THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Tuesday, October 4, 2022
The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry met with videoconference this day at 6:31 p.m. [ET] to examine and report on the status of soil health in Canada.
Senator Robert Black (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Senators, it’s good to see you and good evening. I’d like to begin by welcoming members of the committee, our witnesses, as well as those watching this meeting on the web. My name is Robert Black, senator from Ontario, and I’m chair of this committee.
This evening, the committee is holding a follow-up fourth meeting on its study to examine and report on the status of soil health in Canada.
Before we hear from the witnesses, I’d like to go around and ask each of the senators to introduce themselves, starting with our deputy chair.
Senator Simons: Paula Simons, senator from Alberta, Treaty 6 territory.
Senator Dupuis: Renée Dupuis, the Laurentides, Quebec.
Senator Marwah: Sabi Marwah, Ontario.
Senator Oh: Victor Oh, senator from Ontario.
Senator Cotter: Brent Cotter, senator for Saskatchewan. Good evening.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I always leave this to the last, but at the outset, I’d like to thank those who support us around this room: the folks at the back, our translators, those transcribing the documents we look for, the multimedia services, the technicians, our page, the broadcasting team and ISD who support us. I wanted to say thanks up front to those folks who make sure we can do what we do well.
Our witnesses this evening are joining us via video conference. Today we welcome, from the Soil Conservation Council of Canada, Kier Miller, Chair, and Tim Nerbas, Past Chair.
From the Compost Council of Canada, we are joined by Susan Antler, Executive Director, and Glenn Munroe, Manager, Special Projects.
I’d invite them to make their presentations. You will have five minutes each.
Kier Miller, Chair, Soil Conservation Council of Canada: Mr. Chair and committee members, thank you for your invitation to address the committee today.
The Soil Conservation Council of Canada was founded in 1987, following the report by Senator Herb Sparrow entitled Soil At Risk. Our goal since then has been to advocate for soil conservation health on a national scale.
The SCCC is the only national organization to concentrate on the issues of soil health and conservation within a broad landscape context. It works to build a greater understanding of the importance of soil as an essential resource to society by facilitating the exchange of information with all stakeholders.
Healthy soils are the foundation of sustainable food production, enhanced biodiversity and cleaner air and water for present and future generations.
Our purpose today is to provide advice to this committee on five key elements of soil health that we ask you to consider in your studies. First and foremost, we ask that you investigate the role of soils as a solution provider to local, regional, national and global issues, such as climate change, food security, water security, biodiversity and resiliency.
Improved soil health has both environmental and social benefits. This fact, while recognized by many farmers, has largely gone unnoticed by society, and hence, no value has been assigned to efforts that improve soil health. Farmers, foresters and land owners need to be recognized and compensated for their efforts in facilitating these benefits.
SCCC and the Compost Council of Canada recently released a report entitled Recruiting Soil to Tackle Climate Change: A Roadmap for Canada. A major finding of this study was the adoption of best management practices, or BMPs, that support soil health and will increase the level of carbon sequestration in soils. If soil health management practices were fully implemented on all of Canada’s agricultural lands, carbon uptake by our soils could increase up to 97.4 megatonnes per year of greenhouse gases. That’s the equivalent of taking 21 million gasoline-fuelled cars off the road. In reference, there are 35.7 million registered vehicles in Canada as of 2019.
Given that Canadian agriculture currently contributes about 73 million megatons of greenhouse gases annually, even with moderate implementation of soil health BMPs, our study indicates that it’s possible that soils could completely offset agriculture’s greenhouse gas footprint.
To better understand how to develop and deliver BMPs, it is critical that comprehensive consultation with agricultural stakeholders is conducted. This is our second recommendation. This should include a mix of agricultural organizations and individual farmers across commodity types, regions and farm size. It should also include other landscape stakeholders, such as forestry, wildlife, recreation and First Nations groups. Influential provincial agricultural ministries, individual agricultural thought leaders and agri-businesses should also be included. We understand this study will take time, and it’s critical we get the data we need to direct future actions. Many stakeholders already know the importance of soil health and want to act today. That’s why we’re proposing an industry-led soil health strategy be undertaken as an early recommendation emerging from this study. Our vision is an inclusive strategy with broad-based input led by agriculture. This is critical to ensuring the strategy is achieved by Canadian farmers and landowners.
Which brings us to our next soil health driver: extension and knowledge transfer. Adopting and using BMPs can be complicated, expensive and risky. If we want more adaptation, we need to provide farmers and landowners with more professional and technical support. The current state of extension support in Canada is inconsistent, uneven and not connected.
However, we can’t stop there. It’s not enough that farmers and academics work together; we need to bring the public on this journey as well. Public education on potential societal and environmental benefits to improve soil health will build awareness and support for healthy soils. An informed Canadian public can also contribute to putting more carbon in their soils simply by the way they manage their lawns, gardens and recreational lands. Agricultural producers are not the only ones who can benefit from soil health BMPs. We ask that your study consider how we can raise awareness of the benefits of soil health and improve action across Canada, coast to coast. Thank you for your time.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Moving on to the Compost Council of Canada. Ms. Antler or Mr. Munroe, are you sharing your time?
Susan Antler, Executive Director, Compost Council of Canada: We are, senator.
Soil is a living ecosystem. The soil’s living organisms provide the functions that underlie all life on our planet. Without them, we would not survive. Our soils are alive, and definitely we should not be treating them like dirt.
For over 30 years, the Compost Council of Canada and our members from coast to coast to coast have been relentlessly advocating for and developing the infrastructure to transform what would otherwise be waste into living, breathing, rich organic matter — compost — and returning these resources to our soils, where they nurture and enhance life.
Our work is based on partnerships. We have partnered with the Soil Conservation Council of Canada on a project supported by the Metcalf Foundation, and this spring we released a call to action through our report, Recruiting Soil to Tackle Climate Change: A Roadmap for Canada.
