study into the effects of climate change in three areas: agriculture, forestry, and rural communities.
Our first witness is from the University of Lethbridge, Professor James Byrne. Professor Byrne, we invite you to begin your presentation.
Our procedure is as follows: after you make a presentation of 10 minutes or so, we will open the floor to senators to ask a series of questions. We like to have as much time for questions as possible, and they will be varied and interesting.
Mr. James Byrne, Professor, University of Lethbridge: My principal area of interest is climate and water. The key question is: Is the climate changing? My impression is that this committee agrees that the climate is changing.
The Chairman: I think I am safe in saying that we are fairly convinced that there is a climate change going on.
Mr. Byrne: Thank you. This is Michael Mann's hockey stick. It shows the long-term climate trends in the northern hemisphere and that last little glitch that forms the blade of the hockey stick is the 20th Century.
My principal concern is with snow and ice, and Canadians should be concerned with snow and ice because it is the principal source of runoff of our surface stream flow supplies.
Glaciers and ice fields all over the world are retreating. The snows of Kilimanjaro are going to disappear within a few years. Kilimanjaro has not been ice-free for 11,000 years, and it will be ice-free within the next 20 or 30 years.
Glacier National Park is one of the principal sources of runoff water for the St. Mary River system. Most of the glaciers in that park have disappeared over the last hundred years, and we fully expect that the park will be a misnomer within 40 years. We are looking at a radical change in the ice phase in the southern Rocky Mountains.
When I was a young boy travelling over the Sun Road, there were huge snowfields up there, yet those snowfields have disappeared in the last 10 to 20 years, and you just do not see them anymore.
A paper published in November by a prominent University of Toronto scientist, found that the snow accumulation of Mount Logan is very closely linked to global climate.
We have studied the southern Rocky Mountains because that is the primary source of runoff and irrigation water for most of our region. We are looking at climate change over the next 20 to 40 years. We looked at a small part of the Oldman watershed here in southern Alberta. We are studying the near future and it fills me with concern for both my children and myself.
Our Oldman River findings indicate that the runoff, within the time-period of 2020-50 will decline as much as 50 per cent.
There will be a radical change in the snow accumulation in the Rocky Mountains because of warmer winters. As a result of this climate change how we operate here in Alberta will be very different as well. On the plains local communities, farms, and ranches are very dependent on local runoff.
I did my Ph.D. on plains hydrology and can tell you that the plains depend upon snowfall in the winter to provide them with water in the spring. We have not been getting much snowfall on the southern plains and the local water sources are drying up.
There may be a silver lining to that cloud because the precipitation will seep into the soil and may allow us to produce a little bit more in the way of crops, as grasslands, and grazing lands, but we will not have the watering holes, we will not have the streams to provide water that livestock and others need. That is a concern.
Climate change is affecting snow and ice all over the world. In western North American the concern is for our western rivers that are not receiving enough snow runoff. Using the Oldman River as an example our numbers usually come up with 40 per cent decline within 20 to 50 years.
The agriculture industry has suffered a great many losses over the couple of years, and I find it frustrating that the nation has been so slow to address climate change. Last year we lost billions of dollars. I am not an economist. The provincial government spent $324 million, and that was not even a drop in the bucket compared to their losses.
I think we have to go to bat for agriculture, and I think there are other interest groups, and other industries that have to recognize that there is a better way, and we have to find it.
Anybody who stands before you and says uncertainty is a reason to do nothing is saying the wrong thing. I would like to see us move forward. Exactly how we move forward beyond research is still a question.
Every time I make a statement like this, I feel that people think it is a statement of self-interest. My colleagues will tell you that no matter how big or how small their grant pool is, their salaries seem to stay about the same. What we do need to do is get more resources to address the issue of climate change scientifically.
I appreciate the funds that have been provided by the Government of Canada through agencies like the Climate Change Action Fund with Natural Resources Canada. However, it is underfunded by a factor of ten or more in terms of the meaningful work that needs to be done.
When we are suffering billions of dollars of losses, having a few hundred thousand dollars to do research on the matter just does not seem appropriate. I also wanted to point out that climate change is only one part of a larger phenomenon which is affecting us, and that is called ``global change.'' Global change includes all of the environmental changes that are happening in the world. Population growth both here and in the developing world has had a dramatic impact on climate change.
Many people point at the developing world and say their population growth is a problem. It is not as much of a problem as our population growth is. The consumption of resources in North America and Western Europe is disgusting compared to what is consumed in the developing world.
Our resource utilization could be cut back to a fraction and not change our life-style, and we could bring our fellow citizens of the developing world up to a better standard if we would pay attention and look towards developing some of these technologies. Many of them are almost in place now, and I would love to spend more time talking about them if you are interested in learning about them.
So thank you very much for listening. I have brought along a copy of our ``Global Change'' television production. I was the science producer on it. We were lucky enough to win an Alberta Motion Picture award for best educational television production. We are now working on a further production entitled ``Canada's Water'' through the Canadian Water Network of which I am a member, and hope to have it completed in the next year. This one has been nationally broadcast.
The Chairman: Professor Byrne, thank you for your presentation and for the video.
Senator Fairbairn: We started off a couple of years ago with a report entitled ``Farmers in Stress and Farmers at Risk'', and in the course of doing that we came to realize that there was not enough work being done on the issue of climate change and how it affects the land. So this is why we are here and trying to find out as much information as we can from people across Western Canada and certainly in this area.
In other hearings we have heard very positive remarks concerning the Water Institute for Semi-Arid Ecosystems (WISE) as it is associated with the University of Lethbridge.
Professor Byrne, please explain WISE to us.
Mr. Byrne: My pleasure. Thank you.
I ran a small water resources institute at the University of Lethbridge for 13 years that has since become WISE. At WISE water is a multidisciplinary aspect of study, and has now become a much larger focus within the University of Lethbridge.
I am pleased to see that they are addressing a lot of the issues that I have always thought were important: climate change and water, and ecological change and water. With agriculture dependent on both the ecology and water resource systems, I think that institute will help out in a lot of ways.
I believe that it is essential that the institute be well funded. I think it should be funded by the Government of Canada rather than by independent agencies, Agriculture Canada or by provincial groups. I think it should be funded independently and be allowed to do the very best research it can, without pressure from any particular interest group. The institute should be able to move forward and do research that is beneficial to society.
Senator Fairbairn: That includes a connection with the research station here in Lethbridge, does it not?
Mr. Byrne: To my understanding it does, yes. There are a number of research station scientists there. There are some very wonderful scientists who are involved in that community institute.
Senator Fairbairn: Mr. Chair, I will accede to my fellow senators and put me on the list for a second round.
Senator Gustafson: Something needs to be done about agriculture in a very positive way. This committee did a study on farmers at risk, and one of the recommendations was that there were several areas that needed to be improved.
The reality is that more and more of our population is moving into the urban centres. This is happening even in Saskatchewan. We have more people in Saskatoon than we have in the whole province.
The political implications, I am not talking Liberal, Conservative or NDP, are that we have to get rural development in rural areas and more stable farming safety nets across the border. I believe that we need people like you in the urban centres that really understand the problems.
You are forthright that change is going to happen fast. Are you are speaking about the near future. Is that just because of your studies in the snow areas of the country?
Mr. Byrne: Most of our predictions from five to ten years ago were based upon some kind of doubling, a two-times CO2, and that happening over about 50 to 100 years, possibly by the year 2050 to 2100.
Our global emission rate at this point is so large that many scientists are saying that we are looking not at doubling but possibly a tripling within the same time frame.
In our particular work, we go to the global circulation models, and we look at the model and say when does the model approximate a doubling of CO2 scenario? Now instead of that happening between the years 2015 and 2100 in most of the models, it happens between 2020 and 2040, maybe 2050.
It is a well-established, recognized phenomenon. We are emitting at a phenomenal rate. Where our emissions should be going down; in fact they are going up.
Senator Gustafson: Should we be building more dams? Is that a solution?
Mr. Byrne: No.
Senator Gustafson: You say no. The Rafferty Alameda filled up in two years. People had said in the beginning that they could walk across it, now there is 51 feet of water in it.
Mr. Byrne: That would just be the taller people then that could walk across it.
Senator Gustafson: Why not build dams?
Mr. Byrne: Quite frankly, the benefit costs, as much as I have seen for many of these reservoirs, is not there. So I do not actually believe we should be continuing to go down that route.
Even with declining runoff, we have lots of storage spots. What we might not have is water to fill them with on a routine basis, and if we can only fill them every second third year or fourth year or use the water meaningfully, that makes them even a worse investment.
I would like to look on the other side. Let us see how efficient we can be. Let us determine what uses are appropriate and inappropriate and go down that route. I think there is a far greater economic return on that side than more large capital expenditures.
Senator Gustafson: I know, Mr. Chairman, I have gone over my time, but we visited a project yesterday where they revitalized the water in the heart of hog production, and it is quite an exciting project.
Senator Wiebe: You talked about more funding for research on climate change, and I certainly agree with you, but I do not think just throwing money into it is going to be the answer, it has to be directed.
One of the witnesses that appeared before our committee made the recommendation to fund one research chair in each one of the six regions of Canada to zero in on the effects of climate change. Do you think that would be a good idea?
Mr. Byrne: It is a step, and I think it would be a good step. I do not have any specific details of how you might go about doing it. I did not put a lot of thought into that today so maybe I am negligent in not being ready with more ideas.
However, research chairs are good. Good leaders are necessary for this type of work, but you need the surrounding people as well, and six groups across Canada is definitely a step in the right direction. The synergy of having a significant number of people in one locale is very positive.
I often see colleagues and we say that we must get together because we have a common goal on climate change, but we are so busy we seldom get to confer. When you have that colleague working down the hall it is a different matter. It can be a very positive experience.
Senator Wiebe: We are hoping to be able to write a report by the end of June. If you have an opportunity to think of some ideas between now and the end of May, we would appreciate it if you would forward them to our chair.
We are talking about global warming. If our temperature is increasing, that means our evaporation is increasing. If evaporation increases rainfall increases. Why is it that rain will no longer fall in the mountains, and where will it fall?
Mr. Byrne: Our modelling efforts predict that on average there will be an increase in precipitation, both on the plains, and almost definitely in the mountains. However, when the winter temperature is substantially raised much of that precipitation which previously fell as snow falls as rain. When it falls as rain, it goes into the soils and you get enhanced spring forestry growth.
My colleagues in the global change program on the Colorado plateau have demonstrated that more and more of their winter precipitation is rain. It enhances the soil moisture condition and they are getting slight increases in growth. More warmth and water in the spring brings about a response from the trees; but they are getting much less runoff because that moisture falls as rain and not snow. Snow runs off over a frozen soil and becomes part of the river flow.
We have found that the biggest impact is not an increase or decrease in the precipitation, but the warming of the winter by 5 degrees. That change creates a whole new snow regime.
Senator Tkachuk: You mentioned Mount Kilimanjaro, and that the glacier cover is slowly decreasing. When did it start?
Mr. Byrne: The decrease?
Senator Tkachuk: Yes.
Mr. Byrne: The decrease has been going on for most of the past century, but it has become most extreme in the last half-century.
Senator Tkachuk: When it began in the early 1900s was it because of an increase in temperature? We have been told that the temperature increase has been 1 degree over the last 100 years, as best as anybody can tell. So why did it start? Did we have a big increase in the year 1920 or 1925 or 1930? I am trying to understand why it started 100 years ago? It is still going on, and what caused it to start?
Mr. Byrne: I think what we are seeing is the initial response to the Industrial Revolution that has been going on for about 200 years. There have been modest increases in CO2 budgets and so forth going on for quite some time.
Mount Kilimanjaro is one of the most sensitive ecosystems in the world. It is one of the most sensitive ice fields. Being in the tropics, elevation is the only control that keeps Kilimanjaro snow covered and therefore, it took only a very slight change in temperature before we started to see changes in that very sensitive ecosystem.
Senator Tkachuk: In Glacier National Park, you said that in 1850 there were 150 glaciers and today there are only 70. Did that start in the early 1900s? Did it start in the 1850s?
Mr. Byrne: Started? Could we pick a day that it has actually started or a month or a year?
Senator Tkachuk: I am looking for a decade.
Mr. Byrne: We probably could not define it explicitly except to say that we know that as a boundary condition 150 years ago, there were huge ice masses in Glacier National Park.
We also know that over the last 50 years they have documented that the decline of ice masses has been more rapid with time and that is very much in line with the global warming theory.
Senator Tkachuk: I understand that, but you say there were 150 glaciers in 1850 versus 70 today. So if they knew how many there were in 1850, surely they would know how many there were in 1935 or the late 1900s.
Mr. Byrne: Certainly.
Senator Tkachuk: So do we know? Have they just disappeared in the last 20 years, or did half of them disappear in 75 years and so on? This would be very helpful information to have.
Mr. Byrne: I am suggesting that most of the decline has occurred in the most recent decades.
Senator Tkachuk: Something started 150 years ago.
Mr. Byrne: Let us not interpret my 150 years too literally. One hundred and fifty years is essentially before the time of any human influence, the time right before the Industrial Revolution. I do not mean to imply that it has been a steady decline. I think what happened is the decline has been most significant, in the last number of decades.
Senator Tkachuk: We would appreciate more information on Kilimanjaro and Glacier National Park. I am having a difficult time trying to put all of this into perspective.
I know we have warmer weather and that this has been going on for over a decade. I know places that used to have a lot of snowfall no longer do. We have heard about Kilimanjaro and Glacier National Park.
What I need is a time perspective to give me an idea of how long this has been going on. The Industrial Revolution began in the 1800s, but it was essentially a European phenomenon that came to North American. There was not a big increase in CO2 during that time. Something else is triggering this.
Mr. Byrne: I agree you with you that there was probably very little change in those early years. What I am suggesting is that most of the change has taken place in the past three to five decades.
When I was a boy and played in Glacier National Park, there were vast snowfields all over and the runoff continued all summer long. In the 1970s the snowfields existed. We skied all summer in the park. You cannot do that now. So, most of the decline has taken place in the last 20 or 30 years. That fits perfectly with our theories.
Senator Tkachuk: In the 1970s we were told that we were heading to an ice age.
Mr. Byrne: We are. I guarantee that all scientists will agree that within a few thousand years, we will be back into an ice age. However, within a few decades we are going to create some of the most radical warming that we have seen, and our society is going to have trouble adjusting to it.
Senator Hubley: I am concerned that this information gets to the population at large, and especially the farming community. Can tell me who might be taking this information to the next level? Who will look at the different areas that are going to be affected and see if they can apply ways and means to mitigate the impact of climate change? Will they be able to offer strategies to the farming community to change their operations or to move in another direction? Do you know of any other areas that are water-challenged? Are there models that we can study that might be successful in our area?
Mr. Byrne: You have touched on the Canadian research system. We do a poor job of taking good research and getting it into the field. My job is done when I publish a paper in the International Journal of Climatology. It is done.
That knowledge is then supposed to be taken from my fairly modest lab or modelling set-up and someone who has a bachelor of science or master of science is supposed to take that information, understand it, and then apply it in a much more complex world. The elimination of the scientist from that extension phase of getting knowledge to the field in our system is a failing of our system.
Senator Wiebe: Whose responsibility is it?
Mr. Byrne: It is the systems' responsibility. I do not get credit for spending a lot of time in the field. I am supposed to do research and publish.
In the United States they have extension faculty members. My job is 40 per cent research, 40 per cent teaching, and 20 per cent service. The 20 per cent service does not really give me time to get out. By the time I do on-campus committees and off-campus presentations, my job is very full.
The Chairman: What should the role of government be to resolve these problems?
Mr. Byrne: We have to establish specific groups that will take on the extension role and help to keep the scientist involved.
The Chairman: In terms of public policy, what can a committee like this look at in terms of making recommendations?
Mr. Byrne: I would think definitely something that allows the scientist to stay involved.
