THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, November 30, 2023
The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry met with videoconference this day at 9:01 a. [ET] to examine and report on the status of soil health in Canada.
Senator Paula Simons (Deputy Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Deputy Chair: Hello, everyone.
I want to welcome the committee members and the witnesses who are joining us in person or virtually.
[English]
My name is Paula Simons, senator from Alberta, Treaty 6 territory, and I am the Deputy Chair of this committee.
Today, the committee is meeting on its study to examine and report on the status of soil health in Canada. Before we hear from the witnesses, I would like to start by asking the senators around the table to introduce themselves, starting on my left.
Senator Cotter: Good morning. My name is Brent Cotter and I am a senator from Saskatchewan.
Senator Burey: Good morning. Sharon Burey, senator for Ontario.
Senator Jaffer: Welcome and good morning. I’m a senator from British Columbia and my name is Mobina Jaffer.
[Translation]
Senator Petitclerc: Hello. Thank you for being with us. My name is Chantal Petitclerc and I am a senator from Quebec.
[English]
Senator Pate: Good morning. My name is Kim Pate. I live here in the unceded, unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg. Welcome.
Senator Oh: Victor Oh, senator for Ontario.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much, senators.
Before we begin, should any technical challenges arise, particularly in relation to translation, please signal this to the chair or the clerk. We will work to resolve the translation issue.
For our first panel, via video conference, we welcome, from the Department of Fisheries, Forestry and Agriculture of Newfoundland and Labrador, Stephen Balsom, Assistant Deputy Minister, Agriculture and Lands; and from the Government of the Northwest Territories, Mike Gravel, Director, Forest Management, Northwest Territories Environment and Climate Change; and from Prince Edward Island Department of Agriculture, Carla Millar, Manager, Sustainable Agriculture.
I invite you to make your presentations. We will begin with Mr. Balsom, followed by Mr. Gravel and Ms. Millar. You each have five minutes for your presentations. I will signal that your time is running out by raising one hand when you have one minute left, and I will raise both hands when your time is up.
The floor is yours, Mr. Balsom.
Stephen Balsom, Assistant Deputy Minister, Agriculture and Lands, Department of Fisheries, Forestry and Agriculture, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador: Thank you to the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry for the opportunity to participate on behalf of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador’s Department of Fisheries, Forestry and Agriculture. I look forward to sharing some of our insights regarding the status of soil health as it relates to agriculture, land management, research and development, and forestry and ecosystem health.
The department’s Forestry and Wildlife Branch implement a province-wide environmental management system registered to the ISO 14001 standard, along with standard operating procedures associated with road construction and forest harvesting related to soil disturbance.
Ground disturbance surveys measure the level of compaction and soil degradation. Standard operating procedures for forest harvesting and access road construction along with targets are reviewed with forest operators, monitored, and outcomes are shared under a process of continual improvement.
Provincial environmental protection requires site disturbance to be less than 6% per site. Departmental disturbance studies indicate, on average, less than 3% site disturbance across our forestry operations.
The department facilitates a soil survey program to classify soils for agriculture production.
Provincial farmers are encouraged to participate in nutrient management planning activities that assess soil for various physical, chemical and biological properties. For example, measuring current nutrition to best utilize the soil for optimum crop production while protecting the resource and causing minimal impact.
Soil surveyors inspect soils on proposed agricultural developments, measuring texture, drainage and topography, and offering recommendations to prevent soil degradation on a site-specific basis.
Divisional crop and fertility specialists also play an important role in measuring, collecting and analyzing soil and crop parameters to assess and promote good soil health on a site-specific basis. They often assist agricultural producers in diagnosing problems and deficiencies, and finding possible solutions for soil health issues affecting crop production.
Our provincial soils lab conducts soil analysis for agricultural producers. Anyone submitting soil samples for agricultural activities receive a hard copy of results with recommendations for fertilizers and lime applications.
Our Agriculture Research and Development division is a partner in the National Living Lab Initiative. The program brings farmers, scientists and other partners together to co-develop and test innovative practices and technologies that address agri-environmental issues, such as carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas emissions.
As part of this initiative, we are working on a specific project to offer local farmers a report card that identifies soil health indicators and soil capacity, which include soil pH, nutrients, total carbon and nitrogen, soil respiration, stone content and other factors.
Newfoundland and Labrador’s landscape consists of complex topography, with shallow, stony and coarse to medium-textured soils that make them vulnerable to water and wind erosion. Our soils are acidic, naturally low in soil organic matter, and limited in nutrient retention and their ability to support crop growth.
Newfoundland and Labrador does not have a long history of agriculture, and we are one of the limited provinces in Canada that is clearing land for agricultural use. Since land-clearing efforts may contribute to soil degradation, we have adopted beneficial management practices to minimize this risk.
Erosion is one of the biggest soil degradation factors. Wind erosion in Newfoundland and Labrador is much less than in other provinces since many of our fields are small, fragmented and surrounded by forests. However, recent increases in adverse weather events and various studies confirm that erosion is an increasingly important issue.
In Newfoundland and Labrador, we have considered or adopted best management practices for sustainable forestry to mitigate the impacts of climate change and soil degradation.
Field staff and contractors assess harvested areas and strategically plan extraction trails. We also plan harvest activities and use of winter roads when harvesting in or around sensitive areas.
We incorporate larger infrastructure for water crossings — bridges and culverts — to account for increased water runoff.
Newfoundland and Labrador’s agriculture industry is small and, in many ways, not comparable to other provincial production systems. Support, collaboration and capacity building for local soil research is required to adopt practices applicable to our local environment.
Some federally based programming may not be applicable to Newfoundland and Labrador. Our province focuses on food self-sufficiency and not commodity-based, large-scale, or export-driven agriculture.
Some recommendations for collaboration would include creating provincial or territorial sections on a federal web page housing all reports, images and links to various databases and land use atlases; creating a national library of publications, reports and examples of how various funding, methodology and technology have prevented, reduced or reversed soil health issues or problems. Annual or biannual conferences with soil and agricultural staff from all provinces to discuss and showcase current problems, solutions, and innovative ideas to maintain and improve soil health. These are some of our recommendations.
I would like to conclude by thanking the committee for hosting these hearings. I am hopeful that the information presented offers insight into the status of soil health in Newfoundland and Labrador’s renewable resource sectors.
Thank you very much.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Balsom. Mr. Gravel?
Mike Gravel, Director, Forest Management, Northwest Territories Environment and Climate Change, Government of the Northwest Territories: Yes, it is. Thank you Senate committee on behalf of the Government of the Northwest Territories, I’m happy to be here this morning to speak on this matter. I will be honest, the Government of the Northwest Territories does not have intensive forestry, so I may not have as much to offer as some of the other panellists, but what I can tell you is that we focus on minimizing any impact of forests, while doing forest activities, ensuring there is minimal compaction, minimal [Technical difficulties] and things like this. A lot of our forest activities occur in winter for those very reasons, so that we can take advantage of the ground being frozen and having minimal disturbance to the ground.
We also have — I won’t say an emerging issue, but — an issue that has probably increased over recent years due to changing climates with permafrost thawing and slumping, which follows when the northern soils start to thaw out. So that’s an emerging issue for us. On the fire front, we are largely focused on drought conditions of the soil for the impacts on fire, and obviously in 2023, we had our worst fire season ever in the Northwest Territories. We also experienced one of our worst droughts ever. The two go hand in hand in many ways.
As I said, forest soils receive a certain amount of attention, but we don’t have dedicated staff to monitor the soils at this time from a forest perspective. I look forward to contributing while I am with you here this morning. Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much. Now, Ms. Millar.
Carla Millar, Manager, Sustainable Agriculture, Department of Agriculture, Government of Prince Edward Island: Good morning, honourable chair and committee members, and thank you for the invitation to address the committee today.
I’m Carla Millar, representing the P.E.I. Department of Agriculture, as manager of the Sustainable Agriculture section, which has a team of specialists that support soil health.
Agriculture is a key driver of the Prince Edward Island economy and an integral part of our society, with our soil forming the foundation under it all. Monitoring and improving soil health has been a key focus of the mandate of the P.E.I. Department of Agriculture for years now.
While P.E.I.’s rich red soil is known to grow some of the highest-quality food, its sandy texture coupled with the rolling topography of our fields can lead to soil health challenges. Under annual crop production systems, our soil is lost easily to wind and water erosion, and organic matter is hard to maintain.
In 1998, the department initiated a long-term province-wide soil quality monitoring project to routinely assess and monitor fluctuations in soil organic matter and nutrient levels. The sample sites are on agricultural land, selected on a grid covering the entire province, in partnership with landowners, with samples taken on a three-year cycle per site.
