THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, November 9, 2023
The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry met with videoconference this day at 9:01 a.m. [ET] to examine and report on the status of soil health in Canada.
Senator Robert Black (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good morning, everyone. It’s good to see smiling faces this early in the morning. I want to begin by welcoming members of the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, as well as the witnesses here in the room and online and those watching this meeting on the web. My name is Rob Black, senator from Ontario, and I chair this committee.
Today, the committee is meeting to continue its study examining and reporting on the status of soil health in Canada. Before we hear from our witnesses over two panels, I would like to start by asking senators to introduce themselves, starting with our deputy chair.
Senator Simons: I’m Senator Paula Simons from Alberta, Treaty 6 territory.
Senator Cotter: I’m Brent Cotter, senator from Saskatchewan.
Senator Burey: Welcome, everyone. Sharon Burey, senator for Ontario.
[Translation]
Senator Petitclerc: Welcome. I am Chantal Petitclerc, and I represent the senatorial division of Grandville, in Quebec.
[English]
Senator Jaffer: Welcome. I’m Mobina Jaffer from British Columbia.
Senator Oh: Good morning. I’m Victor Oh from Ontario.
The Chair: Before we begin, I want to point out that should any technical challenges arise, particularly in relation to interpretation, please signal this to the chair or the clerk and we will work to resolve the issue. We may have to suspend if the problem continues.
To our first panel, on loss of arable land and food security, we welcome Dean Orr, farmer, in person. Thank you, Dean, for being here. Joining us online, from the Greenbelt Foundation, we have Megan Sipos, Manager, Research and Policy; and Paul Smith, Consultant, Research and Policy. From the Sundance Commons, we have Cheyenne Sundance, farmer. Cheyenne, thank you for being with us this morning. I know we had some difficulties and we appreciate you being with us today.
I’ll invite you to make your presentations, starting with Mr. Orr and followed by a joint statement from Ms. Sipos, Mr. Smith and Ms. Sundance. You’ll each have five minutes for your presentations and I’ll signal with my hand up when one minute is left. When you see two hands, it’s about time to wrap things up.
With that, the floor is yours, Mr. Orr.
Dean Orr, Farmer, as an individual: Thank you. Hello. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.
I am a young farmer working on my family’s farm just north of Toronto, on the outskirts of the Greater Toronto Area, or GTA.
Farming so close to the city, I have a particular interest in urban growth and planning and what it means for the future of agriculture in Canada. The Canadian agricultural community has learned much about soils and soil health, particularly in the last 50 years, in an effort to maintain our farms and soils to be used and enjoyed for generations to come. Much of our farmland, however, has been — and is still being — consumed at tremendous rates by unsustainable urban growth practices. The latest Census of Agriculture shows Ontario’s self-reported farm acreage to be decreasing at an average rate of 319 acres per day, or just under 1% per year. Complete ecosystem destruction via widespread poor land-use planning policy is likely the largest impactor of soil health in North America. It has also become increasingly difficult for farmers to plan for long-term soil health management because land speculation has driven up land values and reduced farmer land ownership.
It is the great irony of the lifespan of our farm that we have been practising good crop rotation, no-till and cover cropping for decades, vastly improving the soil health in our fields and limiting the environmental impact of our operation, only for that work to be destroyed within the next 50 years, unless something changes in how our society thinks about the worth of land — and how we go about planning for its use.
While it is easy to blame developers for the tremendous amount of urban sprawl many communities in North America are facing, as they certainly have lobbied for urban boundary expansions, zoning changes and so on, the more complex reality is that they are only partially to blame. The majority of their business is directed by the law; they are merely doing what is currently allowed under it.
Urban development over the last 70 years in Ontario has been characterized by sprawl from low-density, car-dependent dwellings and shops separated by considerable distance. This style of development has been largely responsible for the incredible consumption of Ontario farmland and was a stark departure from urban planning preceding the 20th century. Urban planning of our historic farm towns and larger city centres was traditionally done at a human scale. Walking and cycling were the standard modes of transportation, along with trains and rail. Housing types with a range of heights and levels of affordability were centred around mixed-use neighbourhoods with stores, shops and employment. These allowed for dense, vibrant, beautiful and economically strong urban areas.
With the introduction of the automobile, as well as rigid zoning and building bylaws in the early and mid-20th century, we started to sprawl, and this building style became typified in law. One only need compare old and new neighbourhoods to see the stark contrast between them. The average population density of Vaughan, Ontario, built up over the last 70 years, is about 1,100 people per square kilometre. Compare this to the Toronto neighbourhood of Riverdale, established in the early 1900s, which has a density of 7,100 people per square kilometre.
Riverdale is considered an extremely desirable place to live in Toronto because of its community and walkability. It does not feel busy, as car traffic is minimized through its density and public transit. A community like this requires seven times less natural space and farmland than the more “modern” developments of Vaughan.
We don’t need to be consuming anywhere near as much land as we are to build our communities into nice places to live that allow for future growth. The solutions are not new and could be applied tomorrow.
Experts and advocates have been pushing for more sustainable, gentle-density growth practices for some time, but, as is evident from the slow pace of change and continuing forced-sprawl policies in Ontario, many levels of government are not getting the message.
Some suggestions for better sustainable building policies are as follows: First, enforce hard urban boundaries with strict restrictions on boundary expansion. This would encourage infilling and discourage sprawl, and also reduce land speculation, helping to lower farmland values and ideally improve long-term investment in soils. Second, create public regional or municipal staff positions that plan for, at least, the minimum amount of farmland required to support a community. Third, end exclusionary zoning, or allow for the construction of multi-unit buildings as a right, to allow for a greater diversity and density of housing built. Fourth, remove parking minimums, making it easier and less expensive to build walkable, gentle-density, transit-oriented communities. Fifth, invest more in our transit systems, especially rail.
Thank you for taking the time to listen to me today and for the work you have been doing toward a more sustainable agriculture system. Agriculture should be planned into instead of out of our communities so that we can plan for food security and long-term soil health.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Orr. We will move on to Ms. Sipos and Mr. Smith.
Megan Sipos, Manager, Research and Policy, Greenbelt Foundation: Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today on the status of soil health in Canada. Today, I’m speaking alongside my colleague Paul Smith, a sustainable agriculture consultant.
I’d like to thank Honourable Rob Black and all the senators for undertaking this important study.
The Greenbelt Foundation was established in 2005. We are the only charitable organization dedicated solely to the health and prosperity of Ontario’s Greenbelt. We work to ensure that the Greenbelt remains permanent and protected by making investments in its interconnected natural, agricultural and economic systems. Our work in agriculture is done in collaboration with farm organizations to ensure the work is relevant and practical.
Ontario’s Greenbelt is approximately 2 million acres of protected land that spans across the Greater Golden Horseshoe region in southern Ontario. Nearly half of its landscape is farmland, including a significant portion of Canada’s prime agricultural lands. In 2020, the Greenbelt’s agri-food sector generated $4.1 billion in GDP and supported nearly 59,000 jobs. Greenbelt farms, while covering just 7% of the province’s farmland, grow 42% of its fruit and 7% of its vegetable acres, earning 47% more per acre than the rest of Ontario.
Soil health is critical to maintaining the long-term sustainability and productivity of our agricultural land. It is a strategic priority for the Greenbelt Foundation. Our work has looked at soil health from different scientific and economic perspectives and evaluated policy and program design.
To better understand the status of soil health across Canada, farmers need standardized approaches to evaluating and monitoring soil health that are also scalable, cost-effective and reflect changes in management. Together with the Soil Health Institute, we are piloting an approach across our region to benchmark soil health using two sets of indicators recommended by the Soil Health Institute and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. This gives farmers the information needed to make informed decisions about which practices to implement for maximum soil health benefit.
I’ll now pass things off to Paul to discuss relevant recommendations from our past work, including The Power of Soil, Towards a Business Case for Soil Health and a national soil health strategy for Canada. Thank you.
Paul Smith, Consultant, Research and Policy, Greenbelt Foundation: Good morning, everyone. I will give you highlights of research work done by the Greenbelt Foundation that suggests better supports for soil health action by farmers. My comments also reflect my 20-plus years of experience building programs for farmers.