Senator Hubley: The second question concerned water models around the world. I would think water must be right up at the top now with global warming, and certainly when we are looking for a Canadian solution. Perhaps we are going to have to look to other countries that have been successful in developing models that we might be able to use here.
Mr. Byrne: Groups like the New Canadian Water Network, which is a network of centres of excellence funded by the federal government, are wonderful for going out and exploring international alternatives because they have the resources to do those types of things.
Canadian Water Network has links with us. The Australians, who do some very good work in some areas, are particularly notable in their desire to protect their water sources and water basins. They protect their water supply from development, feeling the most important thing they can do is maintain the quality of the ecosystem so that their water stays pure and in a wonderful state.
The Australians are certainly a link. The Europeans are doing some good things, but of course they are very crowded. Canada is neither far behind nor far ahead of anyone. By and large, Canada can be at the forefront if we move into the efficiency fields instead of staying in the traditional civil engineering approach to managing water.
As an engineer, I do not feel we have done a good job of managing water. We take engineering solutions to water problems, and that is no longer appropriate.
We need efficient, meaningful ways of addressing the things we do with our water systems and all of our other ecosystems. That is the only way we are really going to make a change. The resource is too finite.
Senator Gustafson: Where does Canada line up in terms of supply of water? We must be at the top of the list of countries or continents that have water. In our area we have the underground Missouri. They cannot lower that. They drill wells and they pump large areas with water.
Mr. Byrne: Canadians have suffered under a misconception for decades. It began when remote sensing became popular. Some of the first remote sensing scientists declared that after surveying the whole country they discovered that massive areas were covered with water. Therefore, they claimed that Canada has 20 per cent of the world's fresh water.
The fact is that a lot of that water was wetland and in some cases there was not much of it at all. Most of our other water is in lakes that we cannot pump dry. You cannot take more water out of the Great Lakes than flows in. The usable water supply in Canada is in the rivers. Contrary to common belief I do not believe that we are water-rich at all.
Senator Gustafson: In Arizona, the water level where they do lots of irrigating is supposed to have gone down 40 feet.
Mr. Byrne: The Oldman River is not very full. If it were not for a freak storm last May or June, right now our reservoirs would be dry. Our soils are very dry. I would hate for us to think we are water-rich.
The Chairman: Professor Byrne, before turning to Senator Fairbairn for the second round, I have a question myself.
I am interested in water and water resources because one of the major effects of climate change in Western Canada is going to be drought and we have to look at precipitation to find our answers.
We can look at new types of seeds that are drought-resistant and we can look at zero till and we can look at carbon sequestration and all of those things that have been recommended to us, but we have to have water to grow the crops and grow the trees.
I am interested in water resources, water strategies, water uses, water storage, water piping, water dams, and the creation of new sources of water.
What I heard from you today is an overview, starting with Kilimanjaro and moving up to date. What we did not get is a list of scientific research that is being done in Alberta and other parts of Western Canada that will answer the questions that we need answered. For instance: If in 40 or 50 years' time a person wants to farm in southern Alberta, where will they get their water? They cannot drill for it. It is not going to be coming down off the mountains anymore. Where is it going to come from?
If you have research that will help deal with the concept of adaptation it will be appreciated. If you do not there is going to be a vacuum in our report.
As one of Canada's experts, I hope that you will provide us with some kind of new research to answer some of these water questions.
Mr. Byrne: I appreciate your concerns, and I think I could address some of them, but I will defer to colleagues that are following. There are people here that will be presenting to you who specialize in that area.
I did work with Dave Major and Dan Johnson and Sean McGinn from Lethbridge Research Centre, and they did some very good work in the early 1990s. That project looked at the spatial distribution of how we might change cropping patterns. The resources we had were not large by any means, but the work was very good. They did come up with some ideas, recommendations, and management strategies for different regions.
What we do need to do is go the next step and have people look at that in much greater detail because it is important. It is senseless to add a costly infrastructure in 20 to 40 years fails because we did not conduct the proper research at the beginning.
I am certainly not trying to soft pillow; I would love to answer your question, but out of respect to my colleagues who can do a better job, I will defer that question to them. I will explicitly point them out, if you like, but I think they know who they are.
The Chairman: If you put your hands on any research in your institute that may be of assistance, we would appreciate it if you could send it to the clerk or our research department.
Mr. Byrne: Yes, I will.
Senator Fairbairn: Thank you. I would like to go back to the issue of communications. These issues are difficult to understand. The government is not a great communicator.
As you have said scientists do the research, get published and go on to other research. I gather from that information that getting the message to the farmers is not on the top of the list for the scientists.
If we are to help people plan their lives can you think of what kind of mechanisms we put in place to help people understand what you are doing?
In a sense I suppose this committee and whatever we produce will become a communications tool. How can we build a bridge to give people the sense that they can buy into what you are learning, and also have the heart to try and persuade both themselves and their families that it is still worth doing? It would be a pretty different Alberta if we saw those wonderful towns closing down.
Mr. Byrne: You touch on something, Senator Fairbairn, which is a frustrating thing for me. You may recall that you and I sat together at the conference on the changing atmosphere in Toronto in 1988.
Senator Fairbairn: Yes.
Mr. Byrne: It is so wonderful to be with a group that can still appreciate this metaphor which Stephen Schneider, one of the world's outstanding climatologists referred to that conference as the ``Woodstock of climate change.''
Since that time I have done a lot of research on climate and water and I have made these presentations, and, quite frankly, I do not feel there have been many believers in southern Alberta until about the year 2000.
Senator Fairbairn: Many believers?
Mr. Byrne: Yes. I am not asking them to believe everything I say, but generally the science community has been in agreement on this for quite a while.
Senator Fairbairn: You can believe Chin Lake is going dry.
Mr. Byrne: They definitely believe those types of things, do they not? Maybe that has made the difference. It is terrible to get to such a crisis point before we make adjustments.
What can we do? This has been a very charged debate in terms of the whole issue. There are still many agencies out there that are actively lobbying saying climate change is not a major issue for society.
So I think it is still something of a battle but given reasonable resources, I think that is really the case.
Senator Fairbairn: That was going to be my next question.
Mr. Byrne: We really need people working in the field. We need a structure that allows scientists to get out in the field.
I am at a bit of a loss because different industries and different industry groups lobby very differently on issues. That is what we have been up against so far.
Senator Fairbairn: If you had a pot of gold where would you spend it?
Mr. Byrne: We need to define a range of scenarios for the future, not just in terms of what the climate is going to be like, but for people looking at the response to agriculture and the ecological system.
I have a colleague sitting here who is a specialist in pests. He has done wonderful work. We need to know how the pests will respond to zero tillage and large infrastructure to irrigate or change the way we do agriculture. We have to research and study all aspects of change before it can be successfully implemented. We will not gain the benefit of those dollars or maybe not gain the same benefit if we have to get into large pesticide programs.
We need to define the science for our region and then look at the scenarios and have the scientists define the responses of the ecosystems. We must define the strategies. Right now we are working with only simple management strategies. I think we need a lot more work.
Senator LaPierre: Technology will save us?
Mr. Byrne: Technology's efficiencies help us. If we really want to save ourselves, we have to stop world population growth. We have to stop using the resources because we are going to run out of them. Basic ecological theory says any population cannot grow on and on and on. There will be a crash and that population will die.
We are not immune to ecology. If we think we are above the ecology, then we are going to crash like every other population has that has overgrown their resources.
The Chairman: Professor Byrne, I want to thank you very much. You have stimulated us, and all of us have many, many questions we would like to put to you, and I guess that is your job as professor.
Our next witness is Cheryl Bradley from the Federation of Alberta Naturalists.
Welcome, Ms. Bradley. Please proceed, and once you finish, we will ask some questions on your presentation. We are anxiously awaiting your words.
Ms. Cheryl Bradley, Federation of Alberta Naturalists: Mr. Chairman and honourable senators, I thank you for the invitation to appear before you today. I am here on behalf of the Federation of Alberta Naturalists. FAN is comprised of 12 corporate and 12 associate clubs across Alberta.
Our focus is to provide Albertans with information that encourages a better understanding of and appreciation for a role in safekeeping Alberta's natural animal and plant life.
A review of your letter of invitation and other background information on your committee informs me that your focus is to examine how agriculture, forestry, and rural communities must adapt to climate change. That is a very broad and visionary topic. My contributions to your deliberations will be small in comparison.
I will focus mostly on prairie Alberta and on what I and other representatives of the Federation of Alberta Naturalists have learned from decades of conservation work. I will draw heavily on lessons learned through our involvement in the Alberta Prairie Conservation Forum and in the South Saskatchewan River Basin Planning Process.
Both of these are cooperative multistakeholder processes which are directed towards coming to terms with the limits our prairie environment places upon us and towards defining strategies for sustaining economic vitality, social wellness, and environmental health as our human population grows and as stresses on our natural environment increase.
Provided with my submission is the third five-year Alberta Conservation Action Plan developed by the Prairie Conservation Forum. Also provided is the Prairie Conservation Forum's Occasional Paper Number 2, ``Prairie Ecosystem Management: An Alberta Perspective.''
Fundamental to the work of the Prairie Conservation Forum is an understanding of ecosystem and people's role in it. That is a concept that has great applicability for climate change and was expressed clearly by range manager David Costello in 1952 when he said:
People are the greatest of the biological factors. Through their increasing knowledge of ecology, they have within themselves the power to act on their environment for their own greatest good. They will have to apply that knowledge not through edict, arbitrary decision, or economic or political force, but within the limits of natural law, if they are to succeed.
There are two key adaptations to climate change in the prairie ecosystem that I wish to address today. First is supporting maintenance and restoration of native prairie and sustainable ranching; the second is protecting river health and managing our water resources wisely.
Native prairie ecosystems, like most others, provide important ecological services, including important fish and wildlife habitat, a storehouse of biodiversity, watershed functions, and aesthetic and heritage values.
Provision of these services is compromised by uses and demands which alter ecosystems and ecosystem processes or natural disturbances such as photosynthesis, decomposition, drought, fire, grazing, and predation to the point that ecosystems are no longer self-staining or resilient to disturbances.
A key ecological service of particular relevance to your committee is that native grasslands play a very significant role as a biological sink to store carbon. A on grasslands and carbon storage web page is being developed by the Prairie Conservation Forum. It will be on our website within the next few days.
Soils under native grasslands may contain up to 200 tons of carbon per hectare. This means there are two to three billion tons of carbon stored within the uncultivated grasslands of Western Canada.
Converting native prairie land to cultivated farmland results in large losses of carbon, typically about 20 per cent to 35 per cent of that originally present in the surface 30 centimetres within a few decades. The amount of stored carbon is 25 per cent less under pastures reseeded to non-native species such as crested wheat grass.
Ecological benefits are direct economical benefits that currently flow to society from native prairie ecosystems. Properly managed, livestock grazing is truly sustainable and compatible with preservation of biodiversity and with other ecological functions of grasslands.
Over thousands of years prairie grasslands were grazed by bison, and other native animals. Today grasslands are grazed by livestock species, but because of their adaptation to the stresses of the prairie environment, this practice is sustainable.
Prairie and parkland rangelands support a thriving ranching industry that provides meat and hides for domestic use and for export. For example, the public portion, which is 68 per cent of 16.5 million acres of native rangeland in Alberta, has a farm gate value of production of $230 million per year.
The livestock industry provides a multiplier effect of direct and indirect benefits to the local economy that is somewhere between four and six times.
In addition, tourism focused on both native prairie and the ranching life-style is increasingly being recognized as an economic opportunity.
Of particular interest to this committee may be the fact that productivity from native grasslands is less erratic than that from altered ranges because native species are adapted to drought, an ecological disturbance that is predicted to increase with climate change. Native grassland communities provide managerial values for livestock producers not supported by altered or degraded range lands.
For example, ranchers are better able to sustain a stable stocking rate and incur less financial risk on native rangeland compared to dryland pastures with introduced soft grasses. Less input of chemicals and energy is required on native pastures compared to non-native ones.
Although we recognize the value of monoculture cropping systems and that they will continue to be a predominant cropping system in the Prairies in the foreseeable future, they are inherently unstable. To sustain productivity, they require high chemical and energy inputs as well as water, particularly in irrigated areas.
The need for these inputs is likely to increase with predicted climate change on the Prairies. Associated with this is greater risk of pollution of water and air, including by greenhouse gases.
Native prairie, on the other hand, evolved over 10,000 years, including through periods of severe drought and is self- staining within the range of natural variation to which it has been exposed in the past.
Should climate change greatly exceed the range of natural variation, however, even native grasslands will, and all that rely on them, including humans, may be unable to adapt.
Maintaining and restoring significant tracts of native prairie is an appropriate strategy to adapt to climate change. A system of large core protected areas with buffers and corridors for wildlife movement connecting the core areas is envisioned by many as a means to help wildlife species adapt to climate change. There also are significant ecotourism opportunities.
Hopefully, your committee will consider mechanisms for supporting efforts directed at maintaining and restoring significant tracts of native prairie in Western Canada.
I go on in my brief to provide you with the contact information: the web addresses for several cooperative efforts which are working right now on that very vision, including the Northern Great Plains Conservation Initiative, which is a joint project of Nature Conservancy Canada, the Nature Conservancy in Montana, and a tri-national North American Grasslands Conservation Initiative, a flagship project of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation.
A key challenge that we hope your committee will address is how to reconfigure our economy to encourage a greater flow of wealth from highly populated urban centres to rural communities that are stewards of native ecosystems. For example, to avoid expensive upgrades to water treatment facilities, urban municipalities concerned about degraded water quality could direct funds to rural municipalities for programs that protect and restore ecological health in watersheds upstream of the city and hence improve water quality of the water treatment intake.
Cows and Fish, a program to foster a better understanding of how improvements and grazing management on riparian areas can enhance landscape, health and productivity, serves as an outstanding model of stewardship through the partnering of government, livestock producers, and conservation organizations.
Two documents produced by this program are provided to you. One is Caring for the Green Zone: Riparian Areas and Grazing Management, and the other is just hot off the press, Caring for the Green Zone: Riparian Areas, A User's Guide to Health. You also have a brochure on that program.
Similarly, agricultural subsidies provided to agricultural producers could be linked to development of ranch management plans that protect endangered species or biodiversity while also maintaining or increasing productivity of the range resource.
Over 18 years of research at the Antelope Creek Ranch near Brooks, Alberta, is documenting how, with appropriate range management, objectives of protecting biodiversity and maintaining range productivity can be achieved even through periods of drought.
I do not pretend to understand the market for carbon credits, but I suggest mechanisms be explored for ensuring that benefits from any trading of carbon credits in relation to native prairie flows to the rural communities that steward these grasslands.
My second key focus area is protecting river health and managing water resources wisely.
Water is probably the most limited resource in the Prairies and the parklands of Alberta. It is predicted to become more limiting with climate change.
Modelling of river flows for the South Saskatchewan River Basin Water Management Plan process has determined that if in-stream flow needs are to be met for water quality, fish, riparian habitats and channel maintenance, limits for water allocation have been reached or exceeded in the Bow River, Oldman River, and South Saskatchewan River and their tributaries. The Red Deer River still has some allocation capacity.
In mid-November 2002, a notice was issued by the provincial government that no new applications will be accepted for licences to divert water from the Belly, St. Mary, or Waterton Rivers. These rivers all tributaries to the Oldman River and are determined to be 120 per cent to 130 per cent allocated. They flow at a minimum flow 83 per cent of the time. Low flows are resulting in hardship flows for aquatic life and the demise of riparian forests, a situation that is expected to be exacerbated with climate change.
This ecological reality, made painfully clear during the last years of drought, has had a sobering effect on those of us participating in multi-stakeholder advisory committees to the South Saskatchewan River Basin Planning Process.
No one wants to see the death of our rivers. A variety of stakeholders, including rural and urban municipalities, irrigation districts, industry, agricultural, and recreational conservation organizations, of which FAN is one, are currently grappling with how to restore water to already stressed rivers as well as how to meet the demand for water for future economic and population growth in the region.