Between 1998 and 2012, the project sample results showed a general decline in soil organic matter. In the last three cycles, covering the years 2013-2021, the soil organic matter levels stabilized, with no further decline.
The majority of the land sampled continues to be in the 2-3% range of soil organic matter.
A number of compounding factors may have contributed to the loss of organic matter since the project began. A decline in the livestock industry during that period resulted in a reduction of manure inputs and a reduction in soil building forage crops used to feed livestock.
Other agronomic factors also have a cumulative effect over time, such as crop rotation, tillage intensity and soil erosion. Soil organic matter can be lost quickly and can take extensive amounts of time to rebuild.
What are we doing about it?
First, we have a focus on measuring and monitoring. In addition to the ongoing soil quality monitoring project, we have taken steps to support individual producers to better understand their soil health.
In 2019, the department launched a soil health testing service through the P.E.I. Analytical Laboratories, providing the soil health tests to agricultural producers at no cost, encouraging producers to submit soil samples for a suite of chemical, physical and biological tests. Producers can monitor trends in soil health over time as they adjust field management practices. In 2021, the entire suite of soil health tests was added to the soil quality monitoring project, allowing further insight into changes in soil health trends.
In 2022, we launched the Soil Health Improvement Planning service, offering producers a comprehensive field-specific assessment that models the impact of farm practices on their soil health over time.
Second, we prioritized programs and services for agricultural producers to implement beneficial farm management practices. We have a team that offers specialized engineering services to agricultural producers to reduce erosion. They design and guide the construction of soil conservation features on fields across the province. The grassed terraces, berms and waterways can slow and redirect the flow of water to reduce the amount of soil leaving the field. Both funding and technical services are provided, primarily through the federal and provincial agriculture policy frameworks.
We also provide funding and extension support to producers implementing other practices that support soil health, such as conservation tillage, winter cover cropping and incorporating soil-building crops and perennials in rotations.
The department understands that integrating livestock and manure into production systems can have a positive impact on soil health. The province developed a livestock strategy, and offers programs with objectives to grow and support the industry. The strategy includes a focus on soil health through improved grazing and an increase in manure amendments.
We also have the Perennial Crop Development Program; it’s designed to support perennial cropping systems, which generally provide reduced erosion and improved soil health compared to annual cropping systems.
Thirdly, we work toward our soil health objectives through partnerships, promotion and collaboration, supporting and participating in soil health working groups, partnering on research projects and planning soil health workshops. In 2021, we initiated the Soil First Farming campaign. The campaign aims to highlight the efforts of producers, industry and government toward our collective goal of soil health. A dedicated website captures the key soil health pillars, profiles Soil First farmers as well as our resource team and lists the resources available.
Is it working?
We continue to monitor trends in soil health and have developed solid relationships with industry partners on soil health initiatives. Agricultural producers on P.E.I. understand the value of their soil and see it as key to their success, with strong uptake of our programs and services.
Building soil health is a key focus in our climate action efforts; healthy soils sequester carbon while making farming systems more resilient to climate change impacts. The P.E.I. Department of Agriculture has a strong and continued mandate to build soil health across our province to help ensure the sustainability and resiliency of our agricultural sectors.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. Millar. Thank you very much to all our witnesses. We will now proceed to questions from senators.
Senator Oh: Thank you, witnesses, for your presentation. My question for the three of you is: What recommendations do you have for how the government can improve research and program funding to promote better soil practices?
The Deputy Chair: Perhaps, Mr. Balsom, you would like to start?
Mr. Balsom: Thank you very much. I would have to say that the ongoing Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership, or SCAP is a great program that we’re utilizing here in Newfoundland and Labrador to promote beneficial management practices with regard to mitigating the effects that we see on soil and soil health regarding some of the effects of climate change.
We have started a large program of research and promotion on the use of winter cover crops, such as alfalfa and oats, incorporating the use of legumes and green manures and implementing crop rotation for building soil fertility. We’re also involved in research work on no-till farm practices to increase organic matter in the soil and decrease the amount of erosion; the use of wind breaks in soil erosion and wind damage has become a part of our work with the farmers here.
From that perspective, I think the federal government and the partnership with SCAP and the Resilient Agricultural Landscape Program, or RALP, incorporated within our research work on how that is benefiting our farmers and soil health, has been a great success. We look forward to continuing with that type of work here in Newfoundland and Labrador.
The Deputy Chair: Mr. Gravel, would you like to take a stab at that question?
Mr. Gravel: Good morning and thank you. As far as the opportunities for funding goes, obviously the focus would be on supporting academia to work with industry and/or governments to further enhance our knowledge of forest soils. In our case in particular, as I mentioned in the opening address, that would mean understanding the effects of drought and the recovery from drought — for example, how much moisture specific soils may need to recover — understanding soil stability with respect to changing climate, and as northern soils warm, understanding the impact this has on permafrost and on soil productivity in general.
In terms of our jurisdiction, we have over 80 million hectares of forest. We have a large land base to cover and a very small team of forest professionals to manage that land base. Therefore, any sort of remote technology that could support soil mapping with respect to productivity, potential productivity or forest health would be beneficial.
Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Ms. Millar, would you like to answer?
Ms. Millar: Thank you. Like Newfoundland mentioned, we have had good success through the agriculture policy frameworks — currently, the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership. We do offer programming for soil health beneficial management practices, or BMPs, through the partnership and have for a good number of years now — probably 15 to 20 years.
I think some of the reason for the success is that the program can have a regional focus. It can be designed specifically for P.E.I. or specifically for Newfoundland. Our soil types are different, and our production systems are different from other areas of Canada and different even between the Atlantic provinces. That ability to regionally design and offer BMPs that are suitable for our own climate, producers and production systems is beneficial. One point I really wanted to bring is the regionality of an approach to programming and policies.
Through that program, we make very good use of our federal and provincial dollars, and we dedicate a lot of our dollars to our environmental initiatives. In the past, we were one of the highest provinces in Canada in terms of the percentage of our policy framework dollars that we dedicate to environmental initiatives. We could always use more. We have producers. We apply percentages to cost share the funding with producers, and then their projects are capped at a certain level of the dollars they can get. This often limits the number of acres they can enroll through the program that allows different producers to try some of these more novel BMPs. Therefore, more dollars would let us go further and would let participating producers do more. We have good, strong uptake.
The Deputy Chair: Thanks very much.
Senator Jaffer: Thank you to all of you for presenting today.
I have a question for you, Mr. Balsom. You mentioned the Living Laboratories Initiative. How does the Living Laboratories Initiative assist Newfoundland and Labrador producers with carbon sequestration, greenhouse gas, migration and increased nitrogen usage efficiency? What I really want to hear from you are some of the examples of successful projects or initiatives that have been implemented under the program. You did mention it. I wanted to give you some more time to expand on that idea.
Mr. Balsom: Thank you very much. I outlined that we are involved in the national Living Laboratories Initiative, bringing our farmers, scientists and partners together to co-develop and test our innovative practices.
One of the successes is providing our local farmers with a report card. We have what I would call a young agriculture industry, and we’re still in land-clearing mode. We’re still developing new land. Providing our new farmers with an understanding of how their practices impact the soil pH — the nutrients and the carbon and nitrogen — and the beneficial practices they can use to support soil health is really the success of the program so far.
We work with the local farmers to look at how these practices have an impact. For us, organic matter is one of the larger issues in Newfoundland and Labrador along with various acidic soils. We have to find the right balances and practices that retain that organic matter and ensure that we’re using the right amount of lime, which in turn reduces the amount of fertilizer input required. Overall, we’re slowly transitioning the practice from just clearing, liming and fertilizing, which would be over and above the requirements of a very specified amount. Each farmer can look at the report card and say, “Okay, based on the amount of organic matter, this is what I need to work on. Based on the pH and the crop I want to grow, this is the amount of lime.” We provide kilogram recommendations on the amount of nitrogen. I feel that’s a success so far on a fairly small and still growing agriculture industry.
Senator Jaffer: This is actually a question for all three of you. I’ll start with you, Mr. Gravel. The role of traditional Indigenous knowledge is being expanded upon and better integrated into decision making and processes at a provincial and territorial level. What are some of the examples of the successful integration of traditional knowledge, forest management and conservation? Mr. Gravel, have you been working on that issue at all?
Mr. Gravel: Yes, thank you — indirectly, yes. The Government of the Northwest Territories has a traditional knowledge policy. We actively engage with our Indigenous partners in, for example, forest management. We have recently co-drafted with Indigenous leaderships a new Forest Act. I believe that’s the first time in Canada where Indigenous governments have participated by directly holding the pen for drafting legislation.