As the title suggests, we need to recruit and mobilize each and every Canadian to help take care of our soils. After all, we will each get something significant out of this: healthier food, cleaner water, a more stable climate and the preservation of our earth’s many magnificent ecosystems.
Glenn Munroe, Manager, Special Projects, Compost Council of Canada: We have five important points we want to make today, five areas of investigation that we believe should be fundamental to your work and final report.
The first and most fundamental: We need to foster an ecosystem approach to soil management. We all have to appreciate, even more fully, the complexity and the dynamic nature of living soil ecosystems. As a society, all land managers must be recruited: Our farmers, our home gardeners and landscapers are all important.
In a similar fashion to how Canadians now understand the three Rs of waste management — reduce, reuse and recycle — we need everybody to understand and act on the scientific principles that support healthy soils, as laid out in our roadmap. These principles are the practical embodiment of an ecosystem approach.
In this regard, we were quite taken with a practical and easy-to-remember version of these principles set out by an earlier deputation by Dr. Laura Van Eerd, the six Cs, she called them: conservation tillage, compaction reduction, crop and animal diversity, compost and amendments, continuous living plants and cover crops.
Every farm, landscape and garden is going to be different, and each will require its own specific soil health best management practices, but these principles are always the same. Making them the norm in soil management will be the key to achieving healthier soils and higher levels of soil carbon.
Our second point is there is a vital need for greater stakeholder awareness and understanding of soil and soil health. Making the six Cs the norm in Canada will require a substantial effort to educate and motivate stakeholders at all levels.
Third, there’s also a strong need for a Canadian soil health strategy. We believe that to ensure consistency and scientific credibility, Canada needs a soil health strategy, one developed with a full range of input from all relevant stakeholders.
Our fourth point is that we can’t wait. We need to act now. Research is and always will be important. However, we already have enough information to know that the principles, as reflected in the six Cs, are effective. Now we must address the challenges to adoption, including short-term costs, financial risks associated with change, adapting our technologies and, last but not least, adjusting our mindsets.
Ms. Antler: Fifth, we envision a key role for compost. Compost has the unique ability to inoculate soils, building and/or refreshing the soils’ essential micro-biome. In essence, compost is a general pro-biotic for our soil. That is why our council is working on a number of soil health fronts. The first of these is research. We are involved in the new Living Labs project in New Brunswick. We have our own 46-acre research farm in Utopia, Ontario. And we have conducted nutritional and productivity research with a provincially funded project in Brandon, Manitoba.
Second, there is education. We offer a unique, hands-on, interactive soil educational program that we call Soil Safari. We would love to invite the members of this committee to go own their own Soil Safari with us.
Third, there are partnerships. In addition to our work with the Soil Conservation Council of Canada, we do projects with landscaping and gardening organizations across Canada, such as Landscape New Brunswick, P.E.I. and Ontario and Communities in Bloom.
Finally, refining compost as a product. Compost quality and maturity are key, which is why our council operates the Compost Quality Alliance, a quality-assurance and labelling program for compost products and users.
Thank you very much for your initiative. It’s so vitally important. We wish you the speediest of investigation. We are here for you at any and all times, and we are also here tonight to answer any questions. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much to our witnesses for panel number one. We will proceed to questions.
Senator Simons: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I wanted to start with our composting experts, because I come from Edmonton, a city that long prided itself on having a great composting program until the roof collapsed because of the methane from the compost. We built a new $42 million composter, only to be told that the compost is polluted with toxins, little bits of micro-plastics and macro-plastics. I think it’s very difficult for people to, in good faith, keep filling up their green bins with their banana peels and their leaf rakings in the knowledge that the compost is not being used for compost; it’s being used, I think, as fill at the landfill.
What steps need to be taken to make sure that cities and large and small municipalities are not building white elephants so that we spend tens of billions of dollars on giant composters that have all this promise and fail to deliver?
Ms. Antler: First of all, we’re very proud of the city of Edmonton. Certainly, there were three very essential steps to move organic recycling forward in Canada: the one in P.E.I. where a small community decided to focus on organic; then we went to Guelph, 100,000 people; and then with the city of Edmonton, a million people population. Anything to do with change, there are always people who don’t want to do it and have all kinds of excuses. The city of Edmonton stepped up and basically took a blank piece of paper, because about 30 years ago, there was no infrastructure for organics recycling. Through this whole process of developing the organic recycling infrastructure, there has been very little financial support, and basically municipalities and the private sector have been doing it on their own.
Absolutely, when you make a change, there are lessons along the way. We can go ahead and look at it from a half-full, half-empty perspective. When you go ahead and you’re in the public eye, it’s very difficult to go ahead and be mindful of corrections that need to be made.
Certainly, in terms of one of the fundamental things, we have to move away from organic recycling as being a waste management business and get everyone to understand that they all have a role to play in terms of getting this valuable, rich, organic matter back to the soil.
The first step is absolutely to make sure that we all understand that the soil is important and the work that we’re doing in terms of recycling organics happens in our community and stays within our community. We do not ship this. We cannot ship this around the world to have it dealt with by others. And that’s exciting because the work we’re doing individually will allow us to go ahead and make a magnificent difference in terms of what we all should have as our legacy in terms of care for our planet.
There has been learning. Again, it gets into half-full and half-empty. It’s not garbage day when the organic waste bin goes out onto the curb. Rather, it’s a way for us to contribute to bringing that valuable organic matter back to the soil. Absolutely, the infrastructure needs to be robust and sound, because it’s a very tough business to have a composting or anaerobic digestion facility.
We would applaud Edmonton. We have to get through it, just like we all have to get through life’s moments. It’s in the public eye, but certainly in terms of the integrity of the folks involved, and with the support that the city of Edmonton leaders have done time and time again, I really do believe that we will be able to get it through.
Senator Simons: Then I have a question for Mr. Nerbas. One of the issues that has come up time and again, just as we’ve had a few hearings on this matter, is a lack of coordination of information. I’m sorry, this is a question for Mr. Miller. My apologies. I guess you could both take a stab at it.
