THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, October 20, 2022
The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry met with videoconference this day at 9 a.m. [ET] to examine and report on the status of soil health in Canada.
Senator Robert Black (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, good morning and welcome to this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry.
I would like to begin by welcoming the members of this committee and our witnesses, as well as those watching on the internet. My name is Rob Black, senator from Ontario and chair of this committee. The committee is meeting this morning to study and examine the report on the status of soil health in Canada.
Before we hear from our witness, I would like to start by asking senators around the table to introduce themselves, starting with our deputy chair.
Senator Simons: Hello, I’m Paula Simons, a senator from Alberta. I come from Treaty 6 territory.
Senator Duncan: Good morning. Pat Duncan, senator for the Yukon.
[Translation]
Senator Petitclerc: Hello. Chantal Petitclerc, senator from Quebec.
[English]
Senator Cotter: Brent Cotter, senator for Saskatchewan.
Senator Mockler: Percy Mockler, senator from New Brunswick.
Senator Oh: Victor Oh, senator from Ontario.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Our witnesses are joining us today via video conference. I would like to welcome from Dalhousie University David L. Burton, Distinguished Research Professor, Faculty of Agriculture; Brandon Heung, Associate Professor, Faculty of Agriculture; and Derek Lynch, Professor, Faculty of Agriculture. I invite you to make your presentations, beginning with Dr. Burton, followed by Dr. Heung and Dr. Lynch. You each have five minutes for your opening remarks. In the interest of maximizing our time, I will signal when you have one minute left.
David Burton, Distinguished Research Professor, Faculty of Agriculture, Dalhousie University, as an individual: Thank you very much, Senator Black. It’s an honour to have the opportunity to present to this committee. I would like to commend this committee for raising soil health as an issue before the nation. This committee has a long-standing history of championing soil conservation. Thank you very much for that.
In my testimony today, I have the benefit of building upon the testimony you have previously heard as a committee from a wide range of capable and accomplished soil scientists. I will not attempt to repeat what has already been said, but I will underscore a few points made earlier and offer a slightly different perspective on a few. I will also not repeat the information that I previously provided to the standing committee on the mitigation and adaptation to climate change through improved soil management on October 3, 2017, or the state of soil health in Atlantic Canada and how it can be improved on May 7, 2019.
I’m coming to you today as the director of Dalhousie University’s Centre for Sustainable Soil Management. The centre brings together 35 soil scientists and academics in related disciplines across six provinces. Our mission is to advance scholarship and research in soil science; to provide a focal point for soil science, education and training in Atlantic Canada; and to serve as a national data hub for data-intensive mapping, understanding and use of soil landscape information and the impact of management on those landscapes. It’s the centre’s goal to purposely drive the application of soil science principles to solve current problems. We currently have several projects that are relevant to this committee’s mandate.
Today, I wish to make three points: first, the need to measure soil health; second, the need to report on the state of soil health; and third, the importance of creating a database to house this information and make it accessible to land managers.
Others have emphasized the need to measure soil health to provide a more complete picture of the current state of soils and the impact of management on those soils. I want to underscore that those measurements need to focus on soil health as a measure of soil function. That is what distinguishes soil health from previous measures of the state of soil.
It has also been mentioned that organic matter is proving to be one of the best indicators of soil health. The organic component of soil is integral to the physical, chemical and biological functions of soil. The generation of digital soil maps of organic carbon of our soil should be a top priority, but we also must move beyond simply measuring soil organic matter to more advanced measures that allow us to assess its dynamic nature, the state of the soil’s biological community and its metabolic capacity. Our group is working on doing just that.
It has also been suggested that crop yield is a measure of soil health. In that regard, I wish to offer a slightly different perspective. The drive to eliminate all limitations to crop growth, to increase yield — the green revolution, as it were — has transformed our agriculture system and the world’s food supply. However, we’re only now learning that it has been at the expense of the health of our soils. We have commodified our agriculture production system, and the practices that sustain that productivity and the maintenance of our soil have become an expense too often avoided. Excessive tillage, over-fertilization and reduced diversity of our crop rotations have resulted in a decline in the health of our soils.
While it is true that to economically sustain our production systems, we must maintain yields, this cannot be at the expense of the sustainability of our soils, upon which future yields depend. Crop yield alone is not an indicator of soil health. I argue that the focus must be on the resiliency and sustained capacity of the system to produce a crop. Those are more robust indicators of soil health, not maximum crop yield per se.
We will not feed the world by depleting our soils.