On the Indigenous front, we are actively involved with our Indigenous governments and Indigenous partners. We also have co-management boards through land claims that require us to work collaboratively.
With respect to forest soil specifically, I don’t know that we have anything specific with respect to traditional knowledge or programs to obtain information on soils. As I said, the forest industry is probably a little different in the North than in southern Canada, so a lot of our practices are based on respect for the land and ensuring that our practices are sustainable and the land is protected. That’s a big priority for both the Government of the Northwest Territories and Indigenous governments in the North.
Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Senator Jaffer, we’re out of time. We can put you back on the second round so the others can answer.
Senator Cotter: Thank you very much to the three of you for your presentations. We know that each of your jurisdictions are not quite as dynamically involved in things as the regular types of agriculture, but your contribution is valuable to a national and federal perspective.
I have one question for, I think, both Mr. Balsom and Ms. Millar, a second question for Mr. Balsom, and a question for Mr. Gravel, if I may.
The question for Mr. Balsom and Ms. Millar is this: I think you described this work — the report card, in your case, Mr. Balsom, and, Ms. Millar, the work you’re doing with agricultural producers to move forward their work on soil health, its assessment and the like. I take it that those are voluntary programs that require, at least in many cases, investments by agricultural producers themselves.
What has the takeup been in your respective jurisdictions by producers with respect to these programs?
Maybe Mr. Balsom first and then Ms. Millar.
Mr. Balsom: Thank you very much for the question.
I would suggest that our takeup is very good here in Newfoundland and Labrador. We run our own soil lab, which offers the soil testing service to our agriculture producers. It is highly subscribed. We are actively engaged with the federation that represents agriculture here in Newfoundland and Labrador. It is something that we promote and that is being recognized, not only from a best practice in terms of soil health, but it is also important from a competitive business advantage when you have to use less lime and when you’re using specific targeted amounts of nutrients and fertilizers. I would say it’s well subscribed.
Under the Sustainable Canadian Agriculture Partnership, under the Resilient Agricultural Landscape Program, we are fully subscribed to the amount of funding that we have available to our producers here. As was mentioned in P.E.I., I think we would be able to utilize more funding if the program had it available. So it’s a success.
Ms. Millar: For our beneficial management practices program on P.E.I., we are fully subscribed. It includes more than just soil health BMPs, but those have great uptake as well.
For our soil health lab, we opened in 2019 and have processed over 5,000 samples for almost 200 producers. That’s just soil health testing; it’s not soil nutrient testing. That’s just to look at those more physical and biological properties of the quality of their soil.
Senator Cotter: I’d like to follow up. I appreciate that the programs might be fully subscribed, but is that 20% of the ag producers in P.E.I.? Is it 50% in Newfoundland and Labrador? How many people are actually engaging compared to the total population of producers that you have?
Ms. Millar: I hesitate to bring the numbers off the top of my head. It is good participation. We have a very small number of producers on Prince Edward Island total, and we work with different producers each year. Sometimes, they will cap themselves out and spend their entire funding allotment for that particular practice, so then we move on to other producers another year.
It is a good percentage, and we have good uptake in our environmental farm planning as well. If you want a specific percentage, we can bring that back to the committee another time.
Senator Cotter: That would be great if you could.
Ms. Millar: Great.
Senator Cotter: Mr. Balsom, is there a number for Newfoundland and Labrador?
Mr. Balsom: Unfortunately, I can’t provide that now, but I will look into it.
We have fewer than 200 producers, I would say. The larger producers that make up the majority of the market are subscribed. On an acreage basis, I would think we are highly subscribed.
Senator Cotter: That would be helpful to know. Can I squeeze in one little question?
The Deputy Chair: You have 20 seconds.
Senator Cotter: Mr. Balsom, how much land is getting cleared from forests to other purposes in Newfoundland and Labrador these days?
Mr. Balsom: We’re trying to promote around 500 acres a year, but I would have to get some numbers for you on exactly how that’s working, considering the costs that now go into it — just the fuel costs alone to clear land. The impact that’s had on production has certainly slowed it over the last couple years.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you all very much. Ms. Millar and Mr. Balsom, if you have further documentation, you can send it to Ferda Simpson, our clerk, and we will be delighted to add that to our binder.
Senator Pate: Thank you to the witnesses.
I’m subbing in this committee, so I apologize if any of this has been covered previously; it wasn’t by your testimony today. As someone who has family living beside streams in Prince Edward Island, I’m particularly interested in your response from P.E.I. but also from the others, what’s the relationship between soil and water health? I know that Indigenous knowledge has been utilized to help try to reintroduce fish and better practices in terms of water quality on Prince Edward Island. Traditional fish and fowl management has been introduced.
I’m just curious how that interconnection has been dealt with within each of your jurisdictions.
Ms. Millar: Maybe I can take that one on first with the mention of P.E.I.
Yes, soil does have relation to water quality. Most of that relationship comes through soil movement. The goal is to keep soil out of the streams. When soil erodes on Prince Edward Island, it often ends up in our watercourses at the bottom of the sloping hills. The department has made great efforts over the last number of decades, actually, in providing funding and technical support for beneficial management practices that reduce erosion and keep soil in its place. One of our main pillars of our soil health initiatives is to keep soil in its place, so we provide engineering services to have grass waterways, terraces and berms that slow the flow of water and keep soil from leaving the field.
There is a relationship there, and it can carry agricultural inputs into the water. Producers are working with us. They know that their soil is best served in the fields where it belongs.
Senator Pate: Just before we go on to the others, Ms. Millar, my understanding is a big part of the issue is the fertilizer use and the chemicals that often flow into the waters. How is that being addressed in terms of water flow?
Ms. Millar: In the same way. If you keep the soil in its place, it’s what’s often carrying agricultural inputs into the water. Nutrients can move in other ways as well, and a lot of work has been done in recent years to ensure that nutrients are placed in the right place at the right time so that the plant can take up those nutrients when needed and it’s not lost to the surrounding environment, whether it’s the groundwater or into streams.
Senator Pate: Thank you.
Would the other witnesses like to speak to that as well?
Mr. Balsom: From Newfoundland and Labrador, I can quickly give some information. From an agriculture perspective, again, where we are in developing agriculture industry, we have a lot of control over the areas that are utilized for agriculture production in association with water bodies, watersheds, slopes and those types of things that the Crown approves and provides, encouraging some of the beneficial practices of re-establishing some of the riparian zones that previously weren’t being monitored.
From a forest-harvesting perspective, which is our larger footprint, the adoption of the ISO 14001 environmental management standard and best standard operating procedures for forest harvesting, for access roads, and the control and movement of water have been very beneficial in terms of reducing any sedimentation. We have increased the size of our buffer zones over time around water bodies. Dependent upon the sensitivity of the wetland itself, if it’s a Class 1 salmon river or a sensitive watershed area, they have increasing buffer zones.
We also incorporate emergency preparedness. In the event that a siltation event takes place, contractors are trained and do testing to ensure they can react quickly to any type of sedimentation emergency.
Senator Pate: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Petitclerc: I will ask Ms. Millar my question in French, but if the other witnesses would also like to answer, I will be pleased to hear from them.
Ms. Millar, I read about the Soil First Farming initiative and my question is fairly broad.
It sometimes seems to us at the committee that there is a lot of pressure on farmers and producers to change practices, purchase new equipment and new products, and adopt new ways of testing.
Do those farmers and producers have what they need and sufficient support? Have we done enough to help them in this transition that we have directly or indirectly asked them to embark upon? What more could we do?
[English]
Ms. Millar: Thank you. That’s an excellent question.
I hesitate to answer on behalf of the producers, but I do know that implementing beneficial management practices can lead to incurring a lot of costs. There are many different barriers to implementing beneficial management practices. It’s not only costs; sometimes it’s time; resources; labour on the farm; or the cost of advanced equipment, whether that’s precision agriculture equipment like the newest tractor that has the best GPS system, the latest piece of tillage implement that leaves more residue on the top, more no-till equipment and things like that.
Something that comes up quite often is this question: If farmers need to be farming productively and be in a good financial place in order to implement beneficial management practices, are we doing enough? I think it really depends upon what type of farmer, what their operation is like and what they are able to do on their own versus what they can do in partnership with us.
I do think some funding helps. I also think the extension support helps as well. But funding isn’t the only solution. Extension support is good, too, as is coming at things with a broader kind of socio-economic lens. That is important because it just reflects that not all barriers are funding.
However, it can be a main barrier to producers implementing these more advanced practices, absolutely.
[Translation]
Senator Petitclerc: Thank you.
I don’t know if anyone else would like to comment.