There doesn’t seem to be a central point at which people who have an interest in this topic — whether they are farmers, academics or government researchers — have one place to pool their information and one place that can sort of be a nexus point for all of the research and discussion about this.
I’m wondering what you think would be the right place for such a nexus point. Should it be in academia, in government or more in the agricultural community?
Mr. Miller: I’ll take this one, Tim. I’m a farmer, so my personal feeling is that it should be in the agricultural community. But at the same time, we need to break down those silos of information and share it. How that is going to happen remains to be seen. That is something that could actually come out of this study.
Senator Simons: Farmers should know about silos as much as anybody.
The Chair: Thank you, Senator Simons.
Senator Klyne: Thank you, chair, and welcome to our guests, our panel. I was a little late in arriving. My name is Marty Klyne, a senator from Saskatchewan.
My first question is for the Soil Conservation Council of Canada. We have heard and we recognize that there are regional differences in soils across this country, maybe not province by province but certainly region by region.
With all those differences, I have to think that, as the face and voice of soil conservation and health in Canada, you would be working with large data sets, big data, blockchain perhaps. I’m just wondering, how do you synthesize all this data and share it? In that regard, are you working up against these silos that we just referenced in trying to cut through horizontal silos of government departments and/or provincial governments? Then I have a second question for you that follows.
Tim Nerbas, Past Chair, Soil Conservation Council of Canada: I guess I’ll take a stab at this, Kier. We don’t have the capacity at SCCC to be looking at large amounts of data. That’s beyond our scope at the present time, but definitely we need to see some sort of structure in Canada that can handle that.
As an organization, we don’t have that capacity to look at that large data. Because of our capacity, we have to stay at a much higher level.
Senator Klyne: If you had the data available to you, is there somebody out there that’s collecting this and could provide it to you so you didn’t need the capacity but you could interpret it and synthesize it?
Mr. Nerbas: Well, there’s a lot of information across the country, but it’s bringing that information together so we can understand what various groups are working on across the country so we’re not replicating some of the stuff in certain areas.
Definitely with the kind of country that we have, lots of diversity right across, what works out West definitely doesn’t necessarily work in Central Canada or the Fraser Valley — that type of thing. Definitely we have to take an approach that meets the needs of the given climatic regions.
Senator Klyne: Okay, thanks. The second question I have maybe I’ll come back on the second round.
To the Compost Council of Canada, a quick question for you. I admit I’m a dilettante on the periphery of what you do, so please excuse the naïveté. Is what you do otherwise destined for waste management and maybe something to do with methane and potentially through methane converted to energy otherwise? Is what you do and your members do in some way an opportunity or partial solution to climate change?
Ms. Antler: Absolutely. The Compost Council of Canada is a national, non-profit organization voluntarily run in terms of membership. Our members span from cities going from the East Coast to the West Coast to Northern Canada, and we have partnerships around the world, all focussed on making sure that organic wastes are actually regarded as valuable resources and transformed through a variety of processes. We don’t take a specific position on that. It has to be right for the particular community and specific place, but we are supporters of backyard composting and onsite composting. For example, we have developed a program with the Cambridge food bank. We’ve established a composter there so that materials from their donations, if they’re not appropriate, can go back to the earth through composting. We support large-scale organics recycling, be it composting or anaerobic digestion or, in the best of both worlds, both of them together.
Organics are responsible for landfills being the number two emitters of methane in Canada, and it’s really not acceptable, because it comes down to your individual decision. Whether you are a householder or at a business, you have a choice where you’re going to be putting unavoidable organic waste — your banana peels or your leaf and yard material. It is so valuable. You can put it in a landfill, and that emits 23% of all methane emissions. Methane is 86 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in its first 20 years, and it’s number two. That’s an easy win for us as a society to go ahead and cool things down. Then we get the added benefit of what we’re trying to move toward: We are not producing waste; we’re producing a product, like a company is producing a product that’s on a grocery store shelf.
Senator Klyne: Thank you. I have another question for you in the second round, so you can finish up there.
Senator Oh: Thank you for being here. I want to talk about economics of soil health practice. Improving agriculture soil health will provide many benefits, but it requires thousands of farmers to change soil management practices. What are the costs and benefit numbers associated with cover crops, no-till farming, crop rotation and nutrition management practice, such as applying fertilizer or compost? Anyone could take the question, please.
Ms. Antler: Glenn, pending differing soil conservation, but at a certain point talk about the Utopia farmland.
Mr. Munroe: We have a project going, as we mentioned briefly in our talk, in Utopia, Ontario, where we’re trying to look at exactly this kind of thing. We have 46 acres of land that’s been conventionally managed for many years. What we’re doing is we’re gradually, a little bit each year, converting it over to a soil health approach. We introduced no-till in the first year. This year we’re introducing cover crops, and we’re also experimenting with various strips of this land with how compost might be able to assist a farmer in moving in this direction, moving towards the so-called regenerative model as opposed to a conventional model.
Part of what we’re looking to do is collect economic information. How much more does it cost to do certain things? Where are the savings? So we’ve just begun this. We’re only just finishing up our second year, but that is the kind of information that we need to collect. I know that the Living Labs across the country are starting to look at this as well, and so I think the quick answer to your question is we don’t know all of this yet, but we really need to find out and we’re working on it.
The Chair: Would Mr. Miller or Mr. Nerbas wish to add to that?
Mr. Miller: I’d like to comment on this. To start with, both Tim and I are farmers. Our day job is running the farm. So to go to Mr. Munroe’s point about no-till, I started no-tilling on my farm almost 20 years ago now, and economically I saved $5 to $10 an acre just by doing no-till, without being able to quantify all the various soil health benefits, the carbon sequestration benefits, et cetera, that would come out of that.
The biggest saving to me is time. It just takes less time. I don’t have to go out there and plow that field and harrow that field and pick rocks. I can just go out and seed my crop and carry on.