Our report The Power of Soil: An Agenda for Change to Benefit Farmers and Resilience examined what could attract many more farmers to use soil health practices. Its recommendations emphasize voluntary stewardship by farmers motivated by knowledge access, creative financial incentives and removal of barriers. One important finding was that investment by Canadian governments in agri-environmental programs is low compared to competing jurisdictions. A recent analysis by the Royal Bank of Canada, or RBC, reconfirmed this disparity. We also suggest innovation in the types of financial incentives offered to encourage change and reduce risk.
Improved knowledge sharing is also crucial to support farmers’ actions. Decades of cutbacks in this area have taken a toll. The RBC recommends that we “Revive Canada’s Knowledge-Sharing Network.” There is some hope in the federal-provincial Guelph Statement that now guides us. It promises to “Enhance . . . extension activities . . . knowledge exchange and transfer.” Quebec and the U.S. are doing exactly that.
Farming is a business, and we need to document the business case and return on investment for soil health practices. Soil health can be good for profits, productivity and the environment, but the devil is in the details. Our report Towards a Business Case for Soil Health summarizes what is known for southern Ontario, but we need more analysis for different regions and commodities.
Many of these elements can fit nicely into a national soil health strategy for Canada, as is being pursued by Soil Conservation Council of Canada with support from the Greenbelt Foundation.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today and for taking the initiative to undertake this study.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Sipos and Mr. Smith. We will move on to Ms. Sundance. You have five minutes.
Cheyenne Sundance, Farmer, Sundance Commons: Thank you, everyone, for having me today. I’m very excited to speak about soil health.
I have been a farmer for four years. I am representing Sundance Commons, an Ontario non-profit organization that provides land leases, equipment, education and supportive mentorship to new farmers across southwestern Ontario’s Golden Horseshoe.
Due to changing demographics, more farms are being lost through development or consolidation into larger corporate farms. This lack of continuity has a direct effect on ecological issues surrounding farms and farming in Canada, particularly soil health. When farmers face growing economic challenges with production, their decisions must prioritize their bottom line over the ecological health of the soil and land they manage. This lack of continuity from generation to generation also hampers our ability to pass on localized knowledge regarding best practices for land management.
Also, we cannot ignore the social and demographic realities of farmland ownership. It is not representative of the actual agricultural labour force. When long-term land management and ownership are disconnected from the labourers who work the land, the perceived solutions may cause more harm than the supposed benefits.
Simply put, farms, farmers and farming are changing. We need well-articulated solutions that look beyond the family farm model. For better or worse, farmland succession is not going to be farmers selling or giving land to their children to continue to farm. This is doubly important in our urban and peri-urban areas to protect farmland.
A new type of farm is needed — one where supports for training, equipment and access are married with long-term equitable land access. This is paramount for making small-scale agriculture more accessible and allowing young people to be able to scale with larger agriculture in Ontario.
How does this aid in soil health? As mentioned earlier, continuity in farmers managing the land sustainably is key to soil health. For new and young farmers, the rising cost of farmland leaves it unattainable, leaving this reality to only people who grew up in agricultural families that already own land. One-year leases, farmers selling their farms or simply not wanting a farmer on their personal property daily are all reasons why new farmers cannot build up soil health on land that they are leasing and why we need to be more accountable in regard to agriculture in Ontario.
Something Sundance Commons would like to see is support for the legal designation of community land trusts with regard to agricultural land here in Canada, as this is not currently being done. This would be a very useful tool to foster land management and soil health. As an aspiring community land trust, we are inspired by models that offer farmers equity for land-based improvements to soil health. Examples include shares or bonds that are tied to organic matter increases in the soil, or an improvement for the soil microbiome for developing hedgerows.
Community bonds are dedicated by community members who have a stake in agriculture as eaters, and also sometimes as growers. Having a community land trust designation in Ontario and Canada would be supportive of soil health by protecting farmland and ensuring it stays within agriculture for years to come. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you very much to our witnesses for your presentations.
We’ll proceed to questions from senators. I would like to remind senators that you have five minutes for your questions and answers, and we’ll move to second and third rounds as needed. I’ll ask our deputy chair, Senator Simons, to begin the questioning.
Senator Simons: Thank you to all our witnesses. I’m from Alberta, so this has been really fascinating to me. The issues of urban sprawl and land use are relevant where I live in Edmonton too, but if feels like we’ve always got more land. I hadn’t thought about people farming this close to metropolitan Toronto and the unique economic challenges that they face.
My questions are going to be for Ms. Sundance and Mr. Orr. Ms. Sundance, I want to better understand this, because you raised the interesting issue that if you’re leasing farmland, you don’t have as much stake in improving the soil health because it’s not your land. Tell me a little more about this land trust model that you’re promoting and how farmers would be compensated for good, regenerative agricultural techniques.
Ms. Sundance: Thank you very much. The community land trust model that I’ve been learning and being mentored about is one from the United States through the Agrarian Trust called the Agrarian Commons. What happens is the trust has land donated and holds the land in long-term, 99-year leases, then offer it to new farmers, often with housing on site. Those are called “the commons,” hence the name “Agrarian Commons.” This model of communal interest is ideal, because many new farmers in the areas they operate in, like upstate New York, cannot afford land.
Organic matter is increased in the soil because of the non-profit community land trust’s ground leases with these new farmers. The trust, when the farmer decides to leave after X many years, will measure the organic matter, compare it with previous organic matter tests and give them equity back and/or figure out another way to compensate them. This is key.
I can speak to my experience. As someone who has been farming four years and has not owned farmland, I sometimes don’t feel like putting as much compost in because that costs a lot of money. Those practices are [Technical difficulties] great and help support the crops, but ultimately the bottom line is an issue.
Senator Simons: What are you farming? Is it vegetables?
Ms. Sundance: Yes. I am farming squash, pumpkins and greens. I sell it wholesale to Toronto restaurants and grocery stores.
Senator Simons: Mr. Orr, you’re farming on a very different scale.
Mr. Orr: Yes, that is correct. We farm about 2,300 acres using conventional, no-till and organic practices. Corn, soybeans and wheat are our big three, as is the case for most of Ontario. We grow organic kidney beans and organic black beans as well.
Senator Simons: Which are great for nitrogen.
Mr. Orr: Yes, they will fix a bit of nitrogen.
Senator Simons: You heard Ms. Sundance talking about a land trust model. You have family land, you’ve inherited family land, but do you think —
Mr. Orr: No, we haven’t, actually. The interesting part of our farm is that my dad grew up in town, in King City. His parents both came from farms, but he didn’t. He went away to agricultural school and then came back. Even at that time, in 1988, when he got started, the land was too expensive to purchase in the area. They just couldn’t purchase it. They ended up falling into a really nice position where they ran a local family’s farm and started picking up rental pieces. As of now, our farm in King City is 100% rented. Probably 95% of that is developer owned, the rental pieces. It wasn’t until two years ago that my parents were able to afford their own farm two hours east of King City, east of Peterborough.
Senator Simons: Are you dependent on the goodwill of your landlords? If they decided to put up a condo complex on your farm, you would have a rental agreement, but obviously —
Mr. Orr: Some have rental agreements and some developers are better than others in that sense. Most lease agreements that we have are year to year. They say, “We don’t foresee anything coming during this next year, so here is one year you can get out of it.”
Senator Simons: That leaves you in a really precarious circumstance. What do you think of the land trust model that Ms. Sundance is talking about? Do you think that could work at the kind of scale at which you are farming or is that really better suited for market garden-sized operations?
Mr. Orr: No, I think a land trust model could certainly work. Yes, it may be a bit better suited to the market garden-type farms, like Ms. Sundance runs, because you’re profiting a bit more per acre and don’t need as much land to get away with that. But, yes, I think it could work.
Senator Simons: Thank you. This has been interesting.
Senator Oh: Good morning, witnesses. Thank you for joining us this morning.
I’m pleased to see the younger generation now taking over and coming up fast. For you, 2,300 acres just north of Toronto is pretty amazing.
My question to all of you is this: What challenges do farmers and ranchers face regarding access to and retention of arable farmland in Canada? In your opinion, what policies should be in place to promote access to and retention of arable farmland for farmers and those who are Black, racialized and Indigenous, because we are now also —
The Chair: We’ll start in the room and then move to the screen.