[English]
Mr. Balsom: I would just say that Newfoundland and Labrador is very similar to P.E.I. in terms of the items that were listed. We offer similar partnerships to help producers acquire more precision equipment. We have our extension services similar to P.E.I. From our perspective, we have a lot of very small farmers. They are operating on small acreages, and often, equipment or practices need to be sized for their operations. From our perspective, it’s difficult to bring some of these things to the smaller farms. As people move toward these market gardening situations, we need to look at what we can do for smaller farming operations like those in Newfoundland and Labrador.
[Translation]
The Deputy Chair: Thank you. That is very helpful.
[English]
Senator Burey: Thank you very much for being here this morning. My questions will be directed at Mr. Balsom and Ms. Millar.
I am quite interested. Some of my colleagues here have been asking some great questions, so I will try to piggyback on some of those.
My questions will surround your policies regarding looking at the changing demographic, specifically new immigrants coming into P.E.I., Newfoundland and Labrador and probably the Northwest Territories as well. We know in Canada that one size does not fit all. We know that your agricultural industries have different goals; for example, food sovereignty versus balancing with export markets.
How are you addressing or assisting new immigrants who might want to get into the agricultural industry and business to access some of these programs? Do you have any data to either talk to or support this, or is that something that you would collect?
Mr. Balsom: For Newfoundland and Labrador, I would have to collect some of that data. As we work with our Department of Immigration, Population Growth and Skills, specifically, on programs targeted to support new Canadians, we in Newfoundland see the requirement. Our farmer demographics are 50 years and older. A lot of the farmers are moving toward retirement. Succession planning is becoming very difficult for us.
Recently, we had a program where we did bring a number of Ukrainians through our west coast agriculture area to go and tour some of the sites, meet some of our farmers and outline our programs. We are partnering and recognize the importance of it, but I would have to go back and give you some data on that to see how successful that’s become. Thank you.
Ms. Millar: On Prince Edward Island, one program I’d like to mention that supports new immigrants is the Future Farmer Program. It would support succession planning of existing family farms but also new farmers coming into the province or starting in the industry, either from other provinces or from other countries. New producers are partnered with an advisor, someone who’s been involved in the agriculture industry for many years. The advisors provide them with extension support and also guide them through programs and services, help them understand legislation and regulations that apply specifically to P.E.I. They help new producers understand how to go about their marketing, what other programs are available to do market research — those types of things.
That’s one program that supports that. It’s been quite successful over the years. We’ve had it in place for about 20 years, and it is part of the agriculture policy framework with the federal government; it’s rolled into that suite of programs.
In terms of demographics, we do collect demographic information on our application forms, but I didn’t prepare to bring any of that data today with me.
Senator Burey: You could send it to us after, if that’s okay.
Ms. Millar: Okay.
Senator Burey: Thank you so much.
Mr. Gravel, would you have any comments?
Mr. Gravel: No, I don’t believe it’s applicable in my situation.
Senator Burey: Okay, thank you.
The Deputy Chair: We now move to the second round. We have about 10 minutes left in our meeting.
Senator Jaffer: This was not my original question, but I will ask that second in a minute. I want to continue with what Senator Burey said about new immigrants or refugees coming into the country.
Especially in Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador, it’s my impression there is a real encouragement to invite people to go away from the three centres to come to your provinces. Do you have any grants for such people to get into farming? We all know getting into farming is a very expensive venture. You might not. Just say “no” then.
Ms. Millar: The Future Farmer Program does have a financial component to it. If the producer is implementing a project on farm, it could be cost shared. It’s not a large amount; it won’t necessarily cover getting into a large farming operation or help with some of those larger capital costs with the acquiring of land, but it is a little bit of help. It encourages them to implement new projects on farm.
Mr. Balsom: We have a similar program under both the federal partnership and our provincial programs for new entrants. It supports, on a cost-shared basis, everything from the initial business planning to land development and enhancement to infrastructure and equipment.
Because we have a large amount of Crown land in Newfoundland and Labrador and don’t wish to really lose that privately, we provide agriculture grants at $4 a hectare, which is a very low rate, allowing existing and new farmers to have access to new areas at a very affordable rate.
Senator Jaffer: Mr. Gravel, I was going to ask you a follow-up question, but I ran out of time. I was asking you about Indigenous traditional knowledge, and you said, “indirectly.” I just wanted you to clarify what you meant by “indirectly.”
Mr. Gravel: What I meant by that is that we do collect traditional knowledge and utilize traditional knowledge in forest practices, especially on our fire management side. Specific to forest soils, I’m not aware of a lot of traditional knowledge exchange that’s happened with respect to forest soils.
Senator Jaffer: I will ask you the same question, Mr. Balsom. Do you use Indigenous traditional knowledge in your farming programs?
Mr. Balsom: More successfully on our forestry programs. When we adopted forest management planning and our plans required environmental assessment early in the 1990s, the first plan that we developed was for Labrador, and it was a co-developed plan with our Indigenous partners in Labrador. We were very proud of the first product in our provincial history where we co-developed a plan that identified sensitive areas, cultural areas, commercial areas and also a review of the environmental practices involved in forest harvesting.
I would have to report back on agriculture. Most of the agriculture is on the island of Newfoundland. We have a fairly newly recognized landless Indigenous group that is involved in our farming sector and is participating in all our programs throughout the development of our agriculture industry, but specifically to get back on Indigenous-based knowledge and into the practices, that’s something I’d have to look back to the department for.
Senator Jaffer: Thank you. Could you kindly provide that information to the clerk?
Are there any grants available, Mr. Balsom?
The Deputy Chair: If you could send information about the grants, that would be excellent, too. Then we’ll get the answer to that good question.
Senator Cotter: Thanks very much to all three of you. I’m going to ask a question that’s a more general one, but could I just ask a specific question of Mr. Gravel?
We heard earlier evidence that was striking to the committee. In fact, one of our former senators, Senator Marwah, who is a pretty stable sort of guy, regarded it as the most shocking evidence he’d heard at a committee during his time in the Senate, which was the risk of global warming and its impact on release of GHG emissions from permafrost that we had not thought much about before.
Do you have a perspective on this, that you could share with us since you have some permafrost up there?
Mr. Gravel: I wish I had more information to share. It’s another emerging issue for us, an area that we’re trying to understand as well. Certainly, understanding methane release as these organics begin to thaw and decompose is an area of interest and concern to the Northwest Territories.
Most people know that the North is warming at a much higher rate than the rest of the world, and certainly even in Canada. In some northern communities, our temperatures are rising as much as 4° Celsius, which is a huge change, and it’s having a lot of impacts on our traditional ways and even practices, such as ice road building, which we rely on for transportation. Many of our communities are cut off, and they rely on winter roads.
The changing climate has a lot of impacts in the North, and understanding greenhouse gas emissions is, obviously, one of many areas of concern we have.
Senator Cotter: My more general question for each of you, maybe briefly since I’m getting the evil eye from the chair, is: We are a federal entity, the Senate of Canada, and if we’re telling anybody what to do, it probably needs to be the federal government, but agriculture is a joint jurisdiction in the country, and so we are hopeful that our message, whatever we convey in a report, strengthens the agriculture sector and is of assistance to you.
Is there any specific thing that each of you, in turn, might say you would value in a report that is obviously federally directed but of significant meaning to the work that you do?
Maybe starting in the order that you presented. Is there anything, Mr. Balsom, first, and Mr. Gravel and then Ms. Millar?
Mr. Balsom: Thank you. I would reiterate some of the messages that I heard from Prince Edward Island in that we do need to have our own localized opportunities and our own localized focus when it comes to our unique situations. Each province differs significantly, not only in our soils and the opportunities to manage those soils, but we differ in the commodities that we produce, and we really need to ensure we have tailored solutions for our jurisdictions.
Of course, the success of the federal partnered programs, I can’t explain how important they have been with bringing our agriculture production to the next level — bringing us into larger, more effective and modern practices. It’s really important for our food sustainability. Thank you.
Senator Cotter: Mr. Gravel?
Mr. Gravel: It’s a little difficult for me to answer because I’m not in the agriculture industry, but what I can say from my understanding within the North is we do have a fledgling agriculture industry. I would consider it more a mom-and-pop industry, and people have lifestyle choices and this is their lifestyle.
What we need is more funding for start-ups and support for ongoing agriculture development in the North. We have proven that there are specific localized sites that can sustain agriculture, but we don’t have a large market here, and we’re far away from larger markets. Support would be needed if the industry were expected to grow.
Ms. Millar: I will echo Newfoundland’s comments that the regional approach is key and that the agriculture policy frameworks are a well-established mechanism for agriculture policy and programs to have that regional approach, and that we have had success with them and good strong support for those frameworks.
They are built. They are ready to go. We have had success in terms of the agri-environmental programming, which is all I could speak to, given my role, but that’s where we’re at.