Mr. Nerbas: The additional comment that I would make is that when we try to move towards improved soil health, some of these things do cost money, but others do not, and some of it is just an education and taking some of the research that’s been done across Canada and extending it out to producers so that they can bring it to their own operation. Extension plays a huge role.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Marwah: Thank you to the witnesses. Ms. Antler and Mr. Munroe, this is addressed to you, but I would like Mr. Miller and Mr. Nerbas to jump in as appropriate.
I want to thank you for summarizing the five areas that you said required attention. You did that very succinctly, so I won’t repeat the five areas, but I have three questions in that regard.
First, who can or who should manage that process and make sure we make progress with those five things? As you know, nothing happens without leadership. So how do we ensure a leadership role to get this done?
Second, do you have any sense of a price tag to accomplish this? This would probably have to be determined on an annual basis, because there’s no one-time solution to this; it’s probably an investment that takes years to really get benefits from.
Third, do you have any sense of an operating plan or an execution plan underpinning each of the five areas would set out the details of what would need to be done to achieve them? That’s a lot of questions into one, but please feel free to respond to whichever ones you think are appropriate.
Ms. Antler: Go ahead, Glenn.
Mr. Munroe: Okay, with respect to the question of leadership, obviously the federal government needs to bring some leadership to this, but that’s at a very high level.
One of the things we talked about and we put into our roadmap document was that there should perhaps be some kind of a multi-stakeholder organization that provides this. A number of people have mentioned the idea of a hub, a place where the information is collected and could be available to everyone. That doesn’t seem to exist for soil health.
In the United States, the Soil Health Institute, the NRCS, Natural Resources Conservation Service, and various organizations like that provide that function, but we don’t really have an organization here that can do that. That’s something that could be looked at, whether it’s a branch of government, or, what we would prefer, a multi-stakeholder organization that could guide policy, collect information and provide advice and perhaps even have a scientific research component to it.
Ms. Antler: To add to that, I’m pretty sure that you will be getting a deputation from Odette Ménard, from the province of Quebec, Quebec Ministry of Agriculture. She talks about how she’s been working with farmers for years and years. It does take time for the soil to heal and to reverse the damage that’s been done over many years, but once it kicks in, the benefits financially exceed the original investment.
There are a number of issues. I know you’ve already received a deputation from Don Lobb. In terms of the issues, one of the things we have to wrestle with is the fact that so much of the farmland is not owned by the farmer who is managing the land. How do you invest in the soil if you don’t have a stake in the long-term plans for that land?
So that is something that has to be wrestled with from a financial perspective. That is one of the reasons we say we need to start now. Absolutely, there needs to be more deliberation and discussion, but it takes time for the soil to heal and reverse and start to kick in to do all the things we need it to do, particularly in terms of it becoming a carbon bank for our country and for the world.
Senator Marwah: Do you have any sense of the price tag involved to do this effectively? Are you talking about tens of millions, hundreds of millions, billions? I have no perspective on the magnitude of what is involved here.
Ms. Antler: In our experience with what we’ve been doing in Utopia at the Farmland, there’s the challenge of making sure we know where the equipment is and what kind of equipment is needed. To answer the immediate question, we don’t know the absolute amount. The issue is that there is likely an upfront investment that will deliver long-term gains. I would defer to the Soil Conservation Council and Glenn to add to that.
Senator Cotter: Thank you to the witnesses for your presentations and your enthusiasm with respect to these questions.
I want to ask a fairly hard question that’s somewhat connected to Senator Marwah’s. Let me offer you the context. In your presentation, Mr. Miller, you argued that this should be an industry-led initiative, a big and important one. You observed that many farmers are interested in proceeding.
I’ve been enthusiastic about your report on recruiting soils to tackle climate change, and I’ve been digesting it as fast as I can. I see a terrific collection of suggestions here. One of them is along the lines of leaving it to farmers to make the call on this question.
Some of the earlier witnesses who spoke to us said there are early, medium and late adopters and that the late adopters of these initiatives are perhaps half of the farmers out there, and they are often significantly large farms — like the ones that you referenced, Ms. Antler, in your observation about people leasing large tracts of land.
If we leave it to industry, which is what I think we’ve done since you guys came into existence, it might be a long time before we get to where we need to be. I’m really asking you the hard question. Like we do with composting in Edmonton, we make people participate, don’t we? It wasn’t a question to Senator Simons, but she’s trying to answer. I guess I’m asking this: Should there be sticks as well as carrots in order for us to get where we need to go?
Mr. Miller: That has been suggested. However, if you go back to the old fables, they say you can get more compliance or attract more attention with honey than you can with a stick.
You mentioned the early, mid and late adopters. In my opinion, many of the early adopters were the bigger farms because they could actually see the benefits of taking on those practices. It’s the smaller mom-and-pop farms that we’re struggling with.
I’ve got neighbours who look at me doing no-till and they’re out there plowing and harrowing when we harvest our crops. There’s not a lot of difference, but mine cost me a lot less to grow. If you talk to them, their reply is, “Well, that’s the way Dad did it and that’s the way his dad did it.” There’s that ceiling, that resistance, that we’ve got to figure out a way to break through, and I don’t think the stick is the way to do it.
Mr. Nerbas: I agree. I’m a big fan of carrots in terms of attracting people and bringing them into a practice. Sticks seem to get everybody up in arms a bit too much, so I’m much more in favour of drawing people to improvements in soil health than forcing them to. Having said that, sometimes a stick is required to move people, but I much prefer the carrot.
Mr. Munroe: I’d like to add quickly to that. Probably the carrot is the best approach in this. One of the good things about soil health — and this has been shown over and over by people who have been doing it for a long time — is that once you start doing it and get to a certain point where you’re comfortable with it, it more than pays for itself, just as Kier was saying.
[Translation]
Senator Dupuis: Thank you to our witnesses for being with us today. I’d like to ask you a question because everyone has referred to collaborations you have with various organizations. My question is similar to what has already been asked: who can or should take on the leadership? Have you already established links with the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)? Normally, NSERC funds organizations or researchers. Are there links between your two organizations and the council? Could there or should there be more? Should NSERC be responsible for reaching out to organizations like yours to support your work?