Mr. Orr: To clarify, you are asking how we can improve access to land for farmers who are marginalized. Is that correct?
Senator Oh: Yes.
Mr. Orr: I think that has to be done quite intentionally. If you come from a family who has owned farmland in Ontario, chances are that you’re coming from a non-marginalized background. Even then, gaining access to land is difficult. If you’re coming from a marginalized background, it becomes even more difficult. As Ms. Sundance pointed out, a land trust is a really nice way to get a foot in the door to start out. Providing some access to farmland, especially for people living within urban areas, is a fantastic way to start out. It’s a fantastic way to start to learn the skills of the trade.
As far as scaling up the land goes, if that’s required after that, something like grants or cost-share funding may be appropriate to allow marginalized farmers to purchase their own farmland.
Ms. Sipos: In terms of access to land, we first need to make sure that we have that land base in place. The protection of farmland is critical. I will now speak to the Greenbelt.
Ontario’s Greenbelt has been successful at protecting farmland. Research from the University of Guelph by Dr. Wayne Caldwell looked at prime agricultural land conversion from 2005 to 2017. That research showed that over that period of time, within the Greenbelt, we only lost 2 hectares of prime agricultural land annually compared to the rest of the province, which lost 900 hectares of prime agricultural land.
We know that the Greenbelt works and is successful at protecting farmland. Another critical component is its benefits go beyond farmland protection. As a lot of witnesses have shared, it provides that certainty for long-term investment for farm operations as well as practices on the site. Thank you.
Ms. Sundance: I will echo the importance of farmland protection and what I noted earlier about community land trusts. I’ve seen miraculous things being done in the northeastern states of the U.S.
Aside from that, regarding land access for marginalized groups, I mentor 10 youths each year. They have access to land at two non-profit farming sites — one in Guelph and one in Bolton. These youths are growing food and want to have careers in agriculture. Some would like to start commodity farms; it’s not all just growing vegetables. It is very inspiring to see this happening. However, it is less inspiring knowing that they will most likely be leasing land and will probably be kicked off after a few years for development, as we farm in a peri-urban area close to the city. Having a community land trust would support young people and marginalized groups as well.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We will move on to the second round.
Senator Cotter: Thank you to the witnesses for being here. I’m a senator from Western Canada. While I’ve been in and around Toronto and spent some time in the King City area, this is insightful for me in understanding the role that you play and your leadership there.
I will invite Ms. Sipos to answer my question first and then Mr. Orr and Ms. Sundance can join in.
We are a federal Senate and we are doing a study starting with the federal perspective. Agriculture is a joint jurisdiction, but many of the ideas that you have talked about relate to zoning and asset formation that profoundly reside in a provincial jurisdiction.
So my question starts with the degree to which you have had dialogue with, in this case, the Ontario government. What do you see for us in the kinds of thoughts and recommendations that we can make here that are ways of constructively engaging with provincial governments rather than us knocking off a report saying that it’s Ontario’s problem, for example?
Ms. Sipos, you’ve had some success in protecting the Greenbelt in somewhat more high-profile dialogue than this. That’s partly why I wanted to start with you in a constructive conversation about our role in relation to recommendations that could be constructive in the provincial environment.
Ms. Sipos: Thank you, senator.
Yes, that question comes up quite a bit now. I will start by saying that we are very pleased with the provincial government’s decision to reinstate all properties that were removed from the Greenbelt and its commitment to reinforcing the permanence of the Greenbelt boundary by introducing it into legislation. We did see an excellent outpouring of support over the last 10 or so months that is really a testament to the strength of support that policy has in Ontario.
Of course, yes, land-use planning is done at the provincial level, but there is some important direction that can happen at the federal level.
In terms of our conversations with the province and our position on this, we support smart-growth efforts that allow the province to build communities in a way that addresses land-use and housing needs while leveraging existing infrastructure as well as protecting agricultural, natural and water resources. This means directing growth away from those critical resources and setting those intensification and density targets that Mr. Orr referred to, to be able to build within our existing urban boundaries and designated greenfield areas.
Mr. Orr: I certainly echo those comments. I know it has been quite frustrating interacting with the Ontario government over the past year. They seem quite single-minded in their approach to housing policy. The phrase that comes to mind is “they have their horse blinders on,” and they seem to be ignoring a lot of policy input from experts in the field. They have recently backtracked on some of their decisions to expand into the Greenbelt as well as their forced urban boundary expansions, but they still have in place policies that weaken protections around specialty crop areas and others that are escaping me at the moment.
Yes, housing is supposed to be predominantly provincial, but I sense that it would be quite helpful to provide some guidelines from the federal level, perhaps, to larger city centres, especially in regard to density requirements and sustainable growth habits within our cities.
Senator Cotter: Ms. Sundance, I would like to focus on one dimension of this. As you were talking, it felt like the kind of thing somebody would want to talk to the Ontario Securities Commission about for a new model of investing. Is there a dimension of that involved in the community land trust work that you’re engaged in?
Ms. Sundance: I would say so. I would also note that this has been talked about federally. I’m assuming most of you know, but earlier this year, Member of Parliament Frank Caputo actually put forward a petition to the House of Commons. That petition was directly talking about community land trusts and how they are a great, affordable tool for holding land in trust for housing.
That petition is e-4155. It concerns taxation, so it speaks to tax codes, land being donated and how to ensure that donated land won’t be such a burden for those non-profit groups or organizations that get that land donated.
So petitions similar to this one regarding agriculture would be very relevant.
Senator Jaffer: Thank you to all four of you for being here. It’s been really interesting, and there are lots of questions, but you can see the chair is very particular — raising the hand — so I will start with you, Ms. Sundance.
I understand that the federal government has developed the $5-million AgriDiversity Program under the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership. How easy is it to access that program? What are the challenges?
Ms. Sundance: I didn’t know that program existed, so I think that speaks to one of the challenges. If there were an agent to reach out to me and other groups, then we would know, but most of the groups I know aren’t very aware of these programs.
Senator Jaffer: I’ll make sure I send you the name of the program. The reason I ask is that, from time to time, the government has programs to help farmers access or get into farming. That’s why I was keen to know about it.
I’m also a farmer, and I know the challenges that you face being from a minority group. I don’t want to know about the usual challenges but the challenges about getting into the business. Like you said, you are mentoring others. Were you also mentored? I’m trying to say it in a polite way. Were you also helped?
Ms. Sundance: Unfortunately, no, which is why the non-profit was formed to provide mentorship opportunities and land access.
If I were to be mentored, I think I would directly benefit from an incubator-type non-profit like Sundance Commons.
Senator Jaffer: Thank you.
I have a question for you, Ms. Sipos. In the Greenbelt, do you have any specific program to encourage marginalized groups to go into farming, or is that not part of your mandate?
Ms. Sipos: I’ll speak to a couple of things. At the Greenbelt Foundation, we do support the vision of the Greenbelt Plan, and we do that through strategic grants, research and policy, as well as community engagement. I do represent the research and policy team, but I can speak broadly about the grants department as well.
Outside of soil health, we have done a lot of work in rural economic development, including supporting diverse vendors at farmers markets, whether that be Indigenous or Black farmers, as well as supporting the commercialization of New World crops, such as okra, that can be scaled to respond to market demand.
Within our research department, we do take into consideration equity and inclusion in our programming. We do as much as we can to support and reach as many farmers within the Greater Golden Horseshoe region within our programs. Thank you.
Senator Petitclerc: Thank you to our guests for being here today. I want to speak a little more on farming close to large cities.
I never thought about it all that much. I grew up in a very small town, so the typically farms were very small and family-owned. This exploration of these challenges is very interesting to me. Mr. Orr, you mentioned one of them, and I would like you to expand on it.
My understanding, and what I have here on paper, is that Ontario loses 319 acres of arable land each day. That is very scary. You mentioned in your opening remarks that we tend to blame the developers, but in the end, they do what they are allowed to under the law.
You have talked about this already, but I would like to hear more specifics on if the provincial and federal governments — and I know it’s more of a provincial responsibility — did everything to allow farming and the land to be the best that it can. What would that look like in terms of laws, regulation and help? I know zoning is an obvious one, but give us some idea of what would work on the ground.