Scenarios being developed to aid in decisions about water management do not consider the wild part of climate change, partly because the challenges we already face are great enough and partly because the effective climate change on river flows is difficult to predict with any confidence.
It is the view of conservation interests involved in this basin planning process that a precautionary approach which errors in favour of river health should be adopted.
Currently about 80 per cent to 90 per cent of water licensed for withdrawal in the South Saskatchewan River Basin is for irrigation, most of this diverted from rivers into canals owned by irrigation districts.
Irrigation agriculture has provided great economic benefit to southern Albertans. However, there is growing recognition that we have reached the point of diminishing returns for additional public investment in the industry.
According to a report for Alberta Environment, population in the basin is predicted to grow from 1.3 million in 1996 to between 2.4 million and 3.2 million over the next 50 years. In the same period, demand for non-irrigation water withdrawals is forecasted to increase between 52 per cent and 136 per cent in order to support increasing municipal, industrial, and stock-watering demand.
It is obvious that to maintain the health of our rivers and to accommodate human population growth and economic diversification, measures are required which encourage water conservation and allow reallocation of water to uses deemed of higher value.
In June 2002, the Alberta Government authorized the use of water allocation transfers and water conservation holdbacks.
We are troubled to observe rural communities, who have suffered from drought, pinning their hopes for future growth in their communities to more on-stream dams for irrigation agriculture.
This motivation was behind locally driven political pressure to build a dam at the Meridian site on the South Saskatchewan River in 2001 and currently is behind similar pressure to build a dam on the Milk River at the junction of the North and South Milk Rivers.
A feasibility study for the Meridian dam estimated a cost of $3.6 billion to $5.5 billion with only 33 cents to 35 cents return on every dollar spent and the prediction of significant negative environmental impacts. Similar results can be expected from a provincial feasibility study currently underway for the Milk River dam.
Both of these proposed sites are in the middle of spectacular natural prairie landscapes. According to research by Dr. Tom Power, Chairman of Economic Department at the University of Montana in Missoula, increasingly economic vitality in the Great Plains is associated with spectacular landscapes and economic diversification, not agriculture, which is a mature industry and a decreasing proportion of the region's economy.
I hope this submission on behalf of the Federation of Alberta Naturalists is a helpful contribution to your deliberations on how agriculture, forestry, and rural communities must adapt to climate change.
I hope it is relayed to you our view that it is important to take an ecosystem management approach to dealing with the problems that climate change presents.
Such an approach recognizes the importance of maintaining and restoring healthy and functioning ecosystems which are resilient to ecosystem perturbations, of using multidisciplinary and interjurisdictional approaches in developing strategies for addressing problems, and of monitoring the results of our management and adapting as required.
The Chairman: Thank you for a very excellent presentation. You covered so many of the key points this committee is studying. It is obvious you have put a lot of time into this presentation.
Honourable senators, we are going to limit ourselves to three senators questioning this time because we are so far behind, and the three questioners are Senator Tkachuk, Senator Wiebe and Senator Fairbairn.
Senator Tkachuk: When it is cold like it is right now over most of the Prairies, although it has been nice and warm here in Lethbridge compared to what we woke up to in Regina on Monday morning, and even though there is a tremendous amount of natural gas reserves in the world, there is only so much available at any one time. So when demand is up, prices go up. Is water too cheap?
Ms. Bradley: We do not put a price on water. In fact, we are very careful because of the potential implications of NAFTA not to put a price on water. We are currently getting into a market for rights to allocate water, but it is not considered a price on water.
Senator Tkachuk: If you get a dry year the city of Saskatoon can tell the townspeople the water on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Do you know what I mean? Scarcity is allocated.
Why do they not just charge more for it when you do not have as much water and charge less when you have lots of it? Would that not make people more cognizant of the water they use, whether it is for irrigation, washing clothes, or watering the lawn. We pay $35 in Saskatoon and you us all the water you want.
Ms. Bradley: I understand the point you are getting at, but I think it is a very complex thing to attempt to put a price on water, particularly when it is a necessity of life for people. We have developed systems for the agriculture industry, and the agriculture industry, which that is heavily reliant on water, could in no way compete with an urban population for what it was able to pay per unit of water.
So it is not a simple question of just automatically putting a market out there for water. I think we are starting to get towards that here with the recent decision by the Alberta Government to allow trading of rights to allocate water.
And that is a market. People will be paying for that, but it will require the approval of the Director of Water Resources to be sure that no one downstream is harmfully affected by the trade and that it does not harm the aquatic ecosystem.
So I do not think water as a public resource is something that we can deal with solely in an economic market system.
Senator Tkachuk: We do for drinking. I am always amazed that people pay for bottled water for water that is not any better than it is out of a tap in most cities.
Ms. Bradley: That is interesting.
Senator Tkachuk: They do it because they think it is good for them.
Ms. Bradley: I think the industry is marketing an image that it is cleaner when really it has been proven that it is not.
Senator Tkachuk: I just put the tap water into the bottle and people think I paid for it.
Senator Wiebe: Ms. Bradley, I was very impressed and interested in your comments in regards to grasslands and the natural grasslands.
Last October I had an opportunity to spend a full day with some of the research scientists that are working in the Grasslands Natural Park in southern Saskatchewan. Has your organization had an opportunity to have a look at some of the work they have been doing and the research that has been going on in that particular part?
Ms. Bradley: I am not familiar with that research specifically, but the Prairie Conservation Forum does keep in communication with our sister organization in Saskatchewan, which is the Saskatchewan Prairie Conservation Action Plan, and we do trade information and are currently trying to set up a web information page that contains a listing of research that is not in the published literature, literature that is on bookshelves or in government agencies.
Senator Jack Wiebe (Acting Chairman) in the Chair:
The Acting Chairman: I would certainly recommend that to you because I was just blown away at the very impressive research and data that is coming out of that Grasslands National Park.
Senator Fairbairn: Thank you for a really splendid presentation because you are going into some of the very frustrating areas that, I guess, give us all a sense of anxiety.
First of all, I was talking about communications earlier, and I have to hand it to your federation. Just looking at the material you have given to us for this meeting, you are doing yeoman service in trying to get your messages out, and I hope that they are being received and read far and wide.
I am not a farmer, but I would think one of the most vexing parts of this whole issue is the lack of attention, empathy, and understanding from urban Canada as to the importance and the value of the people who are living on the land, producing from the land, feeding our country, and helping to feed the world. The farmers are in trouble and urban Canadians show very little understanding or response to the need to protect the opportunities for our agriculture and forestry communities to continue to thrive, and to be able to provide us with the fundamental benefits that we receive.
What is the response to your program? It seems to me that you are making a substantial effort to build a bridge between urban and rural populations. How valuable have you found this effort? If your effort has produced good results how can we build upon them? How can we bring a spirit of activism to the urban communities?
Ms. Bradley: I will clarify that I have provided the Cows and Fish information as an example of a process that I think would address a lot of the communication challenges that you have identified.
I am not directly involved with Cows and Fish, and if you wish to learn more about it, I have provided the contact information in my brief. The program involves producers, Trout Unlimited, for example, and other people interested in fisheries as well.
My understanding of that process is that between the people who have scientific knowledge and traditional land users there must be a mutual respect. They must take the opportunity to listen to each other and help each other develop tools that they all understand and agree upon. Their common goal will measure ecosystem health and help improve the productivity of their operations. It means having mutual goals and taking the time to achieve them.
Over the last ten years this program has contacted and worked with hundreds of producers. It does not go into communities unless it is invited and the people who deliver the information materials do not presume they have a corner on the knowledge. It is all done jointly.
I think it is an example of an approach that could be applied to other areas of urban, rural communication.
This one focuses on riparian areas but there are other aspects of the rural environment from which we benefit that another program may focus upon.
Senator Fairbairn: I hope that we will be able to follow up on some of these material.
Senator Donald H. Oliver (Chairman) in the Chair:
The Chairman: Ms. Bradley, on behalf of the committee, I want to thank you very sincerely for the excellence of your presentation. I particularly like the fact that within your presentation you had some specific recommendations that you wanted the committee to consider as it goes on with these deliberations, and we thank you for that, too.
Our next presentation is from the Canadian Sugar Beet Producers' Association. Mr. Gary Tokariuk is the vice- president.
We realize that we are in sugar beet territory and so we are anxiously looking forward to hearing from you.
Mr. Gary Tokariuk, Vice-President, Canadian Sugar Beet Producers' Association: Mr. Chairman, senators, the Canadian Sugar Beet Producers' Association represents 400 southern Alberta sugar beet farmers at the national level.
Founded in 1942, the association has been the national voice of sugar beet producers for 61 years. We are also a direct member of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture as a national commodity organization.
As farmers in southern Alberta, climate change is an accepted part of life. Although we all speak of what a normal or average year of weather is none of us is actually sure that anyone has actually lived through that year.
Our farming practices have evolved to account for the fact that nearly every year some sort of extreme condition is encountered.
In 2002 we had excessive precipitation during the growing season accompanied by cooler than average temperatures. The heat units experienced were not actually that much below the long-term average.
South of the Oldman River, there was a shortage of irrigation water for the 2000 and 2001 crops. North of the river, a normal amount of irrigation water was delivered.
The drought likely started in 1999. The fact that we got through that year is because of one of the adaptations farmers and the public have made in agriculture in our area and that is irrigation.
It is common to hear people say that our climate change is due to global warming. Earlier this month Dr. Tim Ball was a guest speaker at our annual general meeting held here in Lethbridge. He told us that global warming was not the cause of our drought and heavy precipitation. He said that the weather is not a ``steady state system.'' Rather, Dr. Ball did say that weather patterns can change greatly and over a short period of time.
However, as managers of our farms, adapting to climate change does not require us to take a side on the question of the Kyoto Protocol. The fact is that our farm practices have to account for opposing climate changes from year to year, irrespective of the cause. Our comments try to reflect this general observation.
The Canadian Sugar Beet Producers' Association supports the recommendations of the CFA concerning the need for research to assist farmers in adapting practices to account for different climatic conditions.
As a sugar industry, we have been doing our own research on adaptation. An example of this is through the Canada/Alberta Sugar Beet Industry Development Fund. Even before the rationing of irrigation water occurred in some districts, we were interested in experimenting with the impact of different irrigation treatments and irrigation equipment, including nozzles on crop yield and quality.
Ironically the experiment was wiped out in 2002 by cool spring seeding conditions, excessive precipitation, heavy hail and early frost, but our intention was headed in the right direction. This year the experiment will be repeated under another program, and the IDF is hoping to try a field scale experiment of the irrigation treatments.
The growers also participate in a joint research committee with Rogers Sugar Limited. This effort is funded 50/50 by farmers and the processor, and it has examined many of the weather-related questions pointed out in the CFA presentation to you on September 13.
Our qualified scientists have looked at the impact of short-term weather events on the following: pesticide, herbicide, fungicide applications, fertilization applications and nitrogen management, harvesting and long-term storage of sugar beets after harvest, irrigation management, and increased conservation tillage.
This privately funded research program also does variety trials to find the sugar beet seed best suited for production in southern Alberta. Such research is required for our industry to remain internationally competitive, to remain a competitive production choice for our farmers, and to adapt to our climate's wide variations.
We are looking at irrigation practices, not only out of concern for climate change, which may or may not limit the availability of water for us, but also because of the cost of pumping water due to utility costs and uncertainty about which type of irrigation equipment delivers the best results on the crops we grow in a sugar beet rotation.
We do not feel it would be a wise decision for government or ourselves to reorient our research strictly to challenges of climate change.
An early investment of federal dollars in southern Alberta's irrigation infrastructure helped make this region a productive agricultural engine for the national economy. This investment has been more than matched by the farmers; irrigation districts in their geographical areas to deliver water to farms; and the Alberta government in developing other parts of the infrastructure.
There are not as many votes left in rural areas as there were when irrigation was first developed; however, dollars spent in irrigation infrastructure has much more impact on the total economy than equivalent dollars spent on even a single cloverleaf intersection in the city. In the city, completion of one roadway only gets the commuter to the next traffic jam.
When the Alberta government designed an infrastructure cost-sharing plan with the municipalities and processors for the significant food processing plants built in our area in recent years, the impact went much further than the next intersection.
New food processing capacity benefits farmers and our cities. They assist the national balance of payments as exports increase from southern Alberta. Managing the resource of water is a key challenge in helping the expansion of food processing.
As a member of CFA, we have heard southern Ontario farmers speak about the potential impact of global warming on agriculture in their region. The need for an irrigation infrastructure in southern Ontario was pointed out to their elected representatives.
The Canadian Sugar Beet Producers' Association knows from decades of experience that investment in irrigation pays whether there is global warming or not. Therefore, if federal money is going to be invested in southern Ontario, we would ask the Senate to remind the other House that there is irrigation out here, too. We know that both Senator Fairbairn and our elected MPs have toured the irrigation infrastructure.
It is simply pointed out to other members of this committee that there is an untapped payback from irrigation that also benefits cities but cannot attract many votes. Since you are not in the business of votes, perhaps you can take the message back to Ottawa to look at the infrastructure needs of rural Canada.
The Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry has been a strong supporter of rural Canada. We hope this series of hearings once again results in a thought-provoking report to the government.
Research funded by growers, processors, and the government need to reflect more than just concern about climate change. The program operated and funded by the sugar beet farmers and Rogers Sugar Ltd. has accomplished many of the objectives hoped for in terms of cultivation practices and resource management priority running under the government banner of adapting to climate change.
Public funding of research needs to continue, but its focus should not be blinkered by the criteria of a single priority.
All the public investment in climate change should not go to the cities. It may well be that an equivalent investment in rural infrastructure, including irrigation, may deliver as much or more benefit to the cities in terms of national environmental improvement and in securing of a competitive food supply for Canadians for domestic consumption and export.
The Chairman: Thank you very much for your presentation. You say that there are certain crops that you grow in rotation to sugar beets. What are those crops and do they require zero tillage?
Mr. Tokariuk: There are different rotations throughout southern Alberta. Around the Lethbridge area cereals are in rotation with the sugar beets. When you head towards Taber in the east where you get into higher heat units, potatoes, dry beans, and hay are also included in those rotations.
The Chairman: Are those crops in one-year cycles?
Mr. Tokariuk: Yes, all are expected to be in a four-year rotation. So an example of a rotation would be sugar beets, cereal, then dry beans and another cereal or potatoes involved in there as well.
In the eastern part of the province, it is probably very little, zero till involved or minimum till because the crops grown have intensive cultivation practices.
Senator Gustafson: You have 400 producers in your organization?
Mr. Tokariuk: Yes, we do.
Senator Gustafson: Are there numbers of producers that are not in your organization, or are pretty well all the farmers in it?
Mr. Tokariuk: We are in a marketing board so you belong to the organization.
Senator Gustafson: What is the price of sugar now? Is it pretty stable? There was a problem with the American subsidies in sugar.
Mr. Tokariuk: We have been involved with CITT hearings in Ottawa, and there is a duty imposed on American sugar and European sugar. The world price of sugar has been in the 5-cent to 6-cent range, but in the last two months I believe we are getting closer to 8 cents and it is on the rise.
Senator Gustafson: The market is a little stronger?
Mr. Tokariuk: We are locked into a three-year contract right now. It is getting stronger on that position.
Senator Gustafson: Do you draw any of your water from underground sources?
Mr. Tokariuk: No.
Senator Gustafson: Are there no wells available for irrigation to drill down?
Mr. Tokariuk: I do not believe so, no. I believe the salt content is too high on a lot of the water, subsurface water.
Senator Gustafson: So your system would all be guided towards trenching and canals.
Mr. Tokariuk: It is all canals and infrastructure.
Senator Gustafson: The presenter that was here before indicated he was not in favour of dams. Where do you stand on that?
Mr. Tokariuk: I think we should realize that we have been using more water over the past five years due to potato alfalfa and timothy becoming high markets. Growing those particular crops has definitely put a strain on the infrastructure.