[English]
Ms. Antler: Not directly, however, that is certainly possible. In terms of the investment that both the Soil Conservation Council of Canada and Compost Council of Canada have made in forging a new path of raising awareness about the importance and vitality of soil through our report, only funded through the Metcalf Foundation, quite honestly, if I could be so bold, our two organizations are very small relative to the vision we have. The challenge is to go ahead and mobilize everyone.
In terms of the integrity of both our organizations and in the credibility of delivering results and the members we represent, absolutely, there’s no reason we can’t — if it’s not already started — go ahead and establish this.
We made a deliberate choice when we set up the report. We are at war right now. It’s not in terms of another country fighting another country. This is the health and vitality of our planet and what we collectively represent and stand for. We can certainly mobilize and have a common goal. As you know, once you have a common goal and a focussed vision, then people bring what they can to the party.
That’s why we’re so excited about the work of your committee, and its ability to mobilize and recruit all of us. There are lots of Canadians who have accepted that we are in trouble, but they don’t know what to do.
What is so exciting about soil is that it’s not a one-trick pony. It’s not about, “Okay, I’m doing this.” You’re going to get rewarded. If you’re a farmer, over time it will help you in terms of your productivity, your financials and the nutritional quality. If you look at the work we did in Brandon, this spiked once you went ahead and added compost to the soil. There are so many incredible rewards.
Unquestionably, it cannot be one group that’s going to do this. This is a war, and we have to recruit our team. Our team includes Canadians from every aspect. Similar to what was mentioned by the senator in terms of Edmonton, it’s a relay race. We have to pass the baton. What you put into your green bin inevitably has a result in terms of the quality of the compost that goes back into your soil.
[Translation]
Senator Dupuis: Can the witnesses from the Soil Conservation Council of Canada add their comments?
[English]
Mr. Nerbas: My comment would be, yes, soil health is so vital. I know on a lot of farms, if you ask what they are most proud of, often it’s the colour of their machinery. For me, the most important part of our operation is the soil. Everything revolves around the soil, and in terms of building it in drought conditions, it produces that much better and provides better economics. Thank you.
The Chair: Thanks very much. I have a question, and it’s just very quick. If each of your organizations were the authors of our final report, what is the first recommendation you would have in that report? Mr. Miller, what would be the Soil Conservation Council of Canada’s first recommendation in our report?
Mr. Miller: I’d go to the knowledge transfer issue. We need to get that information out there. We need to show Joe down the road that what his father did 20 years ago is not the right way to go now. Forty years ago, everybody went out of the school at noon and started smoking a cigarette, and while there are still people that do that, there’s not near as many. Times change, and we need to change with those times.
The Chair: Thank you.
Mr. Munroe: Public awareness on this issue is really, really important. If the public doesn’t understand what the benefits are, what the issues are, what soil really is — or at least have a basic understanding of it — they’re not going to support the programs, the farmers in their efforts to change and the big companies that are now coming on board in relation to soil health. These companies are coming on board because they think the public is behind them. We hope that the public is behind them, but in order for public support to be a long-term thing, there needs to be some work done to raise public awareness and educate the public about these issues.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator Simons: When we’re speaking of carrots and sticks, there’s one answer we haven’t really discussed yet, and that’s the idea of having carbon markets. I had the chance to meet with Biological Carbon Canada in the summer who explained to me that one of the things that’s creating a barrier is we don’t have a regulated carbon market so that farmers can sell and get credits for the carbon they’re sequestering. Do you think that would help to provide the motivation that Senator Cotter was suggesting was needed?
Ms. Antler: From our perspective, absolutely farmers and landowners need to be able to realize carbon value from their soil. It is no longer just a private resource. It’s for the public good, and for those that are going to be managing soil health for the public good, they should have the ability to go ahead and get a vibrant price for carbon storage. So having a market of that sort would be extremely helpful, senator.
Mr. Nerbas: From a producer perspective, I would say the carbon market and payment for ecological services go hand in hand.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator Klyne: This question is for Compost Council of Canada. A quick little statement here. First of all, to Ms. Antler, what you described was a whole-of-the-nation approach, all hands on deck. To Mr. Munroe, what we need here is to tell the public what happens if we don’t get this right, because the mind is wired to avoid pain, and that’s going to be a lot of pain.
My question is, how many tonnes of carbon do you think you have optimized? Just a number.
Mr. Munroe: I’m not sure I understand the question. How many tonnes of carbon have we optimized? Do you mean —
Senator Klyne: Put through your program.
Mr. Munroe: Through our program. Oh, wow. That’s a tough question, but a lot. When you consider how much —
Senator Klyne: That’s an answer.
Mr. Munroe: Yes, a lot, and there’s a lot more potential.
Senator Klyne: Thank you. This isn’t really a question for the Soil Conservation Council of Canada. It’s a statement looking for a response, and if you need to provide a written response, I would greatly appreciate it, given the time. When you start talking about government at a high level with a central organization that shares research and new technologies and engages with multiple stakeholders, I harken back to the days of PFRA, the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration. What is your response? I ask that of you as farmers and the voice of Canada for soil health.
The Chair: Mr. Miller, 30 seconds, and then I would welcome your response in writing as well.
Mr. Miller: I have no experience with PFRA, being as I’m in southern New Brunswick. However, I had contact with that organization when they were a going concern, and I think we need something like that again. That’s just my opinion from the East.
The Chair: Thank you very much, folks, for your time today. Mr. Miller, Mr. Nerbas, Ms. Antler and Mr. Munroe, thank you for your participation this evening. Your assistance, as you well know, is very much appreciated. We could see the passion with which each of you answered the questions. So thank you very much. We ask you to turn your cameras off. Please feel free to carry on listening to us, and we’ll now continue with panel two.
For the second panel, we’ll hear from Mr. Paul Thoroughgood, National Manager, Sustainable Agriculture, Ducks Unlimited Canada.