Senator Cotter: Thank you very much.
The Deputy Chair: Mr. Balsom, Mr. Gravel and Ms. Millar, I would like to thank you very much for your participation today. Your assistance with this study is very much appreciated.
The Deputy Chair: For our second panel, we welcome: from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the FAO, David Lobb, Vice Chair, Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils; From Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Bob Turnock, Senior Science Advisor, Science Partnerships-International, Science and Technology Branch, who joins us by video conference; and, also from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Pascal Michel, Director General, Ontario-Quebec Region, Science and Technology Branch.
I want to invite you to make your presentations. We will begin with Dr. Lobb followed by Dr. Michel. You will each have five minutes for your presentations. I will, in our chair’s time-honoured practice, signal that your time is running out by raising one hand when you have one minute left, and I will raise both hands when your time is up.
The floor is yours, Dr. Lobb.
David Lobb, Vice Chair, Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations: Thank you very much.
I would like to thank this standing committee and its chair, Senator Black, for inviting me to participate in these hearings. In addition to my statement today, I provided a witness statement early in the hearings back in September 2022 and in the preliminary hearings back in May 2019.
Today I’ve been asked to address the Status of the World’s Soil Resources report.
The Status of the World’s Soil Resources reports are prepared by the Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils, or ITPS, and published by the Global Soil Partnership, or GSP, of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The first report was published in 2015, and we are currently working on the second report — an update — which will be published in 2025.
The Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils is composed of 27 top soil science experts, representing all the regions of the world. The main function of the ITPS is to provide scientific and technical advice and guidance on global soil issues to the Global Soil Partnership primarily, and to specific requests submitted by global or regional institutions. The ITPS advocates for addressing sustainable soil management in an effort to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs, of the United Nations. As such, it serves a similar function to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.
As noted, the ITPS is responsible for the preparation of the Status of the World’s Soil Resources report. In addition to being the vice chair of the ITPS, I also serve as the editorial working group chair.
The main objectives of the Status of the World’s Soil Resources reports are to provide global scientific assessment of the current and projected soil conditions built on regional data, analysis and expertise; explore the implications of these soil conditions for food security, climate change, water quality and quantity, biodiversity and human health and well-being; and, conclude with a series of recommendations for action by policy-makers and other stakeholders such as yourselves.
The 2025 Status of the World’s Soil Resources report is a follow up to the first report and will be published on World Soil Day, which is December 5 — so mark your calendars; every December 5 is World Soil Day — but it will be in 2025.
This coming report is being prepared in two parts. Part one is the main report and technical summary, which provides an overview of the major global soil advances since 2015, our understanding of threats to soil function and how sustainable soil management can address these threats. Sections of this summary are currently under peer review by experts on soil threats and sustainable soil management.
The second part consists of regional summaries of the status of these threats to soil functions in each of the seven global soil partnership regions — one of which is North America — and the state of sustainable soil management in each of these regions. These regional summaries are currently in development with drafts for review to be completed in the next few months.
In the coming report, the regional summary of North America focuses on only five major threats to the sustainable use of soils in Canada, the United States and northern Mexico. These threats are soil erosion, soil carbon change, soil nutrient management, soil biodiversity change and urbanization and soil ceiling — just those five. In my opinion, the two greatest threats clearly facing us are the degradation of productive soil through erosion and the loss of some of our most productive land through urbanization.
Both the 2015 and 2025 reports are relevant to the discussion of soil health in Canada, providing summaries of the major threats to sustainable use of our soils in North America and placing the threats in this region in the context of the rest of the world. However, the collection and interpretation of data and information for the upcoming report are still underway, and the report will not be ready for this committee to digest as it prepares its findings in the coming months.
That being the case, I would like to provide a few personal comments on the coming 2025 soils report and reports that follow.
Point 1: Although there have been discussions within the GSP and the ITPS on the development of a soil health indicator, the initiative is not moving forward and therefore will not be captured by the Status of the World’s Soil Resources reporting — a decision I support. Quantification of soil health in particular as a simple index value is extremely challenging.
Point 2: The broad consensus in North America and around the world is that soil erosion is the number one threat to sustainability. However, there are major gaps in our understanding of the process. Therefore, there are major gaps in our ability to control it.
On the topic of soil erosion, Canada has played a significant role in enhancing our understanding and modelling of soil dynamics, specifically through Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Agri-environmental indicators program over the past 25 years. However, I’m afraid we have greatly diminished our capacity to make substantive and meaningful contributions in recent years and certainly into the future.
Although the focus of the Status of the World’s Soil Resources report is on sustainable management within agricultural landscapes, we hope to bring attention to the broader interests of soil sustainability, specifically the impacts of climate change on droughts, desertification, permafrost melting, forest fires and wetland loss.
Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Dr. Michel, the floor is yours.
[Translation]
Pascal Michel, Director General, Ontario-Quebec Region, Science and Technology Branch, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada: Hello. My name is Pascal Michel and I am the director general of the Ontario-Quebec region in the Science and Technology Branch at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you as you study this important topic.
Within the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, I am responsible for eight research and development centres and 10 satellite locations, which are experimental farms that work very closely with industry, academia and other partners to create better opportunities for farmers and Canadians through agricultural research and innovation.
[English]
Soil conservation and health have always been core priorities for producers and for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, or AAFC, building on a very long history of our scientists conducting world-class research through our network of twenty research and development centres distributed across Canada.
To guide our research activities into the future, the department recently developed a new ten-year Strategic Plan for Science. This plan is driving the paradigm shift toward a higher level of sustainable agriculture with four outcome-based science missions: mitigating and adapting to climate change; increasing agro-ecosystem resilience; advancing the circular economy; and, accelerating the digital economy.
Science activities in each of these missions will lead to innovative solutions, including protecting and improving soil health as well as addressing other agri-environmental and climate challenges and opportunities. Specifically, the agro‑ecosystem resilience mission enables outcomes like enhanced and protected soil and water resources, therefore cementing soil health as a research priority for the department.
AAFC’s agro-ecosystem Living Laboratories Initiative, commonly called Living Labs, launched in 2018 with four sites in distinct agricultural regions, was a shift toward greater sustainability. The Living Labs program is a landscape-based approach to conducting agricultural research. It has given farmers and AAFC scientists the opportunity to work together and with other stakeholders to co-develop, test and implement beneficial management practices and technologies on real-life working farms.
This work was further advanced through the Natural Climate Solutions Fund, supporting the expansion of the Living Labs network across Canada.
The primary objectives of Living Labs are to store carbon on agricultural land to keep it out of the atmosphere, reduce greenhouse gases, improve land-management practices and support other environmental benefits, such as biodiversity, water quality and soil health.
Today, I am joined by Mr. Bob Turnock in Regina, Saskatchewan. Mr. Turnock is a Senior Science Advisor with AAFC. He has been with us since 1994, working in science, management, programs and policy roles. Mr. Turnock has been involved in international engagement and collaboration since 2009, with a focus on sustainable agriculture and agri‑environmental issues, including soil health, sustainable land management and climate change.
He is the Canadian focal point for the Global Soil Partnership of the Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO, of the United Nations. He also coordinates participation in the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases, the GRA, and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. He supports AAFC’s leadership at the Meetings of Agricultural Chief Scientists of G20 States, the MACS-G20, as well as many other international initiatives.
Bob works out of AAFC’s offices in Regina and lives on a small farm near Sintaluta, Saskatchewan.
[Translation]
Thank you to the committee for having us. We look forward to answering your questions.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much, Dr. Michel. A number of us had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Turnock when we were in Rome at the FAO Global Soil Partnership summit.
We will now proceed to questions from senators. Once again, please keep your questions and answers to five minutes per senator, and try not to lean in with your earpiece to the microphone.
Senator Oh: Thank you, witnesses, for your intense, very detailed information. My question for the three of you is this: What are the best soil management practices that have improved soil health challenges? Also, what are your recommendations for Canada that you believe are the most important to be included in our soil health report?
Mr. Lobb: Conservation tillage is a practice that should be strongly encouraged and continue to be encouraged. There are concerns about conservation tillage, though. I think there is a false impression that it will improve soil health, which you just described. It keeps soil degradation from degrading soil health; it doesn’t necessarily improve soil health. Keep that in mind.
If you want to improve the soil health, you have to get organic matter into the soil. So the practices that should be the focus of all soil health programs should primarily be practices around organic matter production — getting organic matter into the soil.
There are lots of challenges with that, such as promoting cover crops in the Prairies where moisture is in short supply. It’s counter to the normal farming practices, so there have to be more innovative practices employed on the Prairies.