An average crop of cereals may use nine to ten inches of water, but when you start growing potatoes on the same land, you have to look at 20 inches per acre. We are moving to higher value crops that require more water. That is one of the reasons, along with the drought conditions, that there was such a severe impact on our system.
Last year we received 26 inches of precipitation in and a lot of it was lost. We would like to have on-stream storage to capture excess rainfall and keep a constant flow in the rivers.
Senator Gustafson: So you got that heavy downpour that went through Medicine Hat and so on in this area?
Mr. Tokariuk: Yes, we did. Our average rainfall is around 12 inches for this area. We had 26 inches last year.
Senator Fairbairn: I am very linked with the sugar beet growers of this area. I have never encountered anywhere in agriculture a more fearsome, determined bunch of farmers under the worst possible conditions. They are survivors. I hope they will continue to be survivors. They have had one heck of a tough year, and may the spring and the end of a long hot summer be good for you.
Senator Wiebe: I have got to ask this question, and I am not looking forward to the answer. Part of the reasons why this committee was established was to take a very serious look at how we are going to adapt in the event that there is a shortage of water.
As a marketing board and as a group, has your organization had an opportunity to look at what happens if another dam cannot be built and what happens if a dam is built and there is no water to fill that dam? It must be very difficult for your industry to adapt to those conditions.
Mr. Tokariuk: Well, a lot of us went through that in 2001 when we did not have the water. We were allocated eight inches, and then we received a ten-inch per acre allotment. I put the total amount of water I could on my sugar beets because they are my high value crop, and I went with less on my cereals.
That is the attitude we have to take if we are going to be given so much water; we have to look at where it is better spent.
Ten years ago everybody plowed their land down in the fall, disked it twice, levelled it twice, and then they watched it blow all winter long and then tried to seed in the spring. We have gone down to the level now where there was probably a thousand acres that was direct seeded into stubble.
We are looking at ways of how we can improve. We are realistic concerning water and where to put it. Rationing is going to be a fact of life in the long-term.
Senator Wiebe: I talked about the worst-case scenario, and that may eventually happen, but there is still time. Would one of the answers be to encourage the scientific work on the development of a new variety of sugar beet that would be more drought-resistant than what you are presently growing?
Mr. Tokariuk: I believe there is a potato that McCain's has that can get by on less water.
Senator Hubley: I am one of the East Coast girls so we are not too familiar with sugar beets, but I was taken by your presentation. You have mentioned irrigation at least 14 times: irrigation, irrigation equipment, irrigation treatments, irrigation water, and irrigation infrastructure.
Do you foresee planting a new type of drought-resistant sugar beet? Will you be able to change your rotational crops in order to plan something that would be more drought-resistant? The potato will not be one of them because I come from PEI and I know potatoes.
Do you have some comments, Mr. Tokariuk?
Mr. Tokariuk: Chickpeas require little water to grow and we have grown them during time of drought. That crop could become an option down the road.
The research station outside of Lethbridge has a farm where they are trying different experiments with different kinds of irrigation equipment. We used to have high impact sprinkler heads on top of the pivot, and then in the west wind you would see that water heading east; whereas, now we have drop tubes and we have gone to high water droplets so that they drop straight down and they are closer to the crop. We are always looking at ways to save water.
One of the things in the irrigation districts has been pipelining where you are getting rid of open ditches where seepage and evaporation have been a big concern.
Senator Hubley: We are not going to have any less water, but it may come in short bursts or it may not come at all.
Does the sugar beet industry here depend solely on irrigation? Is that an absolutely integral part of your farm community?
Mr. Tokariuk: Yes, it is.
The Chairman: Particularly so with 12 inches of rain on average per year. I am curious as to why one of your four crop rotations would be something that takes so much water, like potatoes? Grains I can understand, but why go into something that takes so much water?
Mr. Tokariuk: It is a high value crop and the returns are attractive to the farmers. This is a good growing area for potatoes.
The Chairman: Even with 12 inches of rain?
Mr. Tokariuk: No, no. But there, again, in the year of the drought, potato farmers were purchasing water rights from other farmers, so obviously it was worth their while to grow them.
There was the availability. With my allotment of ten inches, I could sell it to another farmer, and they were buying that allotment to go along with their own ten-inch allotment to maximize their production of potatoes.
Senator Tkachuk: Just a little competition for the Maritimes. You know where he comes from.
Mr. Tokariuk: I am not a potato grower.
The Chairman: You will notice both Senator Hubley and I are concerned about growing potatoes in Alberta.
Senator LaPierre: Did you say that you were opposed to dams? You do not favour the construction of dams? I put that in my report.
Mr. Tokariuk: No. I do not like to use the ``D'' word around here, but, no, onstream storage I am in favour of.
Senator LaPierre: Onstream storage demands a dam?
Mr. Tokariuk: Yes.
Senator LaPierre: Onstream storage is a spin of the word ``dam.''
So you are not opposed to the construction of dams? Do you desire it? Let me put it another way. Do you think it would be a good thing, a good instrument for the problems that you have and assist in the essential instrument that you need which is a process of irrigation?
Mr. Tokariuk: As a self-serving sugar beet grower, yes I would like to have the on-stream storage available for constant supply of water. I am not in favour of construction of a dam that is not going to return the investment put into it.
Senator LaPierre: But could you have another way of conserving water? Is that what you said? What is the spin you had on the word ``dam''? Is it ``onstream conservation''?
Is there any other way of achieving that objective besides building a dam?
Mr. Tokariuk: We can plant varieties that use less water, work more efficiently within our water system and application, and work on the timing of irrigation. We have always been told that we have to water right up to harvest time, and what we tried to do last year was to have cut-offs in August, September, and October. We tried to see if there was any benefit to that late season irrigation because right now the cost of pumping is very high and we are looking at every option to reduce our pumping costs and our water use.
Senator LaPierre: I will assure Madam Bradley that the sugar beet growers of southern Alberta do not favour a dam, but they do not give a damn about the dam, but they are quite interested in storing water conservation programs.
Senator Gustafson: I have always believed, rightly or wrongly, that irrigating farmland is hard work. Has that improved any?
Mr. Tokariuk: The advent of the pivot has made life a lot easier.
Senator Gustafson: What is the average size of an operation?
Mr. Tokariuk: I would say a section, 640 acres.
Senator Gustafson: That much?
Mr. Tokariuk: Yes.
Senator Gustafson: And the final question. What is the price of your land?
Mr. Tokariuk: I would say it is pretty well blanketed between $2,500 and $3,000 an acre here and up, depending if you are next to a feedlot or something.
The Chairman: Of the 640 acres would there be about 150 acres that is in sugar beet, and what is the proportion of the rest? In other words, what would be the proportion of potatoes?
Mr. Tokariuk: Some of the potato growers that do not grow sugar beets are on three-year rotations. Anybody that is in the sugar beet rotation has a four-year rotation. So it would be 150 acres of each: cereals, beans, potatoes, and sugar beets.
The Chairman: The main thing we are studying is the concept of adaptation to climate change. Do sugar beet farmers have income other than from the sugar beet? In other words, are they involved in the value added to the beet itself, in the processing or in the marketing?
Mr. Tokariuk: No, we are not.
The Chairman: So there is no value add whatsoever?
Mr. Tokariuk: No. Once we have hauled the beets to the piling grounds, they become the property of the factory. At one time we used to share in the molasses and the beet pulp, but we just have a straight contract with them now.
The Chairman: Do you have community storage for them?
Mr. Tokariuk: No, they are just piled in piles. That is where we ran into trouble this year. We piled some frozen beets, and at the end of November we went from 20 below zero to about 10 above zero and the piles melted in about three days.
The Chairman: If you do not get your sugar beets out of the ground, that is it. You have nothing else to fall back on?
Mr. Tokariuk: No.
Senator Wiebe: That is an interesting concept, that you have a contract and you sell to a processor. Now, the real value in that sugar beet is after it is processed.
Senator Wiebe: Why have you not looked at value added and do the actual processing yourself? Is it because of markets after it is processed?
Mr. Tokariuk: Yes. To start a sugar beet factory, you are looking at around $200 million in investment. And I don't think Rogers is going to sell us theirs for any good deal.
When you are supplying a market with a perishable item such as sugar beets, there is a variation in your production from year to year. We have had highs of 120,000 tonnes of sugar produced, and lows of 47,000 tonnes of sugar produced.
If you have locked-in contracts, then you have to go out and purchase sugar to make up that shortfall; whereas, Rogers has the luxury of their cane plant in Vancouver that makes up any shortfall.
Senator Wiebe: The frustrating part I have as a farmer is I am a price taker, not a price maker. Somehow we have got to turn that around.
It should not be too difficult for 440 producers to raise $200 million. Somewhere along the line, we are going to have to take a serious look at this situation.
Mr. Tokariuk: In the U.S. about 90 per cent of the sugar beet factories are cooperatively owned.
The Chairman: Very interesting. We may be back one day to talk some more about this very thing.
Senator Tkachuk: It is a lot cheaper to have a bakery than a sugar processing plant and have not even done that.
The Chairman: Gary, on behalf of the committee, I want to thank you very, very much for a very excellent presentation.
Our next presenter will be Chief Chris Shade of the Blood Indian Tribe, and he will be assisted by Eugene Creighton, Andy Blackwater and Elliott Fox.
On behalf of the committee, I would like to extend a very, very warm welcome. We are anxiously awaiting your presentation. As you know, we are studying the effects of climate change and new techniques and strategies for adapting the same in relation to agriculture, forestry, and rural communities,
Mr. Chris Shade, Chief, Blood Indian Tribe: Welcome to Blackfoot territory. I would like to thank you for the opportunity to address you with respect to matters of agriculture as they pertain to the Blood Tribe. The Blood Tribe, also known as Kainai, is located here in Southern Alberta on the Blood Indian Reserve and has a population of 9,400 members.
The reserve is approximately 1,447 square kilometres in size, with agriculture as its prime industry. Other industry includes forestry, mining, construction, oil and gas, as well as small business and tourism. The Blood Tribe has made considerable advances in all areas of development and is regarded as a leader among First Nations.
First, I would like to present you with an agricultural profile of our community; then I would like to address the impacts of the drought on the lands and operations and offer a few thoughts on the issues of free trade.
Description of the Blood Reserve lands: The area currently occupied by Kainai, or Blood Tribe, consists of two parcels of land that represent the largest Indian reserve in Canada — Blood Reserve Number 148, approximately 351,960 acres, or about 549.9 square miles; Blood Reserve Number 148A, Blood Tribe Timber Limit, approximately 4,795 acres, or 7.5 square miles.
The two parcels of land consist of approximately 356,755 total acres. The main Blood Reserve, Number 148, is bounded on the west, north and east by the Belly, Oldman and St. Mary Rivers respectively — 100 miles of river boundary.
Blood Reserve Land, Numbers 148 and 148A, is situated in sub-alpine, montane forest, foothills parkland, foothills fescue and moist mixed grass eco-regions of Canada and is very rich and diverse in wildlife and plant species.
The main reserve, Number 148, encompasses land situated on the prairie, that is, foothills, fescue and mixed grass prairie eco-regions, and has been developed primarily — 330,586 acres of it — for agricultural use and production.
Blood Reserve Number 148, Blood Tribe Timber Limit, is situated at the foot of the Rocky Mountains on the forested lands, including subalpine, montane and foothills parkland, and is used for recreational, cultural, spiritual, timber harvesting, hunting and fishing purposes.
Disposition of lands for the Blood Reserve are classified in the following table and the accompanying graph.
Agriculture is 330,586 acres. Of that, 201,081 are cultivated; 26,267 acres are irrigated; 174,814 are dryland; 129,505 are grassland.
Non-agricultural use — public roads, buildings, communities, unproductive land, et cetera — is 21,373, for a total of 351,960 acres. Forestry, again, is at 4,795.
Agricultural profile and Blood Tribe land management: The majority of Blood Tribe lands are the responsibility of the Blood Tribe Land Management Department, whose purpose is to manage and administer lands using traditional ecological knowledge, combined with current scientific knowledge, that protects, preserves and promotes the cultural and ecological integrity of these lands in the true spirit of Kainayssini, the Blood Tribe Elders' Declaration. This declaration advocates sustainable development, economic benefits, and cultural and spiritual maintenance of the environment for the use and benefit of current and future generations of Bloods.
The Blood Tribe Land Management Department sees stainable development as development that maintains the health and productivity of our current land base and meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
The Land Management Department currently has various activities implemented, such as the development, submission and negotiation of an Enhanced Co-management Agreement with Canada that will facilitate greater control and sustainability of Blood Tribe land.
There are also other projects underway: for example, the biophysical/environmental/cultural resource inventory; development and establishment of the GIS automated mapping system; agricultural permit reform; bylaw development and enforcement; implementation of a forestry management plan; development of a dispute resolution process respecting internal land use issues; leafy spurge project, a noxious weed suppression program; Canada-Alberta Soil Conservation Initiative; hunting permits administration; and continued strategies for capacity building and training.
Under the Blood Tribe Agriculture Project, BTAP, 20,000 acres of the land have been developed for irrigation purposes. The project is administered by Blood Tribe personnel who are fully trained in advanced irrigation information systems and is designed to grow a variety of crops, including specialty crops.
The project materialized through the joint efforts of the Blood Tribe, Canada and Alberta that led to a tripartite agreement referred to as the Blood Tribe Irrigation Project Agreement.
Pursuant to the requirements of the agreement, the Tribe enacted the Blood Tribe irrigation bylaw, which regulates the control and use of the waters on the reserve. An offshoot of the BTAP project is the Tribe's forage processing plant, whose products are geared primarily to export to the Pacific Rim countries.
The Kainai Agri-Business Corporation, KABC, was created to promote, encourage and enhance economic investment in the development of the Blood Tribe's agricultural industry.
This corporation acts as the agent and coordinating body to facilitate agricultural development for the Blood Tribe, as well as initiating, operating and directing the profit-oriented ventures of an agricultural nature. The corporation manages the Blood Band cattle herd, the Mataki Farm and the West End Big Lease.
The agricultural industry on the Blood Reserve has felt significant effects from the past years of drought and extreme climate changes in both the crop and livestock sectors. A variety of concerns about the damage and impact of the drought has been brought to the attention of the leaders in the agricultural sector within Alberta.
A number of different subsidy strategies have been implemented to counter the effects of this drought. Although the current government safety net program, the Farm Income Assistance Program, administered jointly by the federal and provincial governments, is assisting producers affected by the drought, the Blood Tribe administration is not being adequately compensated for the administrative services they are required to provide to ensure those producers on the Blood Reserve are compensated through drought assistance.
Further, the drought assistance is geared toward the agriculture producers and does not consider the landowners whose land and livelihoods are also significantly affected by the drought.
Assessments are being done on the rangeland within the Blood Reserve at various times throughout the year. These assessments are based on a percentage of vegetation cover, percentage of bare soil cover and water source on specific land areas.
The visual signs of drought and overgrazing on native grasslands include little or no vegetation, more than 40 per cent bare soil coverage, a new growth of weeds or a majority of the land covered by weeds such as prairie sage.
The average ``range fuel'' for the grasslands on the Blood Reserve is ``running on empty,'' so to speak, due largely to the recent drought.
The results of recent range assessments conducted on the Blood Reserve indicate generally that the carrying capacity of all native pastures has been significantly reduced compared to previous years. As a result, the number of livestock allowed to graze on the Blood Reserve has decreased by 15 per cent.
The drought situation had a major effect throughout the Blood Tribe and the Blood Tribe Agriculture Project dryland acres. The water in storage dwindled toward the end of August 2001 and resulted in ending irrigation to all cereal crops of the Blood Tribe Agriculture Project.
Kainai Agri-Business Corporation manages the Band's cattle herd. In 1999, the ranch was managing 600 head of cows on 19,000 acres of native grasslands.