Mr. Orr: Requiring higher minimum density requirements in cities would help quite considerably, especially to help enforce urban boundaries. Our density requirements are low enough and our zoning calls for so much low-density single-family housing that urban areas feel the need much more often than they should to expand their urban boundaries. It becomes almost routine for them to do so. Developers and speculators know that this happens and will buy up land just outside of the urban boundary, and maybe even a little bit further than that. So, not only does the city end up having pressure to fit this low-density growth within their urban boundary, they are getting pressure from the outside from developers that want that urban boundary expanded as well so that they can cash in on the investment that they have made. You have all this pressure to expand these boundaries, and I feel like hardening those boundaries up, part of which comes from increasing minimum density requirements, would help quite significantly.
Part of that minimum density requirement also involves changing the zoning that is there at the moment. When an official plan comes out, it’s more or less set in stone for 10 years or so until a new official plan gets put into place. It becomes quite difficult and onerous for developers to change zoning that already exists within that official plan. You end up with developers that maybe do want to put in higher density development, but the residential zoning says you can only build this low-density housing and it becomes too expensive for them to fight that. Even though people don’t necessarily want or need that type of housing, that’s what ends up being built.
Senator Burey: I’m so excited to be hearing all these things. I have to say that I have always been, because I’m a pediatrician, encouraged by and very hopeful about our youths. I’m speaking about all of us who consider ourselves young, but in particular to our young witnesses today. Thank you. Your enthusiasm, knowledge and ideas are just wonderful. Thank you so much.
Let me get to what I really want to ask you about, and there are many things, so I’m definitely going to go into the second round. I will start with Ms. Sundance. You have two beautiful names, “Cheyenne” and “Sundance.”
I want to focus on food security and food sovereignty, especially through a cultural lens, and in particular looking at Canada’s very diverse population, speaking of the Black population, immigrant population and Indigenous peoples. What kinds of practices can you share with us that would really sustain food sovereignty and food security?
Ms. Sundance: I’ll speak about the farming practices. If land access is held, and I can keep farming and I’m not going to be kicked off for a house or development, then I find the practice that really helps food security is support for farmers to scale. For example, when I started farming, I didn’t have a tractor. I did most of it by hand, and that took a very long time. Thus, I couldn’t sell food for an affordable price; this hurt my community because they wanted to support my farm, but couldn’t afford the vegetables because I had to pay myself a wage. When I got a walk-behind tractor, my labour was cut by half, probably even more, and the savings were passed on to my customers and my community so they could have access to okra, callaloo and culturally specific crops that they know and love.
Supports for food security involve supporting young new farmers with capital access. Having a walk-behind tractor costs a lot of money, and if there were a grant, a subsidy or even a bursary in place for young farmers who are doing great work, I think that would help a lot with food security by making culturally relevant crops more available and affordable.
Mr. Orr: I’m a little sad. Jacqueline Dwyer was supposed to present this morning too, was she not?
Senator Burey: Yes.
Mr. Orr: I saw her speak in the spring at the Farmland Forum, and she had a comment that I thought was amazing and which changed how I thought about things. She mentioned that in a municipality or city, there’s someone whose job it is to plan for water, someone whose job it is to plan for housing, there are jobs to plan for recreation and parks and communities, but there is no one whose job it is to plan for where our food comes from, which is quite powerful when you think about it.
This was in the news in the past year: Mississauga finally said goodbye to its last farm field within its city boundary. They have no more farmland; it’s gone. I think that we could benefit from putting in place a position, either municipally or provincially, that plans for, at minimum, how much farmland you need to sustain that population.
Senator Burey: I did a little homework, Mr. Orr, and your comments were:
The more cropland we have, the greater the chance we are still going to be able to produce enough food, locally, to feed the population.
The silver lining to preserving our farms for more locally derived agriculture is that it allows for huge economic growth within a region.
If we don’t have time, you can speak to it on the next round, but that’s the question.
Mr. Orr: Ontario itself is such an excellent environment to grow crops. Our temperature is mediated. It’s not too hot and it’s not too cold. Our rainfall is mediated. It’s not too much and it’s not too little. We’re within the Great Lakes. I think that as climate change progresses, we are set up very well to not only provide food security for our own cities but others within Canada and North America. I think that makes that farmland extra valuable.
Senator Burey: Thank you. We’ll come back to this in the second round.
The Chair: I have a quick question for Mr. Orr. I appreciate all you do on your leased land, your rented land that you don’t own. I have to know what your impetus is. What’s your family’s impetus to better the land, knowing that next year it might be houses? We need that, in my mind, and we need to share that with others. What’s your impetus?
Mr. Orr: That’s a great question.
As a rule of thumb, most farmers don’t overfertilize land they don’t own, but my dad has always approached farming with the thought that there is a better way to do things. I’m not sure if he had in the back of his mind whether it was good training for when we owned our own farmland long-term, but both he and I just know the right thing to do is to treat the land as well as we can, even in the face of the fact that, yes, it may not exist within the next 10 years. There are a number of farm fields that we have where we have seen fill from developers; we are literally planting through concrete and pieces of conduit, et cetera.
But they improve over a couple of years. It does help our yields to do that, and so there’s a moderate economic return eventually — though not huge, by any means. But I just think it is the right thing to do.
The Chair: Thank you.
This is not a question but a comment. You mentioned having to plow or till through conduit, cement and things like that. That’s another issue we have not heard a lot about: the movement of contaminated soil from developers and communities that are moving. That’s maybe something, senators, that we want to look at further.
With that, we’re moving to round two. We have nine minutes, so I’d like to limit our questions and answers to about three and a half minutes.
Senator Simons: As Senator Cotter pointed out, a lot of these zoning issues involve provincial jurisdiction; some more directly involve municipal jurisdiction. I’ll ask this of the Greenbelt folks: What would you like to see the federal government do to support municipalities in making smart zoning choices to protect agricultural land?
Ms. Sipos: Thank you for that question.
I don’t have an answer for you today. It could be incorporating, for instance, some targets around farmland protection into a national soil health strategy and linking that to the food security goals that we have within Canada. I will have to do some thinking on that and get back to you, if that’s okay.
Senator Simons: That would be terrific.
The Chair: We would welcome a written follow-up to that question. Thank you, witnesses.
Mr. Orr: The federal government could assist with some initiative or with some funding for presentations on more sustainable growth practices. If all we’ve seen built in the last 70 years, which is one generation, is low-density single-family homes, then that’s all people think you can build. If we are able to get good planners to present to councils on preserving farmland and sustainable growth, I think that might go a long way to having them plan more compactly in the future.
Senator Burey: I have a quick question. I’m going back to that $5-million AgriDiversity Program, which is a federally funded program. I would like to know who knew about it. If you didn’t know about it, could we find ways to increase knowledge transfer about these programs? Do you have any recommendations? Did you know about it, and can we increase the knowledge transfer about these programs?
Mr. Orr: Sorry, is the program called AgriDiversity?
Senator Burey: It’s called AgriDiversity. The federal government has highlighted the relative absence of Black and racialized individuals in agriculture, so Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada developed the $5-million AgriDiversity Program. It started March 2023, and I think it’s a five-year program.
Did you know about it, Mr. Orr?
Mr. Orr: No.
Senator Burey: I know Ms. Sundance did not. How about Ms. Sipos?
Ms. Sipos: I have not heard of it.
Senator Burey: Okay.
Mr. Smith: I am aware of that federal program. I’m a citizen of the Métis nations in Manitoba and Ontario, and there’s been quite a lot of activity at the federal level, and now at the provincial level, in terms of various incentives and programs to diversify participation in agriculture. There are unique situations for Indigenous people on First Nations land and, in particular, on reserve. It is a unique situation with this land, which we could probably spend an entire hour on. The Indian Act has limitations in terms of equipment purchase and so on, so there is a lot going on with these new programs, but there are limitations for First Nations.
As I say, that’s a topic in and of itself.
Senator Burey: So, there is a dissemination of knowledge about these programs but the people who need the information are not getting it. Is that correct?
Mr. Smith: I think that’s likely the case, yes.
Senator Burey: Okay, thank you.