One of the major challenges in measuring soil health is the expense of quantifying the many aspects of soil needed to provide a complete picture of soil health. We are fortunate in that there are emerging technologies that allow rapid inexpensive spectral characterization of soil to provide a rich characterization of the state of soil. This technology holds the promise of making soil health assessment accessible and affordable such that our characterization of soil health can be built on a rich data set of measurements, and we can use those measurements to track our progress in building soil health. Again, our group is working on doing just that.
My second point is that we not only need to measure soil health but report on the state of soil health and track our impact of agriculture and forestry practices on soil health. In the past, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has published The Health of Our Soils, and their environmental branch has periodically reported on a series of agri-environmental indicators. We need to make that reporting an annual requirement of our government and we need to ensure that the indicators are based on measurements of the state of the soil resource and not a product of mathematical modelling based on census of agriculture data.
Sustaining the management of our soil resources also requires that management decisions be in response to current measures of the state of soil. We have entered the age of big data in agriculture where we have tools to sense, understand and apply precision management to our agriculture and forest landscapes. So not only must we measure and report on soil health but we must create accessible databases that allow managers to access those measures at spatial and temporal scales relevant to agriculture and forest management. Again, our group is working on that.
I believe that over the next decade, we will transform our approach to soil information and management, building more resilient agricultural landscapes. The measurement and reporting of soil health will be at the heart of this transformation. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Dr. Burton. We will move on to our next witness.
Brandon Heung, Associate Professor, Faculty of Agriculture, Dalhousie University, as an individual: Honourable senators, thank you for leading the study on soil health and allowing us to appear before you today.
My testimony summarizes a written statement that was provided to the committee clerk on October 13.
My research expertise is in digital soil mapping, or DSM, a discipline of soil science that leverages big-data analytics, remote sensing and artificial intelligence to evaluate the indicators of soil health. I am also the co-chair of the Canadian Digital Soil Mapping Working Group, a national network of over 70 soil-mapping researchers from government and academia.
Lastly, I was also the lead author of a chapter on digital soil mapping in the Digging into Canadian Soils textbook.
Whereas Dr. Laura L. Van Eerd described soil health as “the capacity of soil to do stuff based on its ability to function and perform ecosystem services,” my research tells us where the soil can do certain things.
Within the international context, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, or FAO, established the Global Soil Partnership, or GSP, in 2012 and the Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils in 2013. Here, the scientific community held the wide consensus that despite the abundance of soil knowledge and data worldwide, it is often dispersed and partial, not harmonized and not accessible to a broad range of stakeholders. Due to this widespread recognition, Pillar 4 of the GSP is on soil information and data.
Furthermore, Canada, as required by the UN, is obligated to report the sinks and sources of carbon in managed land, hence the availability of spatial soil data is critical to our ability to monitor, verify and report on the status of our soils and ensure our international commitments are met.
While much of the developed world has adopted the use of digital soil mapping techniques, it is still an emerging research area in Canada, taking root around 2010. Prior to that, the Centre for Land and Biological Resources Research of Agriculture Canada was closed in 1996. Soil surveys activities were dissolved, and staff were reassigned, leaving large swaths of land unmapped. Effectively, we were put 15 years behind other countries that continue to advance their soil survey programs. Much of our country still relies on provincial soil survey maps, some of which have not been updated since the 1940s.
In my written submission, I included examples from the European Union and Australia, which have done a phenomenal job in developing and managing their digital soil data infrastructure. Despite being 15 years behind, we have made great advances and are catching up.
Prior to 2010, only nine research papers were produced by Canadians about mapping Canadian soils. Since then, the number has increased to 52. We have also become increasingly recognized by the international soil mapping community.
Furthermore, the Canadian Digital Soil Mapping Working Group, under the auspices of the Canadian Society of Soil Science, was established in 2016. To date, we have developed and delivered a national soil carbon map as our contribution to global product compiled by the FAO in 2017. However, the scope and the scale of the activity and the lack of centralized resources, combined with Canada’s enormous land mass and diverse ecosystem, continue to create additional challenges in future mapping initiatives.
To move forward, I provide a series of five challenges related to soil data.
Number 1: data sharing. The soil science community will need to develop a data sharing framework that meets the requirements of academia, government and industry, while respecting privacy rights. Policy tools need to be designed to incentivize data sharing and should be explored.
Number 2: industry engagement. Industry is a major data holder, and their data is a valuable resource if we intend to improve our mapping products.
Number 3: updating and harmonizing soil databases. Our data sets must share a common structure, be open to researchers, be easy to update and be interoperable with international data repositories.
Number 4: long-term data management. Data must be maintained and updated and, ideally, managed by an independent body comprised of researchers from academia and government. The discussed national soil health institute may provide a home for this data. Independence is critical toward ensuring that our national data infrastructure is not threatened by changing governments.