There are other practices that I promote. You have a lot of soil loss on hilltops, so there is soil accumulation at the bottoms of the hills. There is a practice that many farmers use but government ignores, and that’s moving the topsoil that’s been dragged from the bottom, back to the hilltop. About 5% of the farmers in Canada report doing that, but it’s not ever studied except by us, with my research group, and some people in the United States.
There are practices out there that you could use to restore soil health.
Mr. Michel: Those were very good comments provided by my colleagues.
Soil health is a complex topic to tackle. Furthering innovation and research in that domain are essential. We are not only in the domain of furthering the knowledge but adopting new technologies that will allow us to better have indicators of soil health, for example. Not to make that too complicated, but things such as artificial intelligence, computer mapping and many other types of implementation of novel technology can help us in better understanding what soil health really means across the complex landscape of Canada.
That would be the first consideration.
Second, we have a body of knowledge on soil health. One of the goals we should give ourselves is to adopt that knowledge into practice. Many efforts are presently made at that level, but when we say it is a little bit more than just making the knowledge available, it’s really making efforts that the knowledge is adapted to localities and regional considerations. It must make sense for the farmers to adapt as well. Thank you.
Bob Turnock, Senior Science Advisor, Science Partnerships, International, Science and Technology Branch, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada: To echo some of the statements we just heard, soil health is a complex issue. In terms of management practices that improve soil health, there is a body of information available, but one thing we need to keep in mind is that we need to focus on the objective and the outcome here. Dr. Lobb mentioned that it’s about getting soil organic matter into the soil.
It is not so much on the practices; the practices are key, but with the diverse landscapes, climates and production systems that exist in Canada, let alone globally, the idea of a one-size-fits-all practise is not necessarily the best route to take. Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Petitclerc: My question is for all the witnesses. Thank you for being here.
I would like to hear your thoughts. Do you think Canada, the provinces and sectors should set more quantifiable objectives? I am asking because, since the start of this study, we have heard a lot about the need for data. Records are needed of what is being done, what is not being done and the status of things. What we hear less about are the objectives or how far we want to go.
Perhaps my question is naive, perhaps the sector, given its complexity, cannot do this. One witness said that if we don’t know where we want to end up, we will not know how to get there.
So that is my very broad question. I don’t know who would like to go first.
[English]
Mr. Lobb: I’d love to address that question. I teach students, so your question isn’t naive. I teach students and try to get them to think about this all the time: What is the objective? It’s to produce food, right? That is the primary goal of what the farmers are trying to do. When you look at the production of food, what complicates the discussion of soil health from the farmer’s standpoint is that it’s really hard to argue they are suffering yield losses when their yields have doubled to tripled over the last 40 years. That’s not because the soil health has improved so much the fact that their technologies and practices have improved dramatically. So the yields have continued to increase.
So the farmers don’t experience any pain, so to speak. I often point out to farmers that if they had improved the soil’s health and not degraded it, their yields would be three or four times higher rather than two or three times higher. So, they are realizing a real loss in profitability in terms of production.
Those stories aren’t told to farmers. That is really what it’s about. It’s about producing food from a farmer’s standpoint and from the public standpoint; and from the farmer’s business standpoint, it’s about making money. That’s what it needs to focus on. We make this whole story far too complex by getting into the minutiae of various soil properties as a characteristic of soil health. If you were going to pick one thing farmers should do to assess whether they have a soil health problem, it would be to actually collect yield data, yield mapping. Some of the technologies we talked about that are floating around and aren’t being used include yield mapping. If people had yield data, that would be the number one thing.
Guess what property is not on any soil health report card? I think there is one that has it now. Crop yield is the one thing that integrates the state of the soil, and it’s not included in soil health.
So I think your question is very appropriate, and it’s not naive. It is getting to the heart of what the problem is. There are very simple things that need to be considered. It’s crop production. When it comes to soil, soil organic matter is the number one property that they should be looking at — maybe the only property.
[Translation]
Mr. Michel: Let me add something quickly to that good answer.
We need to be able to more effectively measure and continue to measure the current soil health indicators. There are federal programs in this regard, in order to properly understand and track the scope of those indicators, that is, whether we are improving or sliding into dangerous territory on those indicators. In the interest of setting objectives, we also have to be able to make comparisons with the past and properly understand the trend in our current indicators. Thank you.
Senator Petitclerc: I want to go back to my question. My very simple question is the following: for example, if the indicators measure current soil health, is there a process to determine our quantitative objectives and how we can achieve them? Are we analyzing the current status rather than asking where we want to go from there? Is my question too simple?
[English]
Mr. Lobb: I was laughing because there is an obsession with collecting data, and no one knows what to do with it. That’s the problem, and that’s why I tell the students coming back to that particular excess. We discussed this: all these soil health indicators for which everyone is generating data, and no one has a clue what they are going to do with them, except for soil organic matter, and if you’re going to track something, soil organic matter and crop yield; those are the two I suggest they look at.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator Jaffer: Thank you very much. It has been very interesting to listen to you. Almost 100 years ago, I used to participate in fall youth conferences in Rome. I didn’t have the pleasure of going with my colleagues to Rome, but I was wondering, does this still continue? Do you still have encourage youth to get into farming and attend FAO conferences, or is this not happening anymore?
Mr. Lobb: FAO meetings are becoming more and more virtual. There is not direct participation. They do bring in interns, unpaid labour, to come in to assist for periods of time. They are internships. There are many internships. I do not see a lot of people coming in. I haven’t seen anyone from North America, but they do bring a lot of people from different parts of the world to get them more engaged in the discussions on food production.
Senator Jaffer: This was an internship. This was bringing students to conferences.
Mr. Lobb: I haven’t seen any.
Senator Jaffer: You mentioned the United Nations observance of World Soil Day, held annually on December 5 to raise awareness about the importance of soil health and advocate for sustainable management of soil resources.
In both your opinions, how has World Soil Day helped advance the need for more soil legislation? How should it be recognized in Canada?
Mr. Lobb: I don’t know if it has advanced any legislation, but it has certainly increased awareness. Mr. Turnock can address this as well because he participates in these discussions at a higher level than I do. But I think it certainly brings awareness around the world and gets people discussing it. Hopefully, that translates into some interest in legislation. I can see Mr. Turnock wants to answer this.
Mr. Turnock: Yes. I would suggest that World Soil Day celebrations are very effective in raising an understanding of and interest in the importance of soils. As for affecting legislation, I’m not too sure, but certainly it has been used to advance investment in capacity in other countries, particularly in countries with less capacity or small soil science and agriculture departments that are very vulnerable to soil health problems.
Within Canada, it’s an interesting patchwork of celebratory communications and acknowledgment of the good work we have done here. We use social media and other platforms to promote soil biodiversity, soil health and soil conservation, among other things. So, it’s a useful date. It has been very valuable on a global level, and come 2025, when the Status of the World’s Soil Resources: Main Report comes out, I think there will be an even bigger flash of interest in that date.
Senator Jaffer: So I want to ask you a further question, if I may. Has it been helpful — while it is always good to raise awareness; I get that — but has it resulted in specific results, having this World Soil Day?
Mr. Turnock: Domestically, I can’t think of anything as far as legislation or action. But certainly, globally, there are a number of events linked to World Soil Day. There are world soil prizes, and the recognition of global leadership in soil science is done through that. Again, it has done an awful lot to raise the prominence and build the capacity of soil science and sustainable soil management globally.
Senator Jaffer: Did you want to add anything?
Mr. Lobb: The one thing it might, in terms of concrete things, is that by having that date it forces us, in terms of the Grassland Stewardship Program, or GSP, the secretariat and the IPS to accomplish certain activities by that date. In that sense it helps shuffle things along. That’s one constructive outcome of it.
Senator Jaffer: Second round?
The Deputy Chair: Absolutely.
Senator Burey: Good morning. Thank you for being here. I actually had an opportunity to briefly review the FAO report, and I’m looking at the chapter titled, “Regional Assessment of Soil Changes in North America.” That’s in the previously mentioned report.
I’m going to read from the introduction, which I thought was interesting:
Although Canada and the United States of America have a long history of collaborative research activity in soil science, there have been no previous attempts at a regional assessment of threats to soil functions.
It goes on further to say — he is smiling already — okay. But there really is not a concerted intercountry framework, if you will, or body that really oversees it. Can you speak to that? What could we, as legislators, do that could move that file farther along?
Mr. Lobb: It was pointed out in that report and was in my notes — one of the comments I was going to bring up in the upcoming one: We still have Canada and the United States. Separate. We’re talking about issues as a continent, but there is no integration of the data systems, really. It’s never been done. There is no plan to do it.