The beginning of the drought in 2000 delivered a severe blow to the ranch. The forage productivity was severely reduced and the 22 dugouts that always held some water went dry; therefore, the water was pumped to dugouts nearest to the river through rented irrigation pipe.
Due to the lack of forage and water, the weaning weight of cattle was down and the conception rate of the cows was lower than normal.
The herd was culled heavily over the next couple of years due to the lack of forage. From a herd of 600 cows in 1999, we are now down to 203 head of pregnant cows. In 2002 we had a 40 per cent calf crop, whereas 90 per cent is the norm.
A range assessment in 2002 suggested we reduce our stocking rates from 35 acres per animal unit to 55 acres per animal unit.
The Mataki Farm yields are down from other years. The storage buildings are usually full of potatoes, but due to the water rationing on irrigation, bins are only filled to 60 per cent capacity.
There was a huge loss of revenue, as the building is rented out on a per-ton storage rate. Each year, there is usually enough straw left from cereal crops that it can be baled and used as supplementary feed and bedding for the cow herd.
The straw residue was very minimal this year, so there is nothing to bale and very little to cover the ground to prevent wind erosion. As a result, there are huge clouds of dirt blowing off the fields, leaving the soils in very poor condition.
The West End Big Lease crops were also very poor, with little straw residue to hold the soil down when the winds blew. The soil was left in very poor condition and large drifts have accumulated on fence lines. In 2001 we did not get a cut off our alfalfa field, although in 2002 we had one cut.
The normal output of the field is two cuttings a year for a total of two tons per acre. There was a three-quarter ton of forage taken off the field in 2002. A loss of one and a quarter tons, at $120 a ton, equals $150 per acre on 240 acres, for about $36,000.
Blood Band farms are similar to those of the West End Big Lease. The major impact on the lands is the soil erosion from wind due to the lack of sufficient straw cover. These lands will take several generations to come back to their former soil health.
As you can see, the drought has had a significant impact on the Blood Tribe's agricultural operations and long-term effects on the land itself. We definitely need to pursue discussions on how we can obtain assistance to remedy the effects of the drought, and preserve the integrity of the Blood Tribe lands, so we can continue to sustain a livelihood and contribute to the overall economy of Alberta.
Opportunities for development — Free Trade: The Blood Tribe is in a unique position to benefit from the free trade arrangements. Not only is it ideally situated along a major corridor between Canada and the United States, but it also has interesting historical ties with the U. S.
As you may be aware, the Blackfoot Nations located in Canada have commenced an action through Treaty 7 Tribal Council, and the Blood Tribe has commenced an independent action, both against Canada, for declarations with respect to the right to pass and repass what is now known as the international border.
The Treaty 7 Tribal Council action is currently stayed, while the Blood Tribe matter is proceeding.
As these matters are in litigation, we are not able to talk about the specific legal issues involved in the rights that we are claiming; however, we wish to give you some historical and current information regarding the Blood Tribe and our concerns, from a practical standpoint, with respect to agriculture and trade issues.
The Blood Tribe is a member of the Blackfoot Confederacy and shares the same territory, culture and kinships with other Blackfoot-speaking tribes of that Confederacy — the North Peigan and Siksika in Southern Alberta, and the South Peigan in Montana.
The Confederacy has functioned and continues to function as a political, economic and social alliance. Social and religious kinships extended through the four tribes and continue to the present.
Traditional Blackfoot territory encompassed significant parts of what are now Montana, Alberta and Saskatchewan and was bounded by the Yellowstone River in the State of Montana to the south, the North Saskatchewan River to the north, the Rockies to the west and the Sand Hills in Saskatchewan to the east.
In addition to hunting and other forms of resource and land use that existed in the traditional Blackfoot territory, trade was common among the four tribes and other First Nations further to the south, or what is now the United States.
Treaty making was also common and a mechanism to forge new relationships, including those of trade, peace and friendship. The Blood Tribe has at various times traded with such First Nations as the Gros Ventre, the Assiniboine, the Cree, the Kootenay and the Crow.
The Canada-U.S. border was surveyed in 1874 without regard to the Blackfoot Confederacy's traditional territory, or its social, political and economic relations.
There was also no regard for the Blackfoot Confederacy's Aboriginal rights to traditional territory, the Blood Tribe's legal and political relationship with the U.S., the treaty rights that arose from the Lamebull Treaty of 1855, or the rights that stemmed from the Jay Treaty of 1794.
In 1855, Blood Tribe Chiefs and other Blackfoot Confederacy Chiefs entered into what is commonly referred to as the Lamebull Treaty with the United States. Under this treaty, a legal and political relationship with the American government came into existence and certain rights were created.
After the 1855 treaty, the Bloods continued to live within their traditional territory north and south of the present border. When the international boundary was surveyed in 1874 and then Treaty 7 was made in 1877, efforts were made by the governments of Canada and the United States to keep Blood Tribe members on the northern side of the border.
As a result of government practices and policies, members of the Blood Tribe have not been able to exercise their rights stemming from the provisions of the Lamebull Treaty, not only in terms of annuities, but in terms of recourse to education, agricultural assistance, land rights, and general access to the Aboriginal territory for economic, social and cultural purposes.
The Blood Tribe, like other First Nations across the country in a similar situation, believes it has special standing with regards to customs and immigration arrangements between Canada and the United States, based in part on the Jay Treaty of 1794 and Aboriginal rights that are protected by section 35 of the Constitution Act of 1882.
Canada's position on the Jay Treaty is that it has not been recognized by legislation in Canada and therefore is not protected under section 35.
The Blood Tribe asserts that Canada's position is incorrect and not in keeping with the fiduciary relationship that Canada has with First Nations.
The Blood Tribe's unique situation historically and politically, as well as its locale, presents many interesting possibilities for economic development and community enhancement. The Blood Tribe has a tradition of conducting business based on innovation, creativity and a willingness to work with both levels of government as well as its neighbours.
I trust this presentation has provided you with a good overview of the Blood Tribe in the areas of agriculture, the impacts of the drought, and the potential for future development.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.
The Chairman: Chief Shade, I want to sincerely thank you for an excellent presentation. The drought situation that you outlined in the early part of your address is shocking, and I know that senators will want to ask you a lot of questions about it.
In relation to the trade issues, I have just spoken with the clerk of the Senate Standing Committee on Agriculture and Forestry and asked him to send you a copy of this committee's last report, ``Farmers at Risk,'' because it deals with some of the trade issues you have raised today and I think that you will find it to be of interest.
Senator LaPierre: Everything begins with a story, does it not? The last part of your presentation should have been the first part, and then we would have understood the historical context in which we have to situate this. I thank you for having brought this to our attention.
I am somewhat depressed by your presentation — not by your sense of survival, creativity and hard work, but by what has happened to you and the effects of this horrible drought.
May I ask you how many people live on your reserve, on your 356,000 acres?
Mr. Shade: Out of the population of 9,400, I think around 7,200 actually live on the reserve.
Senator LaPierre: Do you know how many of those are young people, below the age of 20, let us say?
Mr. Shade: The majority of the population is very young.
Senator LaPierre: Very young, like everywhere else.
Mr. Shade: Yes. The majority of the population is age 18 to 25.
Senator LaPierre: What do they say to you, sir, as their elder, about their future, these young people who see what you have described here? Do they say, ``Let's move to the city''?
Mr. Shade: Not many, although some are moving to the cities. Some of the young ones want to make their livelihood in agriculture, which is why we are here today, to try to see how we can reclaim some of the land, how we can make it right, so that they can use it in the future.
Senator LaPierre: On page 3, you say that you are in the process of the development, submission and negotiation of an Enhanced Co-Management Agreement with Canada that will facilitate greater control and sustainability of Blood Tribe land.
What are some of the issues that you have to resolve to arrive at an adequate agreement with which you would be happy?
Mr. Shade: The person who is directly involved in that, Elliot Fox, is here. Maybe he could answer that.
Mr. Elliot Fox, Director, Blood Tribe Land Management Department: Thank you for allowing us to present to your committee here.
To address your question as briefly as I can, a comprehensive proposal was submitted to the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada in 1999 with the primary objective of getting our own members back out onto the land in the interest of sustainability and to benefit as much as possible from that land.
In order for the tribe to attain some of their objectives, the proposal included more support from the government, in terms of technical and monetary resources, to conduct an inventory of the cultural and biophysical resources on the reserve.
I am fairly new to the Land Management Department. I have been there about three years. One of the first things I noticed when I took on this position — my background is in science, renewable resource management — was a lack of inventory information available to the tribe. I have told some of our leaders, both on and off the reserve, that if I am expected as lands director to adequately manage and administer Blood Reserve lands, I need to know what is out there to manage. There is a significant lack of information on resource inventory for the reserve.
Senator LaPierre: You need help to achieve that?
Mr. Fox: Yes.
Senator LaPierre: Technical and financial help?
Mr. Fox: Right.
Senator LaPierre: Thank you. I do not understand something on page 4. In the paragraph that follows ``Impact of the 2000-2001 Drought,'' the last sentence, you suggest that drought assistance is geared towards the agricultural producers and does not consider the landowners whose lands and livelihoods are also significantly affected.
Are you not an agricultural producer, and why are you not therefore eligible for drought assistance? What is the difference between you and the other guy?
Mr. Shade: Most of these lands are leased to individuals or a corporation to farm the land for us.
Senator LaPierre: I see.
Mr. Shade: They are the producers. However, when they move out, we the owners are still left with that soil in a poor state.
Senator LaPierre: These people rent the land from you in order to produce the crops?
Mr. Shade: Yes.
Senator LaPierre: That means that you are not farmers yourselves?
Mr. Shade: Some of us are farmers.
Senator LaPierre: When they leave, what do they leave behind?
Mr. Shade: Nothing.
Senator LaPierre: Nothing? And the land is barren?
Mr. Shade: Yes.
Senator LaPierre: Therefore, the drought will affect the revival of the land and you get no money for that because you are not the producer?
Mr. Shade: Yes.
Senator LaPierre: You are therefore the steward of the land?
Mr. Shade: Right.
Senator LaPierre: Did we not talk about that yesterday, Mr. Chairman?
You are the steward of the land. I certainly intend to pursue this matter. Thank you very much.
Mr. Eugene Creighton, Legal Counsel, Blood Tribe: Could I just clarify something? I am a member of the Blood Tribe and I am also the legal counsel.
Insofar as land is concerned, as you are aware, title to lands on a reserve is in the Crown, and they are reserved for the respective First Nations.
Different rules apply in terms of federal laws and provincial laws do not apply to the reserve; hence benefits from provincial programs do not apply.
When we talk about the producer and the owner, the owner being Canada, we are, as you say, perhaps stewards, but the producers are renting the land and gain the benefits of programs, whether they be federal farm aid programs or provincial programs.
Our people who do farm, or our corporations that farm, do benefit, perhaps, from federal programs, but we do not benefit from provincial programs because these are federal lands.
The Chairman: Thank you for that clarification.
Senator Wiebe: Just a supplementary question. I am a grain farmer, but during recent years I have not been able to farm the land myself so I rent it out. I share in the returns of that land, but I also have an agreement with the individual to whom I lease that land that I will receive a similar share of both provincial and federal government payments that go to the producer.
It is correct that the landowner does not receive any of those payments. It is just the producer, because as you say, the land is in title to the federal government. Does it not allow you to draw up a similar lease, where part of the rental agreement would be that if provincial and federal programs like NISA or CFIP make payments to the producer, you would get an automatic share?
Mr. Shade: The Government of Canada controls the leasing system. We have tried to make alterations to it, which led to negotiations for the Enhanced Co-management Agreement.
Presently, our hands are tied because the government draws up the document and we cannot really alter it in any way.
The Chairman: Thank you for that.
Senator Tkachuk: Chief Shade, it is an honour to have you here. Thank you very much for coming. It is nice to see an elected politician in the room. I also wanted to pursue that question on the leasing.
Just to clarify, in the past, was it the federal government's agents or the Department of Indian Affairs who actually drew up the lease with the farmer who was leasing the land and not you? Therefore, you are not eligible to receive benefits?
Mr. Shade: DIAND and the Department of Justice drafted the agreements.
Senator Tkachuk: We see some of the bills they draft. I understand that. The farmers who lease the land live off reserve?
Mr. Shade: Yes.
Senator Tkachuk: Therefore, they cannot apply for a provincial program because the land is on the reserve and is Federal Crown land; is that correct?
Mr. Shade: No, they can apply.
Senator Tkachuk: They can apply?
Mr. Shade: However, we could not apply if we farmed the land ourselves.
Senator Tkachuk: Oh, I see.
Mr. Shade: They are Albertans. They are not living on the reserve.
Senator Tkachuk: Right. How will you be able to sort that out in the future? So many of these programs are shared, and the federal government will provide help for the farmers, but the province has to pay half, or 40 per cent or whatever.
Can you work that out so that the reserve can apply and benefit in some way?
Mr. Shade: Maybe I could get our solicitor to answer that.
Mr. Creighton: It is a real irony, in the sense that the Department of Indian Affairs is pushing to make the tribes more responsible for their lands. When the federal Land Management Act came into effect, it introduced another layer in terms of reserve land, designated lands and surrender of lands.
If you do not surrender the land, you go through this other management process, which transfers responsibilities to the First Nations.
The problem we have is in trying to get our recommendations included in those arrangements. They are barely considered because Canada deals with all reserve lands across the country in that one piece of legislation.
In Western Canada we have farmlands; in Northern Manitoba or Ontario you may have bush or whatever.
Senator Tkachuk: Forestry.
Mr. Creighton: Forestry. Therefore, it really does not clarify things or provide any sort of benefit.
Anything that we propose always has to go through the Department of Justice. As we know, the Department of Justice watches out for Canada in terms of fiduciary and trust responsibilities.
It then becomes a dogfight at a different level. Instead of talking about land, you are talking about trusts and fiduciary issues that are maybe foreign to a lot of our membership. It kind of loses that context of what the issue is.
I just asked Mr. Fox here, and the last time that the permits, as they are called — they are issued under the Indian Act and authorized by the Minister of Indian Affairs — were amended was five years ago, and prior to that, about ten years ago. They are not too inclined to amend this process for various reasons.
Also, keep in mind that this issue of the trusts and fiduciary responsibilities makes it very difficult for native people to simply go to the Canadian government and say, ``Give us the right to do all these things with our lands.'' Then we would lose that.
Canada does not provide sufficient funding. If we had an environmental disaster, we do not know what Canada would do. For example, they flow flood damage issues through Alberta, and Alberta would have to deal with them. It becomes a real problem simply because there has never been a legal tie there.
Senator Tkachuk: Who holds the permit book when one of your own people farms on the reserve?
Mr. Creighton: The farmer.
Senator Tkachuk: Not the Crown. Under the Jay Treaty, if you grew wheat, could you put it in a truck, take it to Montana and sell it at the elevator?
Mr. Creighton: That was tried, sir.
Senator Tkachuk: That is why I asked the question. I thought it might be a good way to get prairie wheat down south.
Mr. Creighton: On the serious side, we do have litigation ongoing, as was explained by the Chief, dealing with that very issue because of this tie we have with the United States government as part of the Blackfoot Confederacy.
Senator Tkachuk: That was my question, actually. If the federal government recognized the Jay Treaty, does that treaty allow for that to happen?
Mr. Creighton: It allows for the freedom to pass and re-pass the international boundary; that is, pass and come back, and then there is the other issue of re-passing with goods without paying duties.
Senator Tkachuk: You would have to put up the biggest inland terminal in the country there.
Mr. Creighton: Probably in Montana.
Senator Tkachuk: Thanks. That was interesting.
Senator Wiebe: I need some education here. It was my impression that the treaty lands were made available for our First Nations to enjoy and to use.
Now, if a group of your members decided to actively farm that land, 100 per cent of the proceeds would go to the individuals on the reserve. None would go to the federal government.
Now, if those individuals — and this is the grey area for me — applied to CFIP because they were the actual producers, would they then not receive all of the benefits?