Senator Cotter: This is a question for Ms. Sipos, partly to show that we have been doing our own homework, and I have another homework assignment for you, I think. In the spring, at the Ontario Federation of Agriculture Research Day, you presented — I’ve only seen the program — an update on a Greenbelt soil health benchmarking project. That’s in our wheelhouse, if I may say, and I’m wondering if there’s a document or PowerPoint presentation that you could share with this committee for us to see the kinds of work you and your colleagues have been doing on the soil health side of the equation with respect to the Greenbelt.
Ms. Sipos: Absolutely. I can certainly summarize that into a briefing note and share that with you, along with some additional images from previous presentations.
We are benchmarking soil health across the region to have an understanding of current soil health, as well as to understand what potential changes and improvement capacity we have in the region so we can help farmers make decisions regarding how healthy their soil is and whether they have an opportunity to improve it. If they do, what are the best practices that could help move that needle toward having healthier soil?
Thank you for that question. I appreciate that you attended the Ontario Federation of Agriculture Research Day. We intend to present again next year, and I will send that information along in a written brief for you.
Senator Cotter: Let me provide full disclosure: I attended the internet, which identified the agenda for the program, Ms. Sipos. You’re the one who did all the work, and we want to benefit from it, if we could. Thanks.
Ms. Sipos: Thank you.
The Chair: Senator Jaffer, you have the last word.
Senator Jaffer: I wanted to ask you a question, Mr. Smith. You said you had heard about the programs, but do you think the federal government could do more to make the programs better known? Especially since you do research, I’d like to hear what you think the federal government could do to let people know what programs providing help from the federal government exist.
Mr. Smith: This is a perennial problem of publicity; access to programs depends upon knowledge, word of mouth and publicity about them. I can’t say there’s a magic bullet for that. That’s a relatively new program, too, so it does take time to filter out.
Obviously, targeting publicity to the communities most interested in them would be helpful. That isn’t really the area that I work in, so I’m not really attuned to all of that. I’m more in the production, agriculture and soil health aspects of it, so I’m not paying as much attention to that.
I think outreach that’s directed and targeted is certainly part of it. The federal government works closely with the provincial government, so the provincial government certainly is working in that area. It’s up to provincial departments. They work together and often cross-promote provincial and federal programs. That’s about all I can add to the discussion.
Senator Jaffer: Thank you, Mr. Smith.
The Chair: Thank you very much. To me, the level of interest and participation from our colleagues — and Senator Burey talked about the ideas, knowledge and understanding of this group — equates to passion. I want to say thank you to Mr. Orr, Ms. Sipos, Mr. Smith and Ms. Sundance for sharing your passion with us. It has been a delightful and interesting hour that we’ve spent together. Your assistance with our study is very much appreciated. You’re welcome to continue to stay on this call, but I would ask that you please turn your microphones and cameras off as we continue with our next panel.
Our second panel is on agricultural financing and crop insurance. We welcome today, from Farm Credit Canada via video conference, Justine Hendricks, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Todd Klink, Executive Vice-President and Chief Marketing Officer. Good to see you again, folks. From the Agriculture Financial Services Corporation, we welcome Mr. Stuart Chutter, Senior Policy Analyst.
I invite you to make your presentations. We’ll begin with Ms. Hendricks and followed by Mr. Chutter. You’ll each have five minutes. At one minute, I’ll put my hand up to give you an idea of your time. When you see two hands up, that means it’s time to wrap up as you’re running out of time. With that, the floor is yours, Ms. Hendricks.
Justine Hendricks, President and Chief Executive Officer, Farm Credit Canada: Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. It’s really great to be with you virtually today and a pleasure to meet some of the members of the committee we did not have a chance to see back in Saskatoon in September.
I am very appreciative to be able to join you today, with my colleague Todd Klink, Executive Vice-President and Chief Marketing Officer, to discuss the role that Farm Credit Canada, or FCC, has been playing in supporting the sustainability of the agriculture and food industry here in Canada.
[Translation]
This morning, I would like to update the committee on three initiatives under way at FCC. The first is to make you aware of the work we are doing with AgExpert. AgExpert is a farm management tool to help producers digitize their farm records. For 2023 alone, we have production activities on over five million acres tracked in the software and over 21,000 users. AgExpert has one of the fastest-growing user bases in the market.
The AgExpert team is dedicated to protecting privacy, building trust and being transparent. With AgExpert, producers own their data and can choose who they want to share it with. Producers’ data is protected to the highest standards.
We have recently enhanced AgExpert’s data analysis to give producers a better understanding of their sustainability footprint. An example of this is our upcoming integration with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s HOLOS sustainability model.
Scheduled to begin in March 2024, AgExpert users will have the ability to share their data with the HOLOS model to calculate their farm’s net carbon score. The integration is intended to help Canadian producers gain an understanding of their environmental footprint concerning carbon sequestration and help them make optimal decisions to increase their sustainability practices.
[English]
AgExpert is also a tool leveraged in the Smart Farm Network. I know members of your committee visited the Olds College Smart Farm and the AgExpert Data Lab there.
FCC’s support of Smart Farms goes back to 2017, when we helped found the Olds College Smart Farm, and continues today with our support of the Ottawa Smart Farm at Area X.O as well as Innovation Farms in Manitoba. In each case, FCC was the first and catalyzing partner, leading to substantial investment from private entities and all levels of government. These sites are dedicated to the testing and adoption of new farm technologies and sustainability practices. They provide neutral sites where these ideas can be ground truthed, tested at scale and de-risked for producers and financiers.
Second, I would like to talk about FCC’s Sustainability Incentive Program. Launched in 2022, this initiative provides financial incentives to producers who are achieving industry-led sustainability criteria — including soil health management practices. In the first year of the initiative, three programs were launched: the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef’s Certified Sustainable Beef Framework, McCain’s Regenerative Agriculture Framework and Cargill’s RegenConnect.
[Translation]
Finally, we’ve seen first-hand the impacts of climate change here, in Canada, such as the increasing frequency and intensity of natural disasters from flooding and drought to wildfires. FCC supports at-risk sectors impacted by climate events with customer support programs offering payment deferrals, interest-only payments and additional working capital. We customize our programs based on the actual needs of our customers in order to better support them.
Recent examples include support for Western producers affected by droughts, B.C. producers affected by the 2021 floods and Eastern producers affected by Hurricane Fiona. Furthermore, FCC provides financing to producers looking to make capital investments to increase the resiliency of their operations to the impacts of climate change, as well as capital investments to increase their sustainability.
[English]
I want to thank the committee for its time this morning. I look forward to answering your questions during the panel.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Stuart Chutter, Senior Policy Analyst, Agriculture Financial Services Corporation: Thank you. It’s so beautiful for me to come to Ottawa and see soil as the agenda item for a meeting like this.
My name is Stuart Chutter. I am a prairie farmer and the senior policy analyst at Agriculture Financial Services Corporation, or AFSC, in Alberta. At AFSC, we deliver business risk management programs, including crop insurance and AgriStability, as well as lending products to Alberta agriculture.
My passion for soil conservation began on my own farm. Since 2017, the soil on my farm has increased from 2.8% to 5.2% organic matter using the five principles of soil health. With soil analysis and beef value chain life cycle analysis, I have the data to back up my claim that the beef originating from my farm is net carbon negative. My soils are sequestering more carbon than the entire value chain emissions of my beef, while also offsetting the annual emissions of an additional 100 Canadians.
Soil analysis is also very important in my work in agriculture business risk management. I was invited to speak here today after connecting with Senator Simons at the 2022 Western Canadian Conference on Soil Health and Grazing. I was there to present analysis on how individual farm practices affect risk in crop insurance, and how we could potentially price risk individually on current-year farm practices or metrics in the future. Currently, characters of risk are pooled or based on a producer’s history. In the future, the more accurately we can individually measure and price risk in real time, the more efficiently producers can make good risk management decisions.
In our analysis of farm practices and metrics, soil organic carbon was the most meaningful indicator of farm-level risk. For crop insurance in Alberta, drought is our biggest liability. Over the past 21 years, 57% of crop insurance indemnities have been paid out because of moisture limitations. Soil is so relevant because for every 1% increase in soil organic matter, that soil’s water-holding capacity increases by roughly 25,000 gallons per acre. This is roughly the equivalent of an inch of rainfall and offers a bank account of water that can be drawn down and recharged, meaning the crop grown in higher organic matter soil may have access to an extra inch of stored rainfall several times through the growing season. On the farm and for crop insurance, building and conserving soil organic matter offers a drought mitigation strategy.