Paul Thoroughgood, National Manager, Sustainable Agriculture, Ducks Unlimited Canada: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Members of the Senate, my name is Paul Thoroughgood, and I’m the National Manager of Agricultural Sustainability with Ducks Unlimited Canada. On behalf of our conservation community of more than 100,000 supporters, we would like to thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this important study. We’d also like to congratulate and thank Senator Black for his leadership on behalf of Canada’s soils.
Healthy soil, air and water underpin all life on earth, and how these resources are managed influence agricultural productivity. This is a reality that has been learned and relearned throughout the development of agriculture.
Canada’s legacy of clean air, water and soil is often taken for granted. The Soil at Risk study and publication led by Senator Herb Sparrow in the 1980s was, and is, the most recent and definitive document on Canada’s soils. It not only changed the way we think about protecting our soils from degradation, but it also positioned Canada as a world leader in this regard.
Ducks Unlimited Canada is encouraged by the advancements of smart agriculture that helps farmers and their agronomic advisers make better soil management decisions. In some instances, we believe that these best management practices also include repurposing some areas that are economically and/or environmentally marginal to other uses. As the environmental goods and services market develops in Canada and globally, we’re hopeful that products from land stewardship such as carbon and biodiversity will help support optimizing land use in Canada. This optimization should seek to increase production of traditional agricultural products from our soils, both for today and for tomorrow, while repurposing those areas that are more suited to producing other environmental goods.
A critical component of a comprehensive soil strategy, which requires fulsome discussion, is land use. This is a key recommendation that Ducks Unlimited Canada and many of our industry partners made earlier this year to Agriculture and Agri-food Canada. Land-use decisions occur under various levels of government jurisdictions, which can pose challenges when trying to work cohesively and strategically. Today, we see some of Canada’s most productive farmland being lost to urban sprawl and development. Simultaneously, we see native grasslands, wetlands and Carolinian forests being lost to agricultural intensification.
At Ducks Unlimited Canada, this battle for land means that cities are winning. Agriculture may break even and the environment loses. This is not a sustainable, long-term trend. While bringing together these diverse stakeholders across Canada that play a role in land-use planning seems like a daunting task, as an organization that helps replace lost habitat, we can assure everyone that the cost of not acting today is much higher tomorrow.
In closing, Ducks Unlimited Canada is a strong supporter of the stewardship and production of Canada’s soil, air and water resources. We’re proud of our 84-year history of partnership with government, industry and Canada’s farmers and ranchers to support the ongoing health of Canada’s natural capital.
We have enjoyed a long-standing relationship with the Soil Conservation Council of Canada and are proud that one of our early pioneers with the organization was recognized as a member of the Conservation Hall of Fame. His name was Bill Poole.
We respectfully submit that the Soil Conservation Council of Canada is well positioned to play a leadership role in the development of a soil health strategy for Canada. Ducks Unlimited Canada stands at the ready to engage in the development of the strategy and encourages the Senate to include land-use planning as part of this process.
As Senator Black is well aware, Ducks Unlimited Canada and many of our industry partners have been pressing for the need for a next step beyond the Soil at Risk document as Canada’s new definitive statement on soils. We’re excited to see and support the next chapter in Canada’s leadership in soil conservation and soil health. Thank you very much. I look forward to our discussion.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Thoroughgood.
Senator Simons: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Thoroughgood, when I think of Ducks Unlimited, I think primarily of preservation of wetlands and the work you have done to protect wetlands from urban and agricultural sprawl.
Is there is any relationship that develops when you have a healthy wetland in an agricultural zone? Does the presence of a marshland, bog or muskeg near where people are farming help to enrich the soil nearby in any way?
Mr. Thoroughgood: That’s an excellent question, senator. I’m going to talk from two different perspectives, if that’s okay. I’m going to talk from a beef producer’s perspective and then from a crop producer’s perspective.
For a long time, the beef producers have recognized the value of wetlands to their production system because cattle drink water. Also, the microclimate in a riparian zone is also an area for food production for livestock. That has been a long-standing understanding and relationship.
New research, or relatively new — certainly occurring since I was done my agriculture degree — has been looking at the benefits of natural areas within crop production systems. There is some really interesting work. One researcher that I would name drop is Dr. Paul Galpern from the University of Calgary. He has been looking at that halo effect, not only from microclimates for the wetlands, because they do provide a cooling effect, but they also provide a home for beneficial insects.
There’s an increasing awareness that having non-cropped areas within cropped areas has a benefit as well. I hope that answers your question.
Senator Simons: That’s really interesting. As we are facing a warming climate and a dryer climate, especially on the prairies where I’m from, how important is it that we maintain those riparian ecosystems in concert with farmland? How do you convince farmers that keeping the slough is actually a benefit? I am referring to the riparian wetlands; in my neighbourhood, those are called sloughs.
Mr. Thoroughgood: In addition to working for Ducks Unlimited, I farm south of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan; we call them sloughs too.
I mentioned the development of ecosystem markets. I think that’s something that’s really important and something that Ducks Unlimited has long supported the idea that farmers be able to monetize the goods they produce on their farms beyond grain and beef and that sort of thing.
And I think if we changed that perception of that slough, as you and I agreed it was called, from a liability on my farm, which does not produce value, to something I can achieve a monetary benefit from, because I stewarded and maintained it, that would change the discussion completely. I think that’s a real opportunity as the carbon market begins to develop in Canada. I believe it was you who asked the question about protocols that are in place to help facilitate that market. I think that’s important.
But as we look beyond carbon, the next piece is biodiversity, and we know those wetlands are a hot spot for biodiversity, as are natural grasslands, as are treed areas if you’re in eastern Canada. I think those habitats are all important.
Senator Simons: Thank you very much.
Senator Klyne: Welcome to our guest. You can’t spend as much time in Saskatchewan as I have and not know what Ducks Unlimited Canada is. Thanks to Doug Chekay and Bob Poley, it’s got a high profile.