To carry that further, how would that apply to crop insurance? Would the band be able to buy crop insurance, because that is a federal-provincial shared jurisdiction?
Mr. Creighton: Could I just comment on the insurance? An individual member who farms his own lands that are allotted to him by the tribe can apply to those federal programs for support.
In terms of insuring crops, if the lands are permitted out or leased, if we may use the word ``leased'' loosely, if I were one of the occupants, I can only obtain hail insurance.
The farmer, the producer, is the one who purchases the drought insurance and all-peril types of insurance. Only the Indian can purchase hail insurance.
Senator Wiebe: However, he would qualify for CFIP?
Mr. Creighton: Not the occupant. If he were an active farmer, yes, he would.
Senator Wiebe: If the active farmer were a member of the reserve, he would qualify?
Mr. Creighton: Yes.
Senator Wiebe: This will be my last supplementary question. Do you lease the land to a member of your reserve? Does the individual member of the band who actually farms that land have to pay rent or a lease fee to the reserve, or does he enjoy all the benefits of that land he is farming?
Mr. Creighton: Not an individual member, no. It has to also be understood that lands are shared. Lands on a reserve are commonly held for the use and benefit of the members of that tribe. Then the tribe can either pursue occupational rights or some other form of rights through the Indian Act under section 20 and on up to about section 30 — and do not think I memorized those sections; I did not — which are the tickets that the minister can issue to give more rights.
The Blood Reserve is managed under what is called'' the customs of the tribe,'' that is, the council determines who would occupy which lands and how much land would be occupied. Obviously, we do not have enough land for everybody. Not all 9,400 members have land; maybe 30 per cent or less do.
The individuals who have ``occupational rights,'' as we refer to it, because they do not have a legal right, and who farm, have the ability to apply.
They do not pay a fee to the tribe; however, there is an administration fee when the lands are permitted out. The occupant who does farm his lands is entitled to permit books, can do anything that any other farmer can do, and can apply for all programs except provincial programs.
Senator LaPierre: My first supplementary arises out of the Jay Treaty. Now, if Canada accepted that treaty, you would have those rights, but does the United States accept it?
Mr. Creighton: Well, the United States recognizes it because it is a treaty.
Senator LaPierre: However, it will not allow its people to cross the border?
Mr. Creighton: No.
Senator LaPierre: Anymore than we do, right?
Mr. Creighton: The Jay Treaty is between the U.S. and the British colonies. The Lamebull Treaty is between the United States government and the Blackfoot Confederacy.
Senator LaPierre: I see. Therefore there is a great difference there.
Mr. Creighton: Right.
Senator LaPierre: I want to understand the fiduciary responsibility of the federal government.
Let us say you have oil on your lands, from which you must derive some royalties. My interest is not in how much money you make from that, but does the federal government negotiate an arrangement with the explorers of those oil reserves in your name, and does it also determine the percentage of monetary rights that accrue from that?
Does it do all that for you, or do you have a say? In other words, do you own the reserves under the ground?
Mr. Shade: Canada used to do all the negotiations on our behalf, but today we have enhanced co-management of our oil and gas, and we do that for ourselves.
We do all the negotiations with the different oil companies, and the resources that come out of that go directly to the Consolidated Revenue Fund to be held there for our use.
The Chairman: I want to get back to the subject of our study, which is climate change and adaptation, and the effect that it has had on your reserve lands and so on.
I would like to ask Mr. Andy Blackwater to tell us whether in his lifetime he has ever seen such a degree of climate change, and if so, what types of changes. We would really like to hear your view.
Mr. Andy Blackwater, Elder, Blood Tribe: I used to farm quite a lot of land, about 2,500 acres, but then I retired just before the drought really hit. I had one bumper crop and I had the sense to pull out.
I have gone through a lot of the problems that were discussed, as to how you work through the system in getting permits and selling your grain.
I have heard a lot of our elders make reference to the change in our climate, the weather patterns, and they link all of that to the disruption of the natural flow of the rivers through dams, and I suppose it does affect the amount of rain we get.
Two recent droughts we had were blamed on trying to regulate the natural flow of the rivers.
We could go way back in our history. We did not have maps, but we could tell what kind of weather we were going to have within the next couple of days by looking at the patterns of the clouds and the colours of the sunset. We could tell by the behaviour of the animals and the direction of the wind.
The direction of the winds was very noticeable. If the wind came from the east, then we were surely going to have some kind of major change in the weather. We could look to the mountains and see the chinook coming. There are different ways in which we are able to predict what the weather will be like within the next few days.
Now everything is getting mixed up. We usually welcome the ducks and the geese at about this time of year. We even have a month that we refer to as ``the moon of the geese,'' but now you have ducks and geese flying all over the place in midwinter. Even they are affected.
The consumption of the wild meat, fish and birds, such as the ducks, is also affected. Some of our people are quite concerned about consuming that kind of meat because it is heavily polluted.
I have heard people talk about the Oldman River. The source is in the mountains, the glaciers. By the time it gets here, it is the dirty Oldman River. It is all polluted. We cannot fish, drink or swim there.
Those are the kind of things that the older people are quite concerned about, and we do not know where we are heading in terms of the weather patterns and what we are accustomed to.
A lot of people will prepare for upcoming storms that are very predictable, especially the big snowfall in March. It has not come on time. Traditional knowledge of the weather patterns and the environment in general shows that many things are being affected.
One of the most recent concerns is in the area of our traditional medicine, the roots and other vegetation that we use. There is going to be a real shortage and we have to travel great distances to secure those requirements for our health.
Our relationship with Mother Earth, which is the land, is very close and the teachings of our elders say that we are one and one. We are not separate from the earth.
That is why we are very conscious of the changes and very concerned when we see these things that we had looked at historically for directions and guidance being disrupted. That is what is really driving us crazy sometimes.
Hopefully that will provide you with some knowledge and awareness of those areas that we do not get a chance to really talk about. Thank you.
The Chairman: I appreciate that answer. I heard the statistics given by the Chief about the cattle herd of 600 head now down to 203 pregnant cows, and the rate of conception dropping substantially. What advice do you have for those on the farm now about what should be done about that situation, caused largely by the drought?
Mr. Blackwater: Well, you can have all kinds of fancy irrigation equipment, but if you do not have the water, what are you going to do? What good is that system? How are you going to use it?
Often, the bottom line is securing the resources that we need to continue to operate. As I said earlier, I was involved with the Mataki Farm, the potato project, and they have had to shut down the irrigation systems. I think that was in August, when the Belly River went dry.
They shut the system down for two months. They allowed the water to flow through into Saskatchewan to feed those other irrigation systems down the line. Then when we had the systems in place, there was no water in the river. That was at a very crucial time when water should have been applied.
Once we start to mess around with the natural course of rivers and lakes, it affects the weather patterns, and of course it impacts on some people more than others.
Senator Fairbairn: I have more of a comment than a question. It is an honour to have Chief Shade and my friends from the Blood Nation, Kainai, here today.
I think it is ironic to note what has happened in recent years because of the drought conditions. Chief Shade did not say this himself, but I will.
A long time ago, in the middle of the last century or a little earlier, when irrigation was thought of as the way ahead for this area and the St. Mary's irrigation system was being developed, it was felt that in order to have the best possible system, it needed to cross Blood land.
Discussions and negotiations took place, and the Blood Tribe graciously agreed, with the assurance that they, too, would benefit from the irrigation system. The plan went ahead.
However, that obligation was not fulfilled for over 40 years, and after it was, remarkable things happened on the reserve, not just in terms of agriculture, but also in training young people on the reserve and others in how to use the system and how to farm.
There was a very sad irony in listening to you today, in that when everything was going well, suddenly the drought and the change in climate has caused this hardship. If there is hardship in the rest of this area because of drought, the hardship on the land of our First Nations is far more severe.
As we think about that in the context of our study and our report, we have to understand that this is not just another case. This is a very different and very difficult case.
I am glad you were here to give your presentation today because I think we all learned a great deal from it.
The Chairman: I add my thank you to Senator Fairbairn's, and we appreciated your presentation.
Our next presenter is Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
Dr. Peter Burnett, Acting Director, Lethbridge Research Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada: It is a pleasure to be here, honourable senators. When I was called as a witness, I thought it was inappropriate to come without some backup, so I have brought two of the scientists from the centre with me. I would like to introduce them.
The first speaker will be Dr. Henry Janzen, on my far right. Henry is a soil scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and is studying the cycles of carbons and nutrients in agri-ecosystems, with emphasis on carbon sinks and greenhouse gas emissions.
Recently, Henry has contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and has been involved in producing such publications as the special report on ``Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry,'' and his subject today is the ``Kyoto Protocol — how does it affect Canadian farmlands?''
Dr. Henry Janzen, Soil Scientist, Lethbridge Research Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada: I am very grateful to honourable senators for the chance to talk a little about some possible links between the Kyoto Protocol and farmlands. I will try to very quickly address four questions.
First, what is the issue? Second, what are the current estimates of emissions? How do we reduce those emissions? Finally, are there some ancillary benefits?
Are there some other benefits that might arise from reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases?
By way of background, let me just refer you to the global carbon cycle. Presented here is just a very rough overview of such a cycle showing the three main pools in the terrestrial ecosystems: the air, the plants and the soil.
These units, incidentally, are in what we call ``petagrams,'' sometimes called giga-tons or billion tons. Now, those units do not necessarily mean a whole lot to me. If we look at those three pools, generally speaking, it is clear that the atmosphere contains about the same amount of carbon as the plants, but each of these contains much less carbon that is housed in the soil.
Of course, all of these pools are interacting, interlinked and intertwined. For example, every year plants capture about 60 billion tons of carbon through photosynthesis. Much of that eventually enters the soil, and we have a roughly equivalent flux going back out through decomposition and other processes such as fire.
Of course, the same thing is happening with the ocean, except here the fluxes both ways are about 90 petagrams.
These processes and their feedbacks have kept the atmospheric CO2 concentration reasonably stable for many thousands of years, until, of course, fairly recently, when increasingly, humans have become a prominent geological force on this planet.
We have disturbed that carbon cycle in at least two ways. The first has been through reshuffling of this carbon cycling by way of land use change. One of the most important mechanisms of that reshuffling, of that rearranging of the carbon cycle, has been through the expansion of agriculture.
Almost invariably, when we shift to agricultural practices, we lose carbon. For example, when we first started putting plows to the grasslands here in Western Canada about 100 years ago, very typically, we lost about 20 to 30 per cent of the carbon that was stored there within a few decades.
Very often, we are shrinking the size of these terrestrial pools, so where does the carbon go? Initially, at least, it goes up into the atmosphere as CO2. That is one of the ways in which we have altered the carbon cycle.
More recently, of course, another mechanism has superseded land use changes as the mechanism of importance, and that is through fossil fuel burning.
We know that there is a very large pool of the so-called ``fossil carbon'' containing thousands of petagrams. It is essentially isolated and out of circulation in this active carbon cycle, and what we have done, in effect, is bore down into that large pool, reintroducing it into the active cycle.
We are bleeding carbon back into that active carbon, and we are doing it at increasing rates, so that in recent years we have exceeded emission rates of six petagrams, or six billion tons, of CO2 carbon into that atmospheric pool.
Now, what happens to that CO2? Well, this is a rough balance done by the IPCC recently. In the 1990s, the average emission rate was about 6.3 petagrams per year. Some of that is absorbed into the oceans; some of it, apparently, is being absorbed by the landmass through vegetation, but not all of it.
Roughly half of this emission is accumulating in the atmosphere every year. Every year, on average, another 3 billion tons or so of carbon has been added to the load already there, and that, of course, results in this very familiar graph that we have all seen now many times.
When I was a student, I remember learning somewhere that the atmospheric CO2 concentration was about 330 ppm. It has now surged past 370.
The concentration of the other greenhouse gases is also increasing. We are at the point now where there is still some uncertainty about what this means for climates, and other changes, 50 or 100 years down the road, but we know very clearly now that the composition of the atmosphere is changing. It is changing abruptly, and many of those abrupt changes have our fingerprints on them.
Of course, that has led us to looking at many ways of suppressing those increases, culminating in the Kyoto Protocol, with which I think we are all quite familiar.
We have promised, at least for our target in Canada, to reduce emissions to 6 per cent below those in 1990, and that has to be done in the first commitment period, from 2008 to 2012.
That is a fairly modest reduction, except that we are already well above 1990 levels, and depending on where you draw this business-as-usual line, we are looking at a real reduction of appreciably more than the 6 per cent.
Now, that is a very quick background. Where does agriculture fit into this? Looking at Canadian emissions for the year 2000, if you exclude its fossil fuel use, agriculture accounts for slightly less than 10 per cent of the emissions from the country as a whole.
Agriculture is unique, because whereas most of these emissions are as CO2, largely from energy use, agriculture's emissions are primarily as methane and as N2O, laughing gas.
The methane is derived largely from animal production systems, from both the animals themselves and the manure they generate. The nitrous oxide is produced from many sources, but the largest of them is from agricultural soil, especially those that have been blended with manures, with fertilizers, and other nitrogenous material.
That is a quick survey of where the emissions are coming from. How do we then think about reducing those emissions? There are many practices that we could list here for each of the gases from the various facets of the agri- ecosystems, but let me just simply pose this thought, that greenhouse gas emissions might be signals. They might be indicators of inefficiencies in the system.
To make that point, let me just run you through an example using the nitrogen cycle. We know that crops take up nitrogen because they need it to grow. That nitrogen comes from the soil nitrogen pool, and much of that nitrogen pulled out of the soil is removed.
The point of farming is to take protein-rich materials off the landscape. Therefore, we have to add nitrogen back into the system to keep it running.
We have to add it as fertilizers, legumes and various other materials. Almost invariably, as these materials are gradually converted and transformed within the soil by biological activity, a small fraction of it leaks away as N2O. The N2O emissions are much higher where we have situations of excess nitrogen.
The N2O emissions tend to be much higher when the timing of fertilizer applications, the nutrient application, or the amounts exceed the rate at which the plants take it up.
Often, it tells us we have the opportunity to make these additions of nitrogen more efficient and more in keeping with the requirements of the crop.
Now, I have said that the primary emissions of greenhouse gases from agriculture are from methane and nitrous oxide, but of course agriculture is also very involved in the nitrogen cycle.
In fact, that is what farmers do. In effect, they put in crops that then absorb CO2 and convert it to inorganic material, some of which is exported, and the rest of which goes back into the soil to complete the cycle.
Farming systems and the farming ecosystem are very much involved in global ecosystems and the global carbon cycle, and if we look at ways of possibly reducing or mitigating these CO2 increases, I think we can see many implications for farming practices.
There are at least three broad ways of reducing emissions. The first and most obvious one is to simply reduce the emissions of CO2 from fossil fuel burning itself, and agriculture may be involved to some extent in that.
The second way is to furnish burnable materials from the vegetation itself, to grow crops that can generate, for example, ethanol. That is then burned in place of fossil carbon.
You are still generating CO2, but that CO2 comes from that recently absorbed photosynthesis. Therefore, you are simply recycling that atmospheric CO2 instead of adding new material from the fossil carbon.
Of course, we have to be very careful that we do not burn a lot of fossil carbon to generate that ethanol or other by- fuel in the first place.
Then there is the third method and perhaps the most prominent one, often discussed when we think about our agricultural soils, and that is the whole issue of carbon sinks.
The question is can we increase the size of these pools? We know that we have lost a lot of carbon from the soil pool, especially from the vegetative pool. Can we rearrange the way we farm our land and restore some of that carbon loss? We know that if we gain a ton of carbon back into the soil, it will have come from the atmosphere. That is the source. By rebuilding these pools, we draw down some CO2 from the atmosphere.
How do we do that? There are a number of ways that we can store more carbon in the soil, but they all boil down basically to two processes. Carbon is stored in the soil in organic matter, or what we call humus, and it is really a function of how much plant material goes in and the rate at which it decomposes out.