I was talking to one of my colleagues in Agriculture Canada last week. We decided that we would try to make an effort because we collaborate with our American colleagues on these topics, particularly on soil erosion. There is no mapping. The problem is that we have two different cultures of mapping and science. There are debatable issues around the science. But one area we should be able to do is soil erosion.
The big concern — if you look at my notes that I submitted in my statement that I didn’t read — is that because of some of these issues, it may be that Europeans will be the ones who map soil erosion for North America. That’s a huge concern because they don’t do a good job of it, in my opinion.
There is an impetus, I think, to actually move toward North American reporting.
To be honest, part of the problem is we are both so active relative to other parts of the world, and we’re doing so many good things, there has never been an additional benefit from having that North American assessment. I saw Mr. Turnock just nod.
I think that’s the issue. We’re doing so much already that neither country sees there to be an additional benefit to actually integrate in those assessments.
Is that fair to say, Mr. Turnock?
Mr. Turnock: I would agree, Mr. Lobb. Thanks for that. That’s a good summary of the situation.
Certainly, we have the platforms within North America to have these discussions and to carry these out, but we are active. We are very active. We have a great deal of scientific collaboration at the North American level, but it’s not within the confines of the Global Soil Partnership, or the North American Regional Soil Partnership. It has evolved over the lifetime of our two countries being in close proximity, having shared priorities and a long history of science collaboration.
It would have to be, to get to Mr. Lobb’s point, identifying or finding a way to see the value added in taking that next step toward a regional assessment.
Senator Burey: Mr. Michel, would you have any comments on this?
Mr. Michel: No further comments from me. Thank you.
Senator Burey: One of the other things I was going to talk about is the knowledge transfer that you spoke of. I’m a pediatrician, so I am always concerned about students and knowledge transfer and that sort of thing.
We were at the University of Saskatchewan. We met with their world-renowned scientists, and that also was an issue at this top level. Are you looking at strategies to improve knowledge translation to the farm as, you say, crop yields organic matter? What kinds of strategies, whether using machine learning, digital technologies? Is that an area of study that you do in your research?
Mr. Lobb: In terms of the research initiatives generally, it’s always a nice afterthought but never gets executed.
Most of the research programming that we have is three to four years of funding available to scientists to do research and then it’s over. Then you’re on to the next project.
We always talk about the need for integrating economics into those analyses, but that’s rarely ever done or done well, and the knowledge transfer is always an afterthought.
The transfer usually takes place in terms of scientific publications, which generally don’t get read by the general public. Very few people go to the extra effort to try and get the information to the general public. Some of us would argue that we do what we can through our teaching at universities and colleges, and that may be effective, but it’s probably not enough to have the real outcomes we would like from the science.
Part of it has to do with the fact that there just is not a funding environment that allows you to follow projects through the transformation that would occur through knowledge transfer. It just doesn’t happen.
Senator Cotter: It’s embarrassing to pose any questions not having been here to hear your presentations. I got drawn away for a brief moment. I will be bold enough to ask a couple. I have one question for Dr. Lobb and then a somewhat more general question for all three gentlemen.
You observed crop yields as being something that’s not adequately measured. That might be true globally, but I have never met a farmer — and I have met many of them — who doesn’t know to the bushel what their crop yields are and what they were last year. Driving by the fields can tell you what the crop yield of this field could be.
I’m surprised that that’s not easily available. That’s the micro-story of every ag producer making ends meet, what kind of crop yield they can or will get or don’t get in their fields. I’m wondering if you can just expand on that.
I will pose my second question, and then I’ll just listen.
This is a federal study, but agriculture in Canada is a joint jurisdiction. You gentlemen work in that world or see it regularly. What can we do or say that can help the whole national picture as opposed to just talking to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada or trying to subtly tell provinces what they should be doing in this sector to make sure soil health is maintained and improved for the sake of all? Do you see insights in other federal countries that have to figure this out? I’m thinking particularly of that for you, Dr. Lobb. How should we think through trying to be helpful on the national as opposed to the federal?
Mr. Lobb: The yields are much easier to deal with. Part of this comes from talking to farmers. Many farmers have yield monitors, and they know what the sale is. Having farmers take trucks of grain to the elevator and getting the measurement, they can figure out what their average yield is, and they can see the average yield goes up over time. That tells them everything they need to know.
The problem is that isn’t everything they need to know. They actually should be looking at the yield maps with the yield monitors. Many farmers have yield monitors and don’t use them and don’t look at the data over a series of years to have a better understanding of where they have soil health problems within a field.
I have always taken the opinion, which I think you’re alluding to, that any good farmer driving over a field knows where there’s a yield problem. They know that, but they don’t systemically go through it, and no one promotes that as the number one data source that they should be looking at when they are looking at soil health. It is the number one.
I don’t think it’s utilized enough. It’s not that they don’t have access to it. This is the point. They have access to that data. They have good understanding of what the yield variation is within the field, year to year, but they don’t make enough use of it. They are not thinking of that as a soil health indicator. The number one soil health indicator is its ability to produce a crop. That’s more my point — that they should be making more use of that data than they currently are.
Senator Cotter: I can only be agnostic on that, based on the farmers I work and deal with, but I accept your point.
Mr. Lobb: Many farmers have the ability to do it. They just don’t necessarily use it.
Senator Cotter: And my experience is anecdotal, fair enough.
What about this larger question of how do we move forward, in our report, on the helpful national perspective on soil health that cuts across these jurisdictions? Anyone?
Mr. Lobb: I’ll pass it to my colleagues.
The Deputy Chair: I feel that Mr. Turnock wants to say something.
Mr. Turnock: Well played. I’m probably going to sound a bit boring in the responses, but let’s get the foundational information right. Let’s get past some of the noise which Dr. Lobb has brought up today about all the different soil health indicators and things like that. This is a conversation that is time consuming, duplicative and carries on through multiple forums and within ag research centres and research services around the world.
There’s a real opportunity to champion something clearer, something that will be lasting and clearly understood, and if we can get some of the foundational information and agreement on that, then maybe we can start moving forward on the more complicated and forward-looking ideas.
It’s not so much about having a goal and a target. It’s about having footing to actually do the work that needs to be done in this area. Thank you.
Senator Pate: I’m not usually on this committee, so I want to preface my comments with that.
Last summer, I had the opportunity to go to Coen Farm in Alberta. They have described it as a permaculture farm that does everything from companion planting, dams, dugouts, soils, aquaculture, solar, gravity irrigation, reintroducing native species and minimal till cropping. It struck me as an amazing venture. They have had no issues with drought. They don’t use chemical fertilizers. But it also struck me that it’s a very small operation versus what’s done on many of the farms that I understand this committee has visited.
I’m curious as to how likely are those farms to continue to operate? It strikes me that they are being squeezed out, often. Would there be a benefit in encouraging more of those small operations to exist?
Mr. Lobb: Are you looking to me?
Senator Pate: I’m looking to you, because —
Mr. Lobb: Because I’m closest.
Senator Pate: But whoever.
Mr. Lobb: Mr. Turnock, you’re at a good distance.
There’s always a need for what some people would classify as niche farming, so organic farming, permaculture — there are a whole bunch of those farming systems that are out there. They all generate information that we could learn from, and I would argue that you could also look at Indigenous and traditional practices being the most important.
Senator Pate: Their partnership is with First Nations.
Mr. Lobb: Oh, they are? Okay.
That would make a lot of sense to look at those. You don’t want to discourage that, because that’s where some information can come from. There is always the concern that those farms at that scale have a real challenge of scaling up to provide food production, industrial food for the whole country. It may not be possible to do that sustainably. That would be the concern, but I think you would want to do everything you can to encourage that but keep the expectations fairly realistic in terms of how much of the food production for the country it could actually support.
It may be very important for niche markets, and individual communities, it could be critical. This is where innovation — like in the northern environments, in particular, where they have such difficulty bringing food in — looking at innovations through those types of operations, those smaller, very interesting operations using those systems to better food production and nutritious food in northern environments, particularly, or rural environments.
Senator Pate: Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Mr. Turnock, did you want to weigh in?
Mr. Turnock: Just quickly, thank you.
I’ve seen a number of similar-type farming operations across Canada, interesting niche producers and things like that. I think they are really useful and helpful enterprises. We get experience from the technologies and approaches they are trying to use, but I will just add, at the end, what I said earlier about let’s focus on what they are trying to accomplish and the goals around it, and if this is about soil health, let’s look at these different ways of producing and see what the impacts are, but don’t look for permaculture to become — and I just pulled that out of the air — the dominant production system. Recognize it for what it is and acknowledge what benefits there may be toward productivity or environmental benefits or soil health.
Again, it’s not one-size-fits-all for anything, so there should be room for this kind of exploration and experimentation.