In our initial analysis in 2021, central Alberta barley yields were 12 bushels per acre higher in above-average soil organic carbon fields, and cost $33 per acre less in crop insurance indemnities during that drought year. In that same risk zone, but for canola, fields that were above average in soil organic carbon produced eight bushels per acre more and cost $56 per acre less in crop insurance indemnities. Average and above-average soil organic carbon fields were saving between $33 and $56 per acre in this region during 2021’s drought. In Alberta, we insure roughly 16 million acres of annual crop.
Research in the U.S. offers similar inference. A 2021 analysis on corn concluded that a 1% increase in soil organic matter was associated with a yield increase of 32 bushels per acre and a 36% reduction in average crop insurance liabilities paid.
One highlight of soil organic matter as a data-driven policy metric is that it is outcome-based, as opposed to a practice. In Canada, with our diverse growing conditions, outcome-based metrics, like organic carbon, allow farmers to provide results with tools that fit their region, equipment, culture, values and systems without any obligations on practices.
This data supports that soil is a fundamental source of resilience and sustainability, both at the farm level and for agriculture risk management programs. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We’ll now move to questions, starting with Senator Simons, the deputy chair.
Senator Simons: Mr. Chutter, I am going to start with you. It was an epiphany for me to hear your presentation last December and to understand that there is such a direct correlation between the carbon that is in the soil and the risk of crop failure, whether from drought or flooding, because a more carbon-rich soil is better able to sustain floods as well.
When I came back to the committee and I said, “We have to meet this guy and have him in,” people said to me, “Well, is it the carbon? How does he know that increasing carbon changes the outcomes versus what’s just native to the soil?” Maybe we can get you to explain how you, as a farmer and rancher, increase soil organic carbon in your soil and whether that could be something that we could structure an insurance program around to incentivize.
Mr. Chutter: I’ll jump on that first part of the question about how soil organic carbon can change and how I’ve achieved that on my farm. On my farm, I’m a livestock producer, so I can speak to that end.
If we think back to Grade 11 or Grade 12 biology class, we remember photosynthesis as plants taking CO2 from the atmosphere and respiring oxygen. Those plants are putting carbon into the ground. It is photosynthesis that puts carbon into the soil. In spring, across the grasslands in Canada, plants are greening up and starting to photosynthesize, and they’ll grow and photosynthesize and put carbon down into the ground while they’re doing that. Then, like any species, they want to ensure the next generation, so they’ll become reproductive, stop photosynthesizing and put their energy into forming a seed, and that life cycle is over.
But if at just that time, before grass is going to go to seed, we bring in a giant herd of cows, they’re going to take a big bite of that grass. Then that plant, to go to seed and meet its goal, needs to photosynthesize again and put carbon in the ground again. If we take those cows off the land, that plant will do that, and once it’s ready to go to seed, we can bring that big herd of cows back in to take another bite. That’s how we can triple or quadruple that life cycle of photosynthesis and significantly increase our ability to sequester carbon on grazing lands.
Senator Simons: How do you structure an insurance program that rewards people for all kinds of good, regenerative agricultural practices rather than a program that incentivizes people to, for example, plant canola on marginal land and then harvest the insurance?
Mr. Chutter: That’s a great question. On my farm, I’m a livestock producer, and the data I was presenting earlier is about crop production. There are differences there, but there are still practices that affect that outcome of soil organic carbon.
Crop insurance, fundamentally, is a business risk management program, with goals of food security and economic risk management for producers. That’s what I would like to highlight. With risk management at the farm level and soil organic carbon as a metric, there is so much alignment in those incentives, so there is opportunity, as you say, without compromising that goal of primary financial risk management for the producer.
Senator Simons: I’ll have to wait for the next round to get the answer of how.
The Chair: I’m going to take the chair’s prerogative to ask the next question because I don’t want my question to be taken by someone else.
I’m going to ask the representatives of the lending institution this question: How would a lending institution look at an insurance program that bases insurance risk on soil health? How might that be looked at or supported?
Ms. Hendricks: Perhaps I will tackle this question by saying that, after listening to my fellow panellists and in terms of having those best practices, how FCC has been approaching it is through the incentive to continue these best practices. Then the outcome becomes that you have better production or yield coming out of your soil. If I understood correctly, that results in overall reduction of insurance payments because that ecosystem becomes balanced.
So, thus far, FCC has played a role by making sure, whether you’re a livestock or crop producer and considering exactly what your unique requirements are to contribute to the best output, we customize those incentive programs to make sure that we can respect the level of every subsector. As a result, we’ll give back a percentage against interest paid on their working capital facilities, which rewards the good behaviour.
The Chair: Mr. Klink, do you have anything to add?
Todd Klink, Executive Vice-President and Chief Marketing Officer, Farm Credit Canada: No, senator. I think that covers it well. It’s about best practices in the industry, as Mr. Chutter said. Producers look to produce well on their land, to manage their risk and their soils. I believe that each and every day, they’re looking for best practices. We certainly heard that from Mr. Orr this morning as well.
With incentive programs, as Ms. Hendricks said, we have tried to look for industry best practices and where they see the opportunities within their subsector, whether that be crops, beef, et cetera. Then the question is how we work with those groups to partner and work with their growers who grow those crops to move forward this discussion that ultimately ends with best management practices and improving soil health.
The Chair: Thank you very much for answering my question.
Senator Oh: Thank you, witnesses, for joining us.
Your method seems to be very interesting. Do you have any statistics regarding how many farmers follow your method regarding soil organic matter you mentioned to us? How did you measure that production has increased so much by using your method?
Mr. Chutter: Those measures of my soil were completed by soils analysis, which is sending soils to a laboratory that measures those changes in the soil and can measure its carbon content.
In our analysis for crop insurance, we used an aggregated data set of soil organic carbon across Alberta, and that was made available through funding by the Sustainable Canadian Agriculture Partnership, which provided funding to the Food Water Wellness Foundation in Calgary. They mapped soil organic carbon at the field level for the entire province of Alberta. That was key for us to be able to do this analysis.
My message today is that a key role for federal policy is funding that sort of soil mapping and data aggregation so we can run our analyses and make good data-driven decisions. We are dependent upon those sorts of data sets to complete our analyses.
Senator Oh: What about the credit insuring FCC? Do they recognize what you’re doing and that your method affects the insurance policy? Is that what you’re saying?
Mr. Chutter: Sorry, I don’t understand the question.
Senator Oh: Regarding Farm Credit Canada, do they use your method as part of their policy that applies to loans to farmers?
Mr. Chutter: I’m not sure. We’d have to ask Ms. Hendricks.
Senator Oh: Okay.
Are there any companies or farmers in Ontario using the method you are mentioning — your soil organic method? Are there any Ontario farmers doing it?
Mr. Chutter: Are there any insurance providers internalizing soil organic carbon in an insurance program?
Senator Oh: Yes.
Mr. Chutter: No, not that I’m aware of right now.
Under the Sustainable Canadian Agriculture Partnership, administrators of crop insurance across the country do need to pilot a practice over the next five years within our crop insurance program. That will be the start of learning how to internalize those practices, outcomes or metrics within a crop insurance program.
As of right now, we do offer individual crop insurance coverage and pricing, but it’s based on either a producer’s history — in Alberta, it’s their past 10-year history — and, in some cases, it’s also pooled risk. We have a geographic risk zone, which is perhaps an area of the province with similar growing conditions, and we pool risk within that zone.
Right now, no, there are no individual practices or metrics in crop insurance other than what comes through in your history.
Senator Oh: Farm Credit Canada, do we have time? Can we get some comments?
Ms. Hendricks: Certainly. To be specific, in terms of insurance, Farm Credit Canada provides lending in order for the farmers to be able to operate their farms. Having said that, when I was speaking about the platform AgExpert, the farmer individually has the ability through the platform to input his soil data. As a result of that, that will provide the data over time to be able to see that progress.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator Jaffer: Welcome to all of you, and welcome to Ottawa. I can see your enthusiasm for the farming you do, Mr. Chutter, and also your absolute passion, like our chair has, on issues of soil.