If we want to increase carbon, we either have to put more in or slow down the rate at which it is released through decomposition.
We have now a fairly good understanding of some of the practices by which we can do that, based in part on long- term crop rotation studies such as the ones still ongoing in Lethbridge.
Let me run through some examples. You are probably reasonably familiar with these already. One of the ways is to reduce tillage; another is to reduce the amount of summerfallow. Summerfallow is a practice where we avoid planting the land for a year to replenish moisture and nutrients.
Unfortunately, during that summerfallow year there is no photosynthesis, no carbon going in, so we shrink the carbon pool there. If we stop summerfallow, generally speaking, we gain carbon.
We could go through other practices, such as increased use of forage crops. Higher yields will tend to increase organic matter in the soil. Perhaps the most extreme is simply reintroducing grasses or other native vegetation back into the system.
We have now a fairly good understanding of these systems and some of the rates of accrual. Generally speaking, we might expect carbon gains at rates of about 0.2 to 0.4 tons of carbon per hectare per year, although that varies widely. It may be higher; it may be lower.
What does that mean on a global basis? The IPCC has recently done global assessments suggesting that if there was widespread adoption of these practices, we might globally gain somewhere between 0.3 and 0.4 petagrams of carbon.
You will see that that does not solve the problem. That is not nearly enough to wipe out that accrual, but it is perhaps best viewed as a significant contribution to a suite of many other practices, and as a complementary or supplementary approach to some of the other mechanisms.
We have learned a lot about carbon sequestration, but there are still a few questions remaining. The first question is can we measure it?
Soil carbon sequestration happens slowly and in very small amounts relative to that which is already there. We have to work at ways of measuring or, more likely, predicting it.
A second question, a very important one, is what is the impact on all the other greenhouse gases? Any given farming practice may influence all of the greenhouse gases, and we need to be very careful that we do not advocate a practice that may store carbon but, say, increases N2O.
N2O is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. We could get ourselves into a situation where we are recommending a practice that builds solar carbon.
It is the overall effect that we are after. A lot of effort is being exerted right now nation-wide, for example, under the so-called ``model farm program,'' where we are trying to capture whole-farm emissions of greenhouse gas as a function of practices.
We know that eventually, carbon gain must stop. The question is how long does it take to get to that point?
If a farmer adopted no-till in 1995, is he or she still gaining carbon now? Is he or she still gaining in the years of the first commitment period for Kyoto? That is an important question.
And finally, the question of the future: What happens if the climate does change? What happens to the carbon that we have gained? What happens, heaven forbid, if someone has been farming no-till for many decades and there is a plow on that piece of land some time in the future? These are questions we have to think about.
By way of closing, let me make a few remarks about this last question. What are the other benefits? Here I think it is important to remind myself, as someone who is very interested in carbon sinks, in greenhouse gas emissions, that these lands on which we work and which we study provide many different ecosystem services.
Yes, they are perhaps an opportunity for reducing greenhouse gas emissions; yes, they are potential carbon sinks, but they also do many other things. They are a source of livelihood, a source of food, a source of timber and a source of fuel. They filter our air and our water.
We have to be very careful, as we develop strategies for carbon sinks and greenhouse gas emissions, to also keep these other things in mind. If I am to be completely honest, this may not have the highest priority when we consider all of these. We need to look at the whole system.
Fortunately, there is some good news, in that very often when we do build carbon, when we do reduce greenhouse gases, there are benefits for some of these other functions as well. For example, if we build soil carbon, generally speaking, we make a soil that is more productive, more resilient, has better natural habitat, and is also improved in terms of many of these other characteristics.
One of the questions we started out with was can we reduce greenhouse gas emissions from Canadian farms? Maybe we should rephrase that and ask what can we do to keep our farms productive and profitable now? What can we do to keep them productive ten years from now, a generation from now, five generations from now?
If we get the answers to those questions right, then maybe we will be well on our way to building robust and healthy ecosystems, and if we are building robust and healthy ecosystems, maybe we will also be reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
I have one last slide, on another of the benefits that I think come from these studies of greenhouse gas emissions. We are increasingly realizing that we cannot limit our studies and our thoughts to that little ecosystem that is of interest.
The carbon cycle teaches us that we are all interactive. We are all connected. If you followed an atom of carbon that was in the gas tank of a car this morning, by now you would find it up in the air. Who knows, in spring it may enter a wheat plant, and somewhere down the road becomes someone's porridge, soon to be exhaled back into the atmosphere.
Studying these issues reminds us that we are connected. Increasingly, I think we will to have to look beyond these agriculture ecosystems and make the point that what happens on this land matters. It matters not only here, it matters in extent and scope and space and time well beyond that small box that we are used to studying.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Professor Janzen.
Mr. Burnett: I would like to introduce Sean McGinn, a meteorologist at the Research Centre. One area he studies is the assessment of climate change and impacts on soil moisture and drought on the Prairies. The title of his presentation is ``Adaption of agriculture to predicted climate change.''
Mr. Sean McGinn, Research Scientist, Lethbridge Research Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada: It is a pleasure to be here this afternoon and talk to you about some of the work that we have conducted at the Lethbridge Research Centre on adaptation of agriculture to predict climate change.
As Professor Janzen laid out for us in the previous presentation, you can see that the enhanced greenhouse gas effect is a player in where climate will take us in the future. However, we also have to be reminded that there are other factors to be considered in determining what our climate will be in the future. One of these has been reviewed recently — the effect of increased solar radiation which has, according to one report, accounted for one-third of the global warming since 1970. Other factors will continue to play an important role, year to year.
We will continue to see variability in the weather across the Canadian Prairies. We must keep in mind the position of the jet stream, which steers the Pacific's moisture to the prairies where it ends up in the soil. It is an important factor to keep in mind. This moisture from the Pacific accounts for about two thirds of the moisture received as rainfall in the growing season. When the jet stream stays to the far north, no moisture falls on the southern Prairies, which, of course, leads to prolonged drought.
Volcanic interruptions in the northern hemisphere also introduce differences in the weather we see from year to year. The eruptions at Mt. Pinatubo in 1991 led to a cooling of up to 1 degree across the Canadian Prairies.
It is becoming increasingly evident that large circulation patterns in the ocean, such as we experienced this year because of El Niño, have an impact elsewhere. On the Canadian Prairies they generally lead to warmer and dryer winters.
I will go back to the main theme of this presentation, which is greenhouse gases, climate, and agriculture. We must understand the rate of change in climate to understand what its potential impact will be on sensitive agriculture systems, and then investigate the depth of responses that could potentially reduce the impact of climate change.
Another factor to remember is that there will be regional differences in climate change.
A main feature of climate and weather on the Canadian Prairies is the recurring drought. On the slide you can see in the first column the intensity of drought as it varies from a slight drought at minus 5 to a more moderate drought at minus 2 and to an extreme drought event at minus 4. This index is used in agriculture to demonstrate the intensity of drought.
In Lethbridge, over an 88-year period, you can see we defined drought as a meteorological drought or a lack of rainfall. The number of drought events for an extreme drought is about 51 for this period, lasting, on average, 1.7 months. Contrast that to an agriculture drought, which is the deficit in soil moisture for growing a crop. The number of drought events significantly decreases as compared to a meteorological drought, so that in terms of an extreme drought of minus 4, we are now seeing only about six drought events lasting, on average, 2.8 months. It is important to know what type of drought you are talking about.
We all realize that a drought has an impact on crop yields, especially in dryland areas, which are both sensitive and vulnerable to droughts.
The slide illustrates a time series, from 1965 to 1990, and what the drought intensity was from year to year. Anything less than zero is a drought condition, and anything above zero is a non-drought condition where we have excessive soil moisture.
If we impose upon that trend the yield at Lethbridge during the same period, you will see a correlation between the yield of spring wheat and drought intensity. In other words, we experienced above average crop yield of about one tonne per hectare during wet years, and during dry years we experienced below normal spring wheat yield of about one tonne per hectare. A good example of this is what occurred in 1988, which, of course, was a drought year. Our spring wheat yield was reduced Prairie-wide down to 47 per cent of that in 1986, which was a very wet year.
The next slide shows the trend in air temperature at the Lethbridge Research Centre. The trend is about 1 degree upwards over the past 100 years. It corresponds quite nicely to the 1.1 degree rise that is reported elsewhere in the literature for the Canadian Prairies. Where this trend will take us in the future depends on our ability to mitigate warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
However, we must also consider another strategy, and that is adjusting the coping range of our agricultural sector. We are not so concerned about the lower temperature coping level. We are more concerned about the upper level coping level because that is where the climate will take us. It is warming. Warming above the upper level will generate more evaporation from the soil surface, which will, of course, deplete soil moisture and lead to reduced yields.
Another factor to consider with warming in an agriculture system is its impact on yields. If not dealt with, the faster maturing crops will produce lower crop yields. We must have adaptive strategies to increase our ability to cope with this upper temperature limit so that the cropping systems will adapt to the warming temperatures. For example, strategies that reduce water use or conserve moisture is one means of adaptation, and another is introducing crop cultivars, which can tolerate the warmer temperatures.
Before we can address the whole impact and adaptation question, we need to have a fair sense of what the climate will look like into the future. For that reason, we spent a good amount of time at the Lethbridge Research Station developing regional climate change scenarios for the Canadian Prairies using general circulation models, GCMs.
We downscaled those to a scale that is relevant to understanding the impact on agriculture on the Canadian Prairies. We did the same thing with historic weather station data. We now have data sets in place to understand the magnitude of change relative to the historic perspective.
The next slide shows some of the data that came out of that study. It shows the maximum daily air temperature across Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. Historically it was 8.4, 8.3 and 7.6. Under the older global circulation model, the second-generation model, we are expecting to see, by a doubling of the carbon monoxide concentration by the year 2040 to 2060, increases in maximum daily air temperature by between 5.2 and 5.7 degrees Celsius.
We also looked at the newer third-generation global circulation model, which included a better linkage with ocean processes and aerosols in the upper atmosphere that, as I mentioned earlier, tended to reduce surface warming. You can see there that the warming is somewhat reduced, between 2.5, 2.9 and 3.3.
The same applies to the minimum temperature. Generally, the older second-generation model produced much higher warming than the newer third-generation model.
The table shows the precipitation historically in millimetres. In Alberta we traditionally receive about 482 millimetres versus Saskatchewan at 395 and Manitoba 486 millimetres. With the older, second-generation model, we predicted between 29 and 36 per cent increase in precipitation across the Prairie provinces. However, with the newer, third-generation model we are showing much smaller increases in precipitation, between 3 per cent and 7 per cent.
Once we have a good handle on what the climate change is under these scenarios, we will then be in a position to try to use this information to model what the soil moisture will be in the future, which will give us a handle on the crop yield impact.
The next table shows the average growing season soil moisture under different scenarios: the historic, the older, second-generation GCM, and the newer GCM. We see a slight increase in soil moisture in all three provinces under the new, third-generation model; whereas, with the higher precipitation that we predicted with the older GCM model, the soil moistures, of course, are much higher.
The next table shows the growing season water deficits for the different scenarios where the deficit reflects the amount of supplementary water necessary to grow crop under non-water stress conditions. You can see that there is a slight improvement using a new generation model over the historic model, but there is little change in terms of the amount of water necessary to grow a crop without water stress.
We also looked at the adaptive strategy of earlier seeding dates and its effect on soil moisture. You can see for Alberta, with the warmer spring conditions, there is a possibility that farmers could get into their fields by as much as 21 or 22 days earlier in Alberta, 19 to 25 days in Saskatchewan, and 17 to 19 days in Manitoba. By seeding earlier, there is a tendency to increase the amount of moisture in the soil profile by as much as 2 to 15 millimetres with the new third-generation model. This adaptive strategy will come naturally to the farming systems. They will adapt to earlier spring conditions.
The Chairman: You must have heat as well as moisture. You need heat for germination.
Mr. McGinn: Yes, you do. In fact, our model took into consideration a thermal as well as a moisture regime.
The Chairman: You also need to consider the number of heat units.
Mr. McGinn: That is correct. Interestingly enough, the adaptive strategies seem to be more beneficial the further east you are in the Canadian Prairies. You can see that, for Saskatchewan, on average there is a nine-millimetre increase in the daily soil moisture available and 15 millimetres in Manitoba.
We went back and had a look at what the seasonal distribution of moisture and precipitation is across the Canadian Prairies. You can see that total rainfall change in June-August between the historic condition and the newer GCM model indicated that there is, indeed, a gradient in rainfall between the east and the west. In the later part of the season, you can see that there is actually a decrease in the amount of moisture, a decrease in the amount of precipitation, received in southern Manitoba and Southeastern Saskatchewan. For those regions, planting earlier would avoid some of the more arid conditions that exist later in the growing season.
The other strategy that is important to consider when you are looking at crop adaptation is the direct impact that increasing carbon dioxide concentration has on crop growth. Generally, it takes about 10 units of water to produce one unit of biomass. This ratio is often referred to as ``water use efficiency.'' The doubling of carbon dioxide concentration will, in fact, increase water use efficiency so that, with the same amount of water, you should be able to yield better crops.
The last two slides deal with other research findings for the Canadian Prairies' related to work out of Ottawa. The first study confirms some of the results we found in Lethbridge. Those findings show an advance seeding date of about three weeks on the Canadian Prairies. They show very little change in spring planted barley, wheat, and canola yield. They attributed this to two things. One was the CO2 adaptive response where the water use efficiency was increased by about 25 per cent and the other was the earlier seeding dates, which compensated for increased water and nitrogen stress later in the growing season.
The second study, which is very useful to understand with regard to how crops will adapt, was out of Finland. It looked at spring wheat yields. Here you can see that the elevated CO2 alone dramatically increased yields of spring wheat. Warming, which led to earlier and maturing crops, reduced yield to about 77 or 80 per cent of that without warming. The combination of warming and the elevated CO2 level effect overall increased crop yields to 106 to 122 per cent. Then, combining the combined warming and elevated CO2, with earlier sowing dates produced yield increases up to 178 per cent.
We are now working with AAFC in Ottawa, which is leading a project on developing better climate change scenarios for agriculture. We see that there is quite a difference in the impact on agriculture, depending on which climate change scenarios you choose. Therefore, we are now looking at a broader range of climate change scenarios and trying to get a handle on how those worst and best case scenarios will impact on agriculture.
Finally, I would conclude by saying that a great deal of other types of research should be considered. Perhaps the most important of that is to consider what the impact will be on grasslands, wheats, and diseases in the agriculture ecosystem.
The Chairman: Thank you very much for those two excellent presentations.
Senator Wiebe: My first question will be a tough one for you to answer. It is not one that I think you expected to be asked today.
The slide that shows the pie with about 25 per cent of the contribution to our CO2 problem coming from agriculture and 75 per cent coming from our use of energy, that means the cars we drive, the potash that we produce, the oil that we produce, and so on, to be honest with you, scares the hell out of me. How do we transfer the knowledge that you have presented to us to the general public in a way that they can put the pressure on our policy-makers, politicians of all stripes, so that they will do something about this problem?
I told you it was going to be a tough question. Who is prepared to tackle it?
Mr. Janzen: It is certainly a valid question and one many of us have thought about. I certainly do not have an answer to that but, from my perspective as a soil scientist and someone interested in agriculture, I think part of the answer may lie in telling the story more clearly, trying to show how ecology is not just a nice concept, a nice sort of feel good thing, but it really involves all of us. We all share the atmosphere.
The global carbon cycle, as I tried to point out, touches all of us. Maybe step one is simply for each of us in our own areas of alleged expertise to remind, not only our scientific colleagues, but also all of our fellow citizens of the importance of some of these processes, and simply trying to tell the story.
Senator Wiebe: It will be a tough job. All we have to do is look at the debate that took place across Canada last year about whether we should adopt the Kyoto accord. Different interest groups put across many different points of view.