The questions that Senator Simons asked were pretty much what I was going to ask. Perhaps I can summarize your answer. It’s a symbiotic ecosystem, but also there’s biodiversity involved.
Now that I know you know about Saskatchewan, we have such a large delta up around Cumberland that can experience a deluge of rain, runoff and flooding, but then other times it’s too low. It seems that the Diefenbaker irrigation project would help with that, if they had a weir and could hold back water and give back water. Does that feed into helping with soil health and prevent soil degradation?
Mr. Thoroughgood: Managing water in an agricultural system certainly impacts the way the soil behaves. Our history all the way back to some of our earliest projects, especially around southern Alberta, was around irrigation projects and finding those co-benefits that you mentioned.
Certainly, when you think about healthy soil having rich life and organic material in it, which is roots and decaying plant material, when you add water, you grow more organic material. Building up that organic material in the soil, if your irrigation is done correctly — unfortunately we have seen irrigation done incorrectly and it ended up impacting the soil quality — can help build the health of the soil.
Senator Klyne: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Dupuis: Thank you, Mr. Thoroughgood. You talked at the very beginning about best management practices as they relate to soil conservation and soil health. To your knowledge, is there a consensus in the agricultural community on what those best management practices are for soil?
Is there enough of a consensus on what these practices are? Is there still work to be done to convince people of the need to implement these practices?
[English]
Mr. Thoroughgood: That’s a great question that I think our friends at the Soil Conservation Council would also like to weigh in on. I will provide my perspective, because I’ve been a long-time member of the council as well.
The practice differs as you look across the country because the climatic zones are so different and the crops that are grown are so different. There has to be some adaptability like in Eastern Canada where there are a lot of potatoes grown. Growing a potato in a no-till environment, with absolutely no tillage, is not possible because the potatoes are below ground. But principles like minimizing your tillage, keeping the soil covered, reducing the intensity and frequency of tillage are all principles that apply from coast to coast to coast. How those principles are employed as a practice probably has more regional differences because of the climate, the crops and that sort of thing.
[Translation]
Senator Dupuis: Thank you for your answer. If I may ask a supplementary question, does that mean that you think it would be possible to develop overlapping practices? These practices would be recognized if such a crop were grown across Canada. This would take into account climate variations, and practices would overlap with an entire industry or type of farming. Are the different provincial geographic realities so entrenched that it might be difficult to find commonalities and common practices?
[English]
Mr. Thoroughgood: I would recommend we differentiate principles from practices. When you think about the principle of keeping your soil covered as much as you can, whether I’m a wheat and canola farmer from Saskatchewan or a vegetable producer from southern Ontario, that same principle can be employed on any of those farms. If I’m a livestock producer, it’s the same thing. I can maintain a good residual cover of grass on my land.
The principles are important, which is why we suggested we need a strategy so that we don’t have a bunch of actions running off on their own. We need a cohesive plan. As with anything in life, if you don’t have a plan, you might have good intentions, but you may not get where you’ve intended to go.
The Chair: Thank you very much. My apologies, Senator Cotter, for skipping you. I’ll give you two extra minutes on your first set of questions, just because I messed up.
Senator Cotter: What he also knows, Mr. Thoroughgood, is I’m from Moose Jaw, so having a dialogue with you is like sitting at home having a cup of coffee.
I have two questions. My first question relates to your observations about the future of land use. In a certain way, with respect, it feels to me as though you and we are the wrong people to have that conversation because, as you would know, agricultural is a joint jurisdiction of the federal and provincial governments to start with, and land use is unquestionably a provincial jurisdiction. We might say some nice things about that, but we don’t have very many tools to determine that.
Second, it seems to me that on the question of land use, carrots may be a potential answer, but sticks are also critical. Let me offer a couple of examples.
Let’s take the farmer who wants to sell his land just outside of Moose Jaw because somebody wants to build an urban development, unless we have laws and regulations that say that land can’t be converted from agricultural use, people will make their own economic judgments, and they will often sell the land.
In the areas particularly where, say, Ducks Unlimited Canada works, there are people using marginal land to farm, when it should be moved to grasslands or freed up for the kinds of sloughs and beyond that Senator Simons was describing; this often will require a regulatory framework.
Do we need to talk with a collection of governments in order to address the land-use question? Second, do we need a regulatory framework in order to achieve the goals that you’ve described?
Mr. Thoroughgood: Those are two very good questions. I’ll start with the multi-jurisdictional piece.
In my comments, I mentioned that I would include municipal governments in that as well. If “we” collectively agree that we need a better strategy than we have today, someone has to start. We are suggesting that the federal government is the place to start showing that leadership.
It is likely a difficult discussion. Our land valuation system in Canada, as you mentioned, recognizes what we would consider highest and best use. If I’m interested in selling a piece of property, a Walmart parking lot is probably most highly valued from a monetary perspective, but from an environmental perspective, from a food production perspective, it is not. That’s why we need to pull together all the stakeholders to figure that out, because we would all agree that urban sprawl at the rate that it’s going is probably not sustainable, especially when it’s consuming some of our Class 1 land, which we have a very limited supply of.
We probably can’t answer that question, but I think we agree.
I’ll move on to the second question about carrots and sticks. I think there’s a place for both. One of the things that I’ve observed, both with my farmer hat on and my Ducks Unlimited hat on, is that we have a partial market failure in the way we sell goods in that how the good is produced is not rewarded. A bushel of wheat produced in the most sustainable manner versus a bushel of wheat produced in the least sustainable manner, when you take them to the elevator, they are worth the same.
We’ve seen some early steps. Some of the sustainable sourcing programs have started to reward sustainable production. I’m hopeful that that’s something that continues to gain traction.
Senator Cotter: I think the folks from the previous panel are online. In a certain way, it’s a question for them as much as it is for you, Mr. Thoroughgood.
I’m digesting that report that you did jointly. I am reading in it that almost all of the organic carbon that has been sequestered into soil, which I think is a key factor in soil health and benefit on the issues of carbon sequestration, has occurred on the Prairies in the last 40 years. Quite frankly, none of it has occurred in the rest of the country.