The Deputy Chair: I will ask a question before we move to the second round.
Dr. Lobb, you have to tell me if this is an inappropriate question, but I understand that you have a project that you wish to carry out with a lot of Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, or NSERC, and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, or SSHRC, funding. I wonder if you could tell us a bit about what that project looks like and what you hope to learn from it?
Mr. Lobb: Mr. Turnock and Dr. Pascal aren’t aware of this, but I submitted a proposal with some colleagues across the country to look at achieving net zero, and it’s looking specifically at net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and soil health management practices. It’s addressing the big gap that I referred to in my notes that exists in terms of looking at soils and real landscapes, and it comes particularly to measuring and modelling greenhouse gases and net-zero potential.
Most of the research that is done is on flat research station plots. Most of the agriculture land which farmers are managing, particularly in places like Saskatchewan, is hilly land. It’s pothole region, so the research doesn’t really extend very well.
It’s addressing the ability of practices like conservation tillage, cover cropping, the use of organic amendments and also looking at soil landscape restoration, which you mentioned, about moving soil back up to the hilltop where it came from, looking at those practices and seeing what the benefit is, and it’s not a simple understanding of it.
That’s the physical side of it. What’s interesting in this project proposal and the overall program — which, I gather, was at the impetus of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada — to encourage NSERC and SSHRC to put in the sustainable agriculture research initiative program. I think about 40% of the research is going into understanding why the farmers do what they do and why they don’t do what they don’t do, and that’s what we expect to learn the most from.
One example I use in all these discussions is this practice of soil landscape restoration, which I mentioned earlier. You have 3% to 8% of farmers in every province across the country doing this practice with no supporting information, no foundational information, like Mr. Turnock is referring to. They just know it’s a good idea. They don’t have any guidance, but they are doing it.
We don’t understand how they pick up that information and how they do what they are doing and why they don’t do some of the things we suggest they do.
That’s the interest in that project. I did share it with Senator Black just on a lark. This is before I had been invited here, because I thought he should read this. Apparently, he’s shared it with the rest of you.
The Deputy Chair: He sent it to me.
Mr. Lobb: That’s fine, but that’s the story behind it. It’s not certain it will get funded. There are $72 million in total; we’re asking for $8 million, which is the max, and I think there are well over 100 submissions.
It’s not very likely, just based on probabilities that it will get funded, but if it does get funded, it will make a significant impact that would be of interest to this group in terms of how farmers need to be more engaged in the science and in the practice of soil health.
The Deputy Chair: And the sociological implications.
Mr. Lobb: Yes.
The Deputy Chair: You say that it is a project that aims toward achieving net zero. Can you explain to us if that is a realistic goal? Can soil management with intensive grazing, forage cropping, cover cropping — how practical is it?
Mr. Lobb: How realistic is it?
The Deputy Chair: Yes, how realistic is that?
Mr. Lobb: Not very realistic, but note that in the proposal I did not challenge that, because there’s no point in challenging it. It is an aspirational goal, and there is nothing wrong with an aspirational goal, regardless how political it may appear to be, because it’s the direction that we should be doing.
Then the practices, I pointed out in the discussion those practices. Some of those practices may actually be counterproductive in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. We just don’t know enough about them.
For example, the soil landscape restoration practice I keep referring to, we don’t know whether at a landscape scale if it will have a net positive impact or net negative impact on greenhouse gas emissions when you look at carbon sequestration as well as greenhouse gas emissions. We just don’t know, but if farmers are doing this, somebody should be studying this to figure out what the impacts are. If it’s going to be counterproductive, then maybe it should be discouraged.
I don’t necessarily know that we’re going to be able to improve the net-zero emissions through these practices, but we will have a better understanding by doing these practices in real landscapes and measuring emissions in real landscapes about what the real potential is when we go to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, and other international agencies and say, “Look at what wonderful things we’re doing in Canada, and this is how we’re affecting greenhouse gas emissions.”
Currently, we don’t have a lot of confidence — and no country does; it’s not just Canada — in how soil management practices are impacting greenhouse gas emissions. We just don’t.
The Deputy Chair: I will cut myself off. That’s only fair.
We will move to the second round.
Senator Burey: Dr. Michel, I was wondering about the knowledge transfer question that I asked, and I think it really feeds into Dr. Lobb’s research proposal in terms of speaking with farmers, people, the end-users of research.
Could you speak to that, please?
Mr. Michel: Thank you so much, and it does link brilliantly with the previous answers to the previous questions, because one of the challenges that we have right now is not so much to make the knowledge and tools available but to really make that a practice and, vice versa, to make the practice into a different type of knowledge.
I’m referring here to the very spirit of why we have Living Labs in Canada, why are we so keen in implementing them and why is it so much of a shift in the way that we do science?
One of the common comments that we get out of having the living lab is that researchers that are involved come out and say, “I will never do research the same way.” Farmers involved say that they will never see research in the same way. That’s really at the centre of core development.
The second aspect, which my colleague spoke about, is really getting to the innovation on site. Canada is big, we have various landscapes and we are just barely touching how different agriculture can really work. This real-life friction in between research and common knowledge from the farming side is really at the core here. I wish very good luck for this type of research. We do need to expand this type of interface in between what we practically know, what works, and the new type of tools and the traditional academic types of research that can be put together.
Back to your core questions, in the knowledge transfer space, we first have to say that for everything that is funded traditionally through our researchers, we require a knowledge transfer aspect in their research.
Again, the question is whether that is enough. I think putting that transfer into a more active mode in terms of knowledge mobilization — and you have mentioned you are coming from the space of health, and active transfer comes very much into the practice. That’s what we call knowledge mobilization, which is really the spirit of why we have those Living Labs, why we are expanding that program and why we are documenting more and more success coming from that program. Thank you.
Senator Burey: Thank you so much.
There’s one specific question, but I will go back, Dr. Lobb, to the first question about why we don’t have a more specific structure for the knowledge transfer. There is lots of research, and you have platforms — I understand that — but going forward when we are looking at trading, for instance — the U.S., Canada and Mexico are big trading partners — shouldn’t we be using the same soil classifications, for example? When we come to trading and making these deals, we will say that X is not really sustainable farming, so we will not recognize that when we come to trading. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?
Mr. Lobb: I’m so old that I was part of the agri-environmental indicators program, which I never got to in my notes. That was initiated between 28 or 29 OECD countries. Those indicators were set up for that specific purpose: to deal with trade issues. That’s what the OECD deals with.
There are all kinds of anomalies when you look at what trade practices were occurring between countries. Canada and the U.S. are no exception. There had been discussions at that point about having a more harmonized approach to indicator assessments because we use similar tools, such as environmental farm planning, which was mentioned in the first panel. Our environmental farm planning comes from an American example. So there are a lot of information mods or modes that we use across both countries.
Coming up with an integrated soil survey will never happen. We have two very different systems in terms of nomenclature. You would think that the mapping could be sorted out. And some work has been done on the cross-calibration of soil types, and there are discussions about mapping, but we have fallen behind in terms of some of our technologies, although we talk about all the technology we have. The Americans have much more intense topographic mapping, soils mapping, geologic mapping — things that allow them to do things in a much more detailed fashion.
This came up in my discussion about erosion modelling last week. They will never use our system for erosion modelling, because it’s just too dumb — too dumb in the sense that it doesn’t have as much input as theirs does. It isn’t that it isn’t a good approach — I would argue our approach is better — but we just don’t have the supporting information, so it will never be done.
Senator Burey: Is that a recommendation?
Mr. Lobb: This came up in previous discussions. We need to look at what natural resource information we have and whether it’s appropriate for the purposes of modelling to feed into national and continental mapping assessments, because it isn’t right now. It could be, but it would take a lot more effort than we put into it. As I mentioned, the Europeans are quite willing to do it for us.
So there are concerns there that we need to look at. It should be a recommendation that we should move toward a unified system for the mapping, at least; the names — I don’t really care that much about the names — but certainly for the mapping. It allows us to have a spatial structure upon which we can do modelling and, therefore, come up with assessments.
The Deputy Chair: That was well over time, but it was such a good answer, I didn’t want to cut anybody off.
In order to bring this airplane into the terminal on time, I will pause us there. Dr. Lobb, Mr. Turnock and Dr. Michel, I would like to thank you for your participation today. Your assistance with this study has been very much appreciated.
I would also like to thank all committee members for your active participation and thoughtful questions. I also want to take a minute to thank all the staff who work to support this committee, especially our clerk, whose birthday we are celebrating in the foyer with cupcakes and baklava.
Our next meeting is scheduled for Thursday, December 7, at 9 a.m., when we will continue to hear from witnesses on our soil health study.
(The committee adjourned.)