The testimony of C-CIARN, which is a group that was founded by both the provincial and federal governments, indicates that even if every country in the world adopted the current Kyoto Protocol and met its requirements 100 per cent, the damage has already been done, and that the best we can expect is a slowdown in global warming. If that is the case, we will have a very difficult time trying to adapt to that in this country, not only to ensure that we have a secure agricultural sector left but also a secure food supply.
We have talked about the dollars needed for research. In what direction or in what areas should those dollars be spent? We know we have a problem, but we still have a lot of work to do to figure out how we resolve the problem, and what areas of Canada might be affected by global warming. However, we have not concluded from our research yet how we will adapt to it. We have made some starts, but there is still a tremendously long way to go. Can you share your ideas in that regard? This committee wants to know of ways we can adapt.
Mr. McGinn: Thank you for that important question. We are just starting our work on adaptation. Federal targeted funding like the Canadian Climate Change Action Fund is making available resources to fund studies on adaptation. I understand that C-CIARN has an agricultural adaptation component to it. This is just the start of what is necessary. We are just getting a glimpse of the type of research that needs to be done in terms of adaptation because we are just starting to get a handle on the climate change scenarios. We have to understand what the climate change will be like in the future in order to understand what its impact will be on the sensitive agriculture systems.
Some basic research has to be done on scenario development. At the same time, we are in a position to do research on adaptation. One of the key areas that I feel is important is the effect on pests.
Senator Wiebe: One of the answers is to provide more dollars for research, but just throwing dollars out there does not solve the problem. I go back to a question I asked one of our earlier presenters today: Has enough work been done in the adaption field to provide us with an idea of what recommendation to make about how those research dollars would be better spent if we were successful enough in freeing some of those up?
The Chairman: I think that Mr. Burnet would like to answer that question.
Mr. Burnet: You have to ask us to prioritize. When we have prioritized, you have to then support our priorities.
I would like to go back to the first point you made on communications. I think people get sick of me saying this, but I say, ``I'm like a Chrysler salesman. After 2002, I sell 2003s.'' That is how we have to sell science. We have done a very good job of selling science to our colleagues in the scientific area, and we have done a very good job of selling science to the target groups we work with.
However, 2.8 per cent of people are in agriculture, and 97.2 per cent are urban people who gain from a cheap food policy, which we have in Canada, and we do a very bad job of communicating with them, even they pay our salaries. We are public servants, and the tax dollars belong to the general public.
You should ask us to prioritize, and when we prioritize, we may have to take some other things out of our bouquet because we cannot do everything, although many of my colleagues and scientists would not like to hear that.
Senator Wiebe: Would that request have to come from the department; or would it be fair for us as a committee to ask you to prioritize?
Mr. Burnet: It would be fair for you to ask.
Senator Wiebe: You may not be able to give us your priorities today, but we would certainly appreciate it if you would advise our clerk when you have done that.
Mr. Burnet: Certainly.
Senator Wiebe: Our report will be written by the end of June, so the earlier you can provide us with that information, the happier we will be because I think that your suggestion is an excellent one
Mr. Burnet: I think you just lobed the ball back into my court.
Senator Wiebe: Yes. I did.
Senator LaPierre: I think that the priority should be opening up consultations with the people. Even as a member of this committee, I know very little about this subject. As scientists you bombard the public with all sorts of information, but there is never any consultations with the public. Of course, the scientists are doing magnificent work, but the people are left out of it.
The point you make is that the whole of the system is interrelated. Often people do not recognize the reason for doing long-term research. However, we are where we are now because of some of our long-term research, but it is often the first priority to suffer because people cannot understand why you have been researching something for 90 or 100 years. It is important to have a solid scientific basis in order to make any reasonable predictions.
Senator Wiebe: The agriculture industry in this country today has been able to survive the last 15 years because of the research that was done by our research stations 30 years ago. Your predecessors had a vision, they went ahead and did the research work. As a result of that research, the farmers were able to adapt and were able to survive the low prices. As a result of the research work that you people did, we produced more per acre.
If you ask a farmer today whether global warming is going to be a problem he will tell you it is not because it rained for three days, and that it will happen again. The message still has not gotten through to them that we may have extended droughts. We may have no more three-day rains, but they will have the same amount of rain in an hour and a half because of the weather extremes.
I think that you are the people who should list the priorities because we are not educated well enough in this area to do that. Once you have done that, then we can decide which priorities to act upon.
Senator Gustafson: I have farmed for 50 years, since I was 16 years old. You recommend seeding three weeks earlier. I always like to seed early, but now our farming patterns are such that we burn off with Roundup, so that if a neighbouring farmer seeds three weeks earlier than I am seeding, nothing will grow. The only way I could seed three weeks earlier would be by buying two more outfits. When you are working over 10,000 acres, does it pay?
In the last 50 years I learned things the hard way, through experience. For years they told us we could not grow canola in the south. Canola saved us in the last 10 years. They are growing canola in North Dakota and South Dakota, way south of us, now thanks to the research and better varieties and so on.
We have difficult questions to deal with in this committee. It will be difficult to write a report and make recommendations that may not work out from one year to the next.
You told us that three things affect our rain and our weather patterns: the jet streams, the El Niño, and volcanic eruptions. It has been said, ``Do not tell me where I have been. I know where I have been. Tell me what is going to happen.'' Do you have some idea where El Niño or the jet stream will push us in the next year or two?
Mr. McGinn: It is not our mandate in Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada to do weather forecasts. For the most part, that component is handled by Environment Canada.
The Chairman: You can give a scientific prognostication. That is what he is asking for.
Mr. McGinn: In terms of El Niño and how it will affect spring conditions, Environment Canada has projected that southern Alberta will receive about average rainfall, but for the rest of the prairies, it will be above average. Interestingly enough, some work has been done in trying to develop our long-range forecast based on El Niño. The skill in forecasting has improved dramatically because of events like El Niño and understanding its impact on the Canadian Prairie weather.
Senator Gustafson: How long will the El Niño cycle last?
Mr. McGinn: About 18 months.
Senator Gustafson: The Assiniboine area on the U.S. border had 26 inches of rain from the end of July until harvest time. Their combines were getting stuck.
Senator Fairbairn: In Ottawa, we heard from many interesting witnesses from the science and research area and from others, including representatives of Ducks Unlimited. There was some discussion of the wetlands and the possibility that they might alleviate the situation, but there is also the reality that those areas have been decreasing.
Would you care to discuss that issue with us?
Mr. Janzen: Historically, we have stayed away from the issue of the wetlands. We have, however, recognized all along that they are an important part of our prairie ecosystems. We are all familiar with our so-called prairie sloughs, which are our wetlands. Scientists are recognizing more and more that our studies can no longer stop where the wetlands starts.
A number of studies are now underway — not necessarily within Agriculture Canada — where they are looking at transections that cover the whole length of the field right from topsoil positions through to midslope and then down into the wetlands as well.
Increasingly those us involved in studying these issues are recognizing that we have to go across our usual borders and develop stronger links among ourselves, our forestry friends and those studying wetlands and peatlands, because the processes are the same. We can learn from each other and, more importantly, we can avoid this artificial segmentation that has sometimes minimized progress in our respective fields in the past.
I hope this answer might offer some optimism that some of our future research will take advantage of that very thing that you are suggesting.
Senator Fairbairn: Thank you. The presentations involving wetlands stuck with me because when I was growing up, there were a lot of them. During duck season, this was a haven for people from all around the world. They are not there anymore.
Perhaps this in and of itself is not a discouraging element. However, it is an element that perhaps has not been dealt with as much as it should have in the sense of protecting what we have. In some of the testimony, we heard suggestions that we should not simply protect it, but utilize the capacity of the wetlands to assist in the stressed areas and in the question of carbon.
Mr. Janzen: I certainly agree with that. I would add that it is a very interesting study from the standpoint of carbon. We really do not know how much carbon is stored in some of these wetlands. There might be a lot. That is a question that deserves some scientific pursuit.
Senator Fairbairn: As you are giving us so much information, we should dig out those presentations that we heard a week ago and send them to you. You might find them quite interesting.
Senator Tkachuk: I am a bit of an optimist and I know one thing: When I drive my utility vehicle — my 2000 Ford Escape — I am releasing far fewer bad substances into the atmosphere than when I was idling my vehicle in 1975 with the same motor. We have made tremendous technological strides in getting rid of noxious emissions, and there is more work to do from fossil fuel burning.
There is a lot of pressure on agriculture. We are on an agriculture committee. I am not a big fan of ``jingoism.'' I am an environmentalist. I do not like the jingoist in environmentalism. People after a while get jaded and then they do not believe you anymore.
A good science is hard to come by. We heard a lot about carbon sinks. I have my views; I would like to hear your views. Who should keep the cash? Somebody said, well, the government is going to keep it until 2008. Like some of the other members, I had no clue what a carbon sink was or how it could be created. It is supposed to be traded somehow. Who should keep the cash? Should it be the owner of the carbon sink?
Mr. Janzen: I am a lowly scientist, and I think those decisions are made by policy and presumably other decision- makers. It is not a scientific question.
Senator Tkachuk: No, it is a good economic question. It is a scientific economic question. What incentive is there for a farmer to have a carbon sink unless he gets the cash?
Mr. Janzen: It makes sense to me that the person who is restoring the carbon should get some remuneration for that carbon.
Senator Tkachuk: Who else needs it? Someone else is buying it; someone is giving cash. Unless you have a person taking commission, it should maybe go to that person.
Mr. Janzen: Presumably that is also how it would work under a carbon trading system is that carbon would, in effect, be bought and sold.
Senator Tkachuk: Yes.
Mr. Janzen: I do not have a full understanding of how all of those rules and regulations and processes have been worked out, but presumably, that would be the basis of a carbon trading system, at least to some extent.
Senator Tkachuk: Your research organization is connected to the government and you deal with other countries. We have been hearing a very Canadian perspective and, in some ways, a North American perspective in most of our hearings. I think we are a pretty clean group in North America, not that we cannot be cleaner, but per dollar earned in our economy we are pretty clean.
I am very concerned about parts of the developing world using the excuse of, ``Oh, we are just starting so we can be dirty.'' What communication do you have with scientists from countries such as China that are excluded from Kyoto? What are they saying to you? What are the exchanges going on throughout the world in the scientific community about how this should be handled?
We are a very small part of the world community. They are driving old cars down there in China and Cuba and all these other east European countries that are poor as church mice. Old Cadillacs burn up fuel like crazy and send out carbon to the atmosphere. What are they saying?
Mr. Janzen: I have spent a little bit of time in international meetings, primarily around this carbon sinks issue.
One perspective out there is exactly as you articulated it — namely, that we in the so-called developed nations have had our chance for development. We have burned our fossil fuel; we have made our emissions to the atmosphere. Their perspective is that once they are as developed as we are, then they, too, will take responsibility in reducing emissions.
I am not suggesting that it is a right or wrong approach. However, I think it is fair to say that is one perspective that is out there.
Senator Tkachuk: There is a lot of economic evidence to back that up. In wealthier countries, people turn to worrying about the environment because when you have a nice house, you want to breathe clean air. At the same time, they have huge advantages. They have all that capital that we have amassed in capitalistic economies to buy their products from their dirty plants.
We have also provided them with computers, telephones, an immense amount of technology that our industrialists never had. We have all kinds of technology that we can sell them that our industrialists never had because the science was not there to have it.
Do we argue that point at these international meetings and say, ``You know, this is a darn poor excuse for your attitude''? They are coming off with greater advantage than our industrialists had in the 1880s and early 1900s. We barely had a phone; we were sending telegrams.
Mr. Janzen: That is a valid point. I am not involved in the negotiations or have not been in the past, but it is a legitimate question. We are asking whether other countries can leapfrog that very excessively emitting phase? Can they go directly to where we are aiming for now?
I am not sure I have an answer for that, but certainly that is a question worth pondering.
Senator Tkachuk: That is why the Americans did not go into the thing, right? Why would they?
Thank you. This was really good. I appreciate it.
Senator Wiebe: I have a supplementary. The soil and the water absorb the CO2 through the plants and various other things. Is there a point reached where the soil and the water in the tank is full? Can we continually count on the soil to absorb all our CO2?
Mr. Janzen: There comes a point where the soil no longer gains any more carbon. It is best to think of it as a flow- through system. At some point the inflow equals outflow after which there is no more net removal.
Some of our soils may be there now. That is one of the burning questions that I think we really need to get an answer to. How far can we still go? How much carbon can we still build in some of these soils before it stops?
Then the question is, ``what happens in a changing world?'' Can we then increase further if, for example, CO2 doubles or the temperature increases? Do we have to worry about going backwards again? These are important questions.
In terms of the sink capacity or the CO2 capacity of the ocean, I do not understand a lot about that except that it is very, very high but that it occurs slowly — in other words, the process is not fast enough to keep pace with the emissions.
Senator Wiebe: Have we not developed the science or the technology that can tell us when the meter is on full as far as the soil is concerned?
Mr. Janzen: No, not in precise terms.
Senator Wiebe: Chair, thank you very much.
Senator LaPierre: Excuse me, can we mine this carbon dioxide, or do we just sink it? Once we have sunk it, can we not mine it?
Senator Wiebe: We do, in the form of fossil fuels.
Senator LaPierre: Then you say it has got to stop sometime.
Mr. Janzen: There are various processes where CO2 can be scrubbed. There have been some suggestions as to how to do it. For example, why do we not just put scrubbers on smokestacks and then capture it in a chemical form and put it deep into old mines or deep into the ocean?
There are many such engineering solutions being tossed about. I am not sure how seriously they are being considered and what the costs or ramifications are.
If we are going to dump a lot of excess carbon into the ocean, we have to be very careful that we do not disturb some fragile ecosystem there and create other problems that we will then be forced to reckon with.
The Chairman: During your presentation, you talked about the way that you measure carbon in the soil. When you had your slide up, you did not tell us what the method is. Before we end this dialogue, could you tell us precisely what are the methods for measuring and how precise are those measurements and what kind of certainty is there for it?
Mr. Janzen: Scientists have been measuring soil carbon for a very long time so we have a lot of experience with it. Essentially, it involves either digging a hole or taking a core of soil and analyzing it for carbon content. If you do that repeatedly over time, you get a sense of whether soil carbon is increasing or decreasing.
There are two problems with that, though. One is that soil is highly variable. You may have 60 tons of carbon per hectare there; you may have 100 over there, and you have to dig a lot of holes on a field to get a true measure.
My sense is that in many cases that is not going to be economically viable — we will have to simply estimate carbon gain as a function of practices imposed on the land based on our understanding of the carbon in that system, using models or simple equations. We would say if Farmer Jones adopts no tillage on such and such a soil type for X number of years, then we would estimate, on average, the amount of carbon accrued to him and provide benefit for that amount of carbon.
There is already a requirement for us as a country to estimate our soil carbon change. That is what is happening to a large extent. We use equations for models.
The Chairman: How deep does the carbon go in the soil? How deep are your test measurements?
Mr. Janzen: Carbon can go a long way down — as far as the roots go or deeper, which may be a metre or more. Generally speaking, we assume that most of the changes occur in the top 15 to 30 centimetres or so — the top six inches to a foot.
That is where much of the analysis is but there is a little bit of uneasiness.
The Chairman: It is not a very precise science at all.
Mr. Janzen: It is not a precise science. It can be precise, but to make it precise is expensive and takes a lot of effort.
The Chairman: We have been presented with figures trying to put a cash value on the value of some of these sinks. Some of the values run from $50,000 to $500,000, so that just gives you some perimeters. That is as inexact as the science you have just told us about.
Mr. Janzen: I would add that presumably, some of that is uncertainty. There are two sources of uncertainty: One is the uncertainty of the measurement; the second is the uncertainty over adoption rates of practices.
Any time we look into the future, we must content with those two uncertainties. It is very difficult to predict what practices will be imposed on land 10 years from now.
The Chairman: I would like to thank you and the other researchers for two most interesting presentations. You can tell by the quality and the number of questions that it was very useful to all members of this Senate Committee.
The committee adjourned.