My worry is that if we developed a system that rewarded success here, we will reward the laggards and punish the people who have been progressive. Quite frankly, as I look at the chart from the Soil Conservation Council of Canada and the Compost Council of Canada, it’s a staggering number here in terms of what has been achieved on the Prairies and what has not been achieved in the rest of the country. How do we solve that problem going forward if we look to carbon markets?
Mr. Thoroughgood: That is a great question. I would go a step beyond that, senator, and also say when we look at cattle producers that have maintained native grassland, they’re even a further step away from being able to capitalize on that if we only reward changes that many have already implemented.
Again, I’m going to go back to the comment that we need a strategy and a plan. We know that some of the international carbon markets don’t reward early adopters or business as usual. In Canada, we need to think about how we adequately reward that “good behaviour” or those early adopters or those who have stewarded native grasslands for generations on their farm.
Senator Cotter: Thank you, Mr. Chair. That seven minutes was thrilling, at least to listen to Mr. Thoroughgood.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Senator Simons, three minutes this time.
Senator Simons: All right. I’m going to follow up quickly on Senator Cotter’s point.
In point of fact, land use primarily in this country is not done by provinces; it’s done municipally, by municipalities and counties. One of the things that I’ve been working on here at the Senate is a whole big Senate inquiry into the role of municipalities in this country, and one of the interesting things is that very often, it requires the federal government to make common cause with municipalities when the province is standing in the middle of the road.
I guess then the question becomes, from your years of experience with Ducks Unlimited, you must have seen that it’s municipalities and counties that make most of these land-use planning decisions. What do you think the federal government could do to incentivize counties and municipalities to make smart decisions, to make sure that we don’t pave over all the best land?
Mr. Thoroughgood: Boy, that’s a great question. I think one of the roles the federal government could play is convening and collectively painting a picture of what we want Canada to look like for our grandkids so we don’t have cities that touch cities that touch cities. I don’t think many of us want that for our grandkids. We want to build our cities as smart as we can so we do have that urban development.
I think that’s the role that potentially the federal government can play, to convene and pull together thoughts and strategies to build smart.
[Translation]
Senator Dupuis: I know that Ducks Unlimited Canada is involved in actions in several Canadian provinces. Could we learn from the Quebec system of agricultural land protection?
I don’t want to get into political matters, but there is a system that has been put in place for the sale of agricultural land, where, in order to sell the land, you have to go through a commission that deals with land protection. Do you think there’s anything we can learn from this system? Is this a way to move towards better soil conservation?
[English]
Mr. Thoroughgood: I’m afraid, senator, I’m not really familiar with the Quebec system. I apologize for that. I only know enough about it to probably be dangerous, so I don’t think I can offer you an intelligent comment on that. I can certainly connect with my colleagues in Quebec who are more familiar with it, if you’d like.
[Translation]
Senator Dupuis: Thank you.
[English]
The Chair: Mr. Thoroughgood, if you do want to further answer that question after having talked to your colleagues in Quebec, feel free to send that to our clerk as well.
Mr. Thoroughgood: Thank you.
The Chair: I have one last question. No other senators are looking to ask questions, so I have one last question. With your farmer hat on, why did you adopt soil conservation practices on your farm?
Mr. Thoroughgood: Our family started farming the land that we’re on in 1903, which doesn’t sound like a long time in many parts of the world, but on the prairies, it’s a relatively long time ago. Our original homestead has a drift of soil that’s taller than I am. You can’t tell on the Zoom call, but I’m six feet six. That soil drift was put in place using the best management practices of the day, which involved a plow and a couple of horses.
When I look at what I want my legacy to be when my grandkids hopefully look at our farm and say, “Why did Paul do what he did?” I hope that I can at least say that I was following the best management practices of the day.
When I look at how much our soil has improved since 1997 when we started no-tilling, I’m pretty pleased with what we’ve done thus far. It’s all about protecting the soil and making it more productive and hopefully more profitable for the next generation or generations.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Any last questions?
[Translation]
Senator Dupuis: Mr. Chair, can I ask you to ask the same question you asked our witnesses, which is what is the priority in the committee’s report?
[English]
The Chair: I have time, and I have the chair’s prerogative.
Will you give us your thoughts as to if you were the author of our final report, what would your first recommendation be?
Mr. Thoroughgood: I believe that I captured it in my closing comments. I think it is important for an investment to be made in building a soil strategy for Canada. I think that that is an important first step, or else we run the risk of having a bunch of really well-intentioned actions that don’t lead us to a cohesive outcome and maximize the opportunity that we have in front of us: the opportunity presented by people around the world actually being interested in soil health; for a long time, people thought it was dirt. I think it’s an exciting time and an exciting opportunity. I think having a plan before we strike off is the most important step.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Mr. Thoroughgood: Thank you for asking.
Senator Cotter: As much an observation as anything, Mr. Thoroughgood, I don’t know whether you’re a golfer. I reference my brother, who is a retired golf pro in Moose Jaw, actually, and I’m asking this question somewhat facetiously.
I see in looking at the soil study that the earlier folks did, studies that have been done on golf courses show significant contribution to soil health and greenhouse gas moderation, which is kind of encouraging, I guess. People have generally had a negative view of golf courses. I don’t know whether you’ve considered turning your farm into a golf course, but there’s a thought.
Mr. Thoroughgood: I have not, senator, and I would say that I golf like I have a grain shovel in my hand.
Senator Cotter: Thanks very much.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Thoroughgood, for your participation today. Again, we can see the passion that comes out in your answers and your opening comments, so we really do appreciate your involvement tonight, and I know you’ll stay in touch.
Mr. Thoroughgood: Thank you for the opportunity.
The Chair: With that, colleagues, I want to say thanks to each of you for your active participation and thoughtful questions. I would like to suspend and move into an in camera session as a full committee for a very short time.
(The committee continued in camera.)