Are you doing any training programs regarding what you do on your farm?
Mr. Chutter: No.
Senator Jaffer: I just wondered, because you are obviously very passionate about what you do, so I was wondering if you were doing any specific things in teaching farmers your method.
Mr. Chutter: No. I think a lot of practices are fairly common in conventional agriculture in Canada. If we look at no-till across the Prairies, it’s done on around 70% of land. I would call myself a regenerative farmer on my farm, but I also very much give credit to conventional agriculture in Canada, which is on its own regenerative journey. The adoption of a lot of these practices is very widespread.
I don’t consider what I do on my farm to be particularly special or unique. These sorts of practices are happening across the country.
Senator Jaffer: Thank you.
I have a question for you, Ms. Hendricks. It’s good to see you again. It was very nice of you to be with us when we were in Saskatchewan. I don’t know if you were watching the panel earlier, but at Farm Credit Canada, do you have specific programs for marginalized groups, such as Indigenous or Black farmers? Do you reach out to them and have you extended credit or some kind of program to encourage them to come into farming?
Ms. Hendricks: Thank you for the question.
Just to make a link to the past question, FCC actually hosts quite a few learning events across Canada in communities to be able to offer that support around some of those practices.
In terms of special loans that we have, we have special loans for young farmers, which means farmers under 40 in our case. We have programs for under-represented groups. Typically, they are a combination of a break on interest rates — a lower interest rate — and the ability to stretch their capital to be able to enter the industry. We continuously obtain feedback on how those programs are operating in terms of their effectiveness. As a result, we’re able to see how we can extend them or specialize them even further.
Quickly, senator, I would just like to add that, on the Indigenous side, we are currently in the process of launching a circle for Indigenous practices in partnership with First Nations University of Canada. We see that as a great example where we can work hand in hand with Indigenous communities. Where it all starts, from their perspective, is actually relearning the trade that they once mastered. We’ll be able to offer that, capture some of those Indigenous agricultural practices that can help all agriculture across Canada from a sustainability [Technical difficulties] and make sure we can offer financial and learning support and connect them to opportunities.
Senator Petitclerc: Thank you to the witnesses for being here today. It is extremely useful. I have a simple question. Maybe it’s not something that you deal with directly, so let me know if that is the case.
Ms. Hendricks, we’ve been at this study for a while now and there is still a lot to dig into. We heard about best practices for soil health and early adopters and others who are a little more reluctant. We also heard the case — and you shared a bit of that, Mr. Chutter — about how it is a good business scenario to invest in best practices.
Is there a good business case to be made for improving and supporting best practices when it comes to soil health? If so, are you documenting it? If not, who is documenting it? Do we have data and numbers? Can we go to farmers and say, “If you do this, this is what you will gain from it”? Can we quantify it? Those are my questions. They are very simple, as I said.
Ms. Hendricks: Those are good questions for the morning.
I want to make sure I understood your question. I believe you’re asking me if there’s an ROI, a business case for doing this.
Senator Petitclerc: Yes.
Ms. Hendricks: If you are asking me for a specific number, I wish I had one to give you, but I don’t right now. However, there are improvements in being able to capture the data.
I want to go back to how we are looking at capturing data. I also think you need to capture it over a period of time so that you can derive those insights from that data. I believe that is what will allow us to connect it to the ROI.
As a principle, if we’re looking around the world — and all of us know that most of Canada’s food production is exported — there is value in putting those practices in place. If you compare those against some of the regulations that are evolving internationally, I believe those farmers who are applying those practices will get more value for what they grow and will have better access to contracts.
[Translation]
It’s also what I would call the burning question, as they say, or the true reality.
[English]
That supports the ROI, but better leveraging and pulling the data together so that it’s one data set, which is also a challenge, will allow us to make the business case with confidence. I hope that answers your question.
[Translation]
Senator Petitclerc: Absolutely. Thank you.
Ms. Hendricks: My pleasure.
[English]
Mr. Chutter: Yes, I would add that absolutely, from the numbers we are seeing from our initial analysis, there is a very strong business case. I would echo that in order to go to that next step of really quantifying those numbers and internalizing those into methodologies, we need that continued data aggregation of soil mapping and soil information. Otherwise, we don’t have the tools to complete that. That would be one of my messages — that federal government funding for soil mapping and soil analysis is key to that.
Senator Petitclerc: Thank you so much.
Senator Burey: Good morning again. I love this committee. We learn about so much — sustainability, food security, mitigating the effects of greenhouse gases, risk management and looking at organic matter. I enjoyed your photosynthesis and botany lesson and, on the other hand, the information about loans for sustainable practices.
How can we get this information out about what you are doing regarding risk management and increasing organic matter? On the loan side, in terms of best management practices, how can we get the information out? Again, we heard this morning from our previous panellists that we are not getting this information out. Federally, how can we get that information out? How can we also get information to farmers?
We went to Saskatchewan and learned about these sensors that are now put into the ground to measure nitrogen, CO2 and water levels. Farmers aren’t getting the financing to be able to put those mapping sensors in so that we can aggregate that data. How can we get that information to them?
Probably the most interesting question to me is whether or not we have any metrics, Ms. Hendricks, on the uptake of your programs, especially from marginalized and under-represented groups.
I know I said a lot there.
Ms. Hendricks: Let me start with your last ask. We at FCC will track, as an example I mentioned, the program for young farmers under 40. We would structure a program like that, and then we would track how much lending has been given to those communities and the number of customers. We’re also exploring new key performance indicators to be able to track success.
An example of that, senator, would be if we see a young farmer under 40 has remained a farmer at 47. In my humble opinion, that would be an example of how we enabled something at a point in time and that longevity exists. We do that as well for women entering agriculture, but I’d like to also add that, coming from the perspective of a financier, it’s the package, right? It’s how you get started. How do we, as the first panel mentioned, support them in terms of learning events? At Farm Credit Canada, we have about 105 branches and we serve 105,000 customers. How do we continue to engage?
The other aspect I would like to share with you in terms of us getting measurements is we’re partnering with some different organizations from an advisory perspective, where FCC will fund part of an advisory project with a farmer in order to allow them to solve a problem. The concept we bring to the table is support not only for financing in the short, medium and long term but also for specific points in time in that journey — for example, if we hear from Mr. Chutter about a new technique — that is, to be able to directly support them but also give them the advice to be able to do it as well. We’ll fund a part of that to encourage the farmer to be able to get the advice that he or she needs at the right time in their journey. Does that help?
Senator Burey: Yes. I think that answered the first part in terms of the knowledge exchange as well.
Ms. Hendricks: We can provide you with data, senator.
Senator Burey: So you can provide the data, the metrics. You’ll send it in. Thank you very much.
Did you have anything to add, Mr. Chutter?
Mr. Chutter: On the first part, I feel like we’re catching up with producers. So much of this innovation and these practices are happening out there on the farm. It’s not necessarily me getting information out to them; it’s more us learning how to quantify and measure this, and whether there are opportunities to capture this so that risk management tools are more effective for the producer and also aligning incentives?
The Chair: Thank you. Moving on to second round, we have Senator Simons.
Senator Simons: Let’s talk about aligning those incentives, because this is really what we want to get to. If you have an insurance program that backstops people from making poor decisions, they never make better decisions. We want to have an insurance program, as Albertans or in other provinces, that encourages people to make the right decisions to improve the health of their soil.
How do we structure an insurance program that rewards people for the practices that reduce risk by enhancing the health of their soil so that we save the insurance programs money down the road and make the whole thing more sustainable for everyone?
Mr. Chutter: That’s a great question and, fundamentally, why we undertook this project. We undertook it from a risk reduction perspective. Our analysis was purely about evaluating risk. There weren’t social or environmental goals in that process at the time. It was about how we make better financial risk management tools that are more individually priced for the producer. That’s what I think I want to message today. With that soil organic carbon analysis, not only was it so significant and meaningful, but it does give that tool to align those incentives.
Senator Simons: Let’s put this in English. What you’re saying is you would charge somebody less for insurance if they are a better farmer.
Mr. Chutter: That’s what this project would try to quantify, what that risk reduction is, so we can adjust premiums accordingly.
Senator Simons: This is the concern we’ve had all along. You have that prodigal son problem when someone is an early adopter. If you create an incentive program that rewards the laggards, the person who did it first doesn’t see the benefit, but this would be neutral in that sense. Each time you improve the soil organic carbon on your farm, your crop insurance prices would go down.
Mr. Chutter: Exactly, and that’s why outcome-based policy in this situation is on my radar, because it doesn’t tweak that new adopter, change in practice conversation. It’s just the scale of a metric.
Senator Simons: This is the challenge: If you want people to change their practices, economics teaches us that if you give an economic price signal that tells them it is worth their time and worth the investment to make those changes in their practices because their crop insurance premiums will come down, then it’s very clear and transparent and it’s not about rebates or incentive plans; it’s about using the market to make people do what you want them to do.
Mr. Chutter: Exactly, especially when the incentives align so nicely in this situation. Crop insurance in Canada is cost shared between governments and producers. As a crop insurance provider, we are not a for-profit business, so reductions in risk are savings to premiums. If we can appropriately identify those risk productions of practices, then that is reflected directly in premiums.
Senator Simons: Is there a point at which you have to say to somebody, “We’re not going to insure you anymore,” or, “We’re going to make your premiums so high that you will get that message, because your land simply isn’t worth the risk”?
Mr. Chutter: That’s not my role. No, in our analysis, our objective is not to tell people how to farm or put limitations on practices; it’s to achieve the objective of lower risk.
Senator Simons: But basically, you do need pricing that says to someone, at a certain point, “Stop planting wheat here. This is not a good place to plant wheat. This should be for forage. This should be for chickpeas,” or something that says they are growing the wrong thing in the wrong place given climate change and the stress of drought.
Mr. Chutter: If that’s the real risk and it’s captured and priced accordingly, then pricing sends that message.
Senator Simons: Super. Thank you very much.
The Chair: In September 2023, Farm Credit Canada announced a three-year extension of its sponsorship of the Ottawa Smart Farm. The partnership with Area X.O is designed to accelerate agri-tech innovation, adoption and the impact on farmers, Canada’s agriculture sector and the economy. Area X.O is one of four Smart Farms that FCC supports, including those, as you mentioned already, in Alberta and Manitoba.
My question is this: How do these Smart Farms collaborate with researchers, companies, farmers and ranchers to enhance beneficial soil management practices and innovation? Is that something that you’re specifically encouraging?
Ms. Hendricks: Thank you, senator. I’ll start more generally, and then I’ll turn to Mr. Klink, who is closer with the network of the Smart Farms. Perhaps he has additional comments.
To your question specifically, I would say that when FCC enters these partnerships with some of the Smart Farms, we work in tandem with them in order to see what they see as opportunities. They also work with the private sector as well as universities and schools to combine some of the areas they will focus on. I want to note in particular — and I believe this is fundamental to the Smart Farms — the fact that they can test, and this touches on the subject of the soil. This is what gives us that real data.
Maybe I will give Mr. Klink the floor for 30 seconds, as he’s very close to that history — one we’re really proud of — and I’d love for him to articulate his passion for it.
The Chair: You are being limited to 30 seconds, Mr. Klink, but you’ve got more than that, if you wish.
Mr. Klink: Thank you, senator.
The Smart Farms have been instrumental in trying out new technologies and ground truthing innovation that’s happening at scale. Sensors that people are putting in the fields — how they work, what that really looks like and what data is coming from them — might be an example. Another is the experiments using 4R nutrient practices to improve soil health. What does that look like as people are looking to place their soil at the right source, the right rate, at the right time and in the right place? What are the benefits to that? That’s the business case that Senator Simons was talking about.
The farms help make it real. They have field days, when they are bringing producers together to help bridge that knowledge and education piece, where they may have heard of a technology or a best practice, and now they can see that live and in action. It’s been really beneficial. We have certainly benefited from the experiments that we have run with the schools and the Smart Farms. I know other organizations, whether they be government or private, have invested in running trials and experiments with the Smart Farms as well. The work that they are doing serves our industry really well.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator Simons: I want to talk one more time about insurance — and this is for all three of our guests and witnesses today.
I have heard from people in the ranching industry that they feel left out of our insurance regimes in this country. You can get insurance for crops through crop insurance, or collectives of the sort Mr. Chutter described, but they have explained to me that it’s much harder to get insurance for ranching. The challenge they see is that if they have marginal land that they have been using for crops and would like to turn that land into forage or pasture, they hesitate, because they had insurance to plant crops and they don’t have the same kind of backstop for that transition.
When we’re looking both at farm credit and insurance, do we need to rethink the way we have our economic incentives set up so that people can make smart decisions based on the transitions they need to make as the climate changes, to do the right kind of agriculture in the right spot?
Ms. Hendricks: Thank you, senator. How I would begin answering your question is to say that, at FCC, the role we play involves being able to support those investments in running the farm overall. Earlier, when we were describing some of those incentive programs, whether with the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef or Dairy Farmers of Canada and so forth, it’s about being able to recognize what is unique from a subsector perspective.
To your question about whether we have the ability today to be able to say that if you’re a rancher and you’ve got 20% crops, if you change that balance or decide to do more ranching, that would give you a greater incentive, quite honestly, we would not be in a position to say that.
However, because we are 100% dedicated to the industry, we really understand the uniqueness of each subsector, and that’s the knowledge that we bring when we are structuring our lending. In that way, we can reflect those practices or understanding of the industry to really make sure we support the desire of the farmer to continue to drive toward the results they are aiming for.
Senator Simons: All right. Mr. Chutter, please.
Mr. Chutter: You’re clearly doing your homework. That’s bang on. We hear that a lot from industry in insurance.
Insuring forage is very difficult. When we insure crops, you can get a yield off the combine of how much grain is harvested, and you can adjust it and have an appropriate insurance program. When you’re insuring grass that’s being eaten by a cow or by livestock, finding out yields and creating an insurance program is very difficult. What metric are we insuring?
A lot of forage insurance programs are derivative-based; they are based not on what is actually being harvested but instead a weather station metric on rainfall or the temperature. Payouts are on indicators of growth as opposed to direct growth itself. It’s very challenging.
But in terms of risk management support for the livestock sector in Canada, outside of crop insurance, AgriStability is another arm of the business risk management programs. It is really the pillar of the livestock business risk management programs, but it also has severe limitations in how it responds during periods of drought to livestock producers and financial stress. It really has a reputation for not working properly and being a broken program. We are doing a lot of analysis on how we can make changes to that program to make it more effective to livestock producers and to pay out in years of disaster as opposed to in years when payouts are not needed.
There is a lot of work that is being done but that needs to be done there as well.
I love that you picked up on that, and I would echo today to this committee that, when it comes to soil conservation and grassland preservation in Canada, one of the best policy tools we can have available is a policy that protects our beef industry and the farmers and ranchers who are protecting that grassland.
Senator Simons: Thank you very much.
The Chair: Ms. Hendricks, Mr. Klink and Mr. Chutter, thank you very much for your participation today in this second panel. Your assistance with this very important study is much appreciated. Thanks very much. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention and comment on that desk plaque over your right shoulder, Mr. Klink, and I want to thank Farm Credit Canada for their significant support of 4-H Canada.
With that, I’d like to thank the committee members for your active participation and thoughtful questions. I want to take a moment, as I try to each week, to thank the staff who support the work we do, both those in our offices and the folks behind me this morning: interpreters, the Debates team, transcribers, committee room attendants, multimedia service technicians, our broadcasting team, the Recording Centre, the Information Services Directorate, or ISD, and our page. We really do appreciate you all, and we couldn’t do what we do each committee meeting without you. Thank you very much.
Colleagues, the steering committee has decided that we will cancel Tuesday-evening meetings, because we’re not always sure that we can meet, so between now and when we rise for the Christmas break, we will cancel Tuesday meetings. We will meet Thursdays. So our next meeting is scheduled for Thursday, November 23, at 9 a.m., when we’ll continue to hear from witnesses on the committee’s soil health study.
(The committee adjourned.)