Lastly, number 5: sustainable funding. We do not have the financial resources to sustain our efforts, yet the soil science community and the Senate have identified the modernization of soil information as a high priority area. We can use typical one- to five-year short-term funding as a springboard to develop a soil data platform, but sustaining it over the long term will be impossible.
The working group will be able to meet the bar set by Australia and the EU, but substantial resources are needed.
Thank you for your time.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Derek Lynch, Professor, Faculty of Agriculture, Dalhousie University, as an individual: Honourable senators, I would like to thank the committee for the invitation and opportunity to contribute to this very important initiative on soil health. My research in agronomy and soil science over the last almost 20 years has focused on farming and cropping systems design, with a focus on productivity, nutrient management and soil health. Much of this research has been conducted on commercial farms, primarily in Eastern Canada.
More recently, we have begun to explore new tools, digital soil mapping and spectral approaches. Today, I would like to talk a little more about soil organic matter in relation to soil health and then highlight just a few takeaway points related to that from studies in Atlantic Canada.
As we have heard, soil organic matter is the keystone element driving soil health. In fact, when we incorporate residues into soil crop residues, 60% or 70% is utilized and decomposed in the first year by soil biota. This drives many soil health benefits, including nutrient release and other functions or ecosystem services. It’s important to note carbon in soil exists in different pools or fractions; some is very dynamic, and some is stored. You have heard it referred to as “the living dead” and “the very dead.” You can also think of it in terms of a chequing and savings account. Very little of our added carbon ends up in the stored fraction, or savings, which is a challenge with respect to our additional goal of carbon sequestration in agriculture.
In addition, some crops have very low residues inherently, such as potatoes, soybeans, corn silage and row crops like vegetables. Thus, their increased frequency is a challenge to maintaining soil health.
In terms of Atlantic Canada studies, about 15 years ago, we did some work on four different potato farms in Prince Edward Island that had very long rotations. We showed how the total carbon changed very little, but there was a pronounced decline in soil health during the potato crop phase because of disturbance and low residues. But this recovered over the longer three to four years of grain and forages, showing the benefits of a diverse rotation.
But more recently, Dr. Judith Nyiraneza of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in P.E.I. showed, tracking the mandatory minimum three-year rotation for potato farms, where it was potatoes, grain and forages, that soil carbon was still declining because, even though you had a diverse rotation, the residues — the straw and the hay — were exported off the farm.
In more recent work across very diverse farms, we have shown the benefits of amendments and reduced tillage to increase soil health in Atlantic Canada.
In summary, we have the four pillars of maintaining carbon: rotations, residues, return of manure and rate of tillage intensity. Almost paralleling our four Rs of nitrogen management, we have the basic pillars of four Rs of carbon management or, as Dr. Laura Van Eerd described it, the six Cs of carbon management. But including forages or retaining residues on farms is likely a cost to the producer. Our research needs to refine the approach for each farm in technical and agronomic terms, but it must be social and economic research as well.
Where do cover crops fit? We have lots of strong evidence in Eastern Canada of their agronomic benefits to the following cash crop but far less evidence of their soil carbon and soil health benefits.
In closing, I would like to echo and endorse previous presenters and my colleagues’ recommendations regarding the need for national leadership and an institute and national database to benchmark the status of soil and soil health. I’m also promoting the need for local agronomic and socio-economic research to identify integrated management solutions to improve soil health and soil carbon. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you very much, and thank you to all our witnesses. We’ll now proceed with questions from senators. We’ll start with our deputy chair.
Senator Simons: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. My questions are for Mr. Heung off the top. I’m fascinated with the technology you describe. I wonder if you could take advantage of this opportunity to tell us more about how digital soil mapping actually works. As a subsequent question to that, at a time when we’re talking about carbon sequestration and maybe wanting to create viable carbon markets, can your technology confirm how much carbon is being sequestered by a farm operation?
Mr. Heung: Sure. Thank you for that question.
First of all, I would refer you to our textbook chapter, which I have included in the submitted documents. Really, to boil soil mapping down into something very simplistic, it consists of three ingredients.
Number one, it’s georeferenced soil observation. Somebody goes out. They have a GPS. They take a measurement. They do lab analysis. That’s the first ingredient. That’s the one that is most challenging to come by, because it’s very costly to go out, collect samples and do the lab analysis.
The second ingredient is the environmental predictors. These can be leveraged from remote-sensing data and also climate-model data as well. This is becoming increasingly available to the modelling community.
Lastly, there is some sort of big data or machine-learning algorithm that links the relationship between our soil observations and the environmental variables, the maps, the layer that we use to make these predictions.
Of these three components, it’s the georeferenced soil observations that are the most difficult to come by. That’s what we should be focusing our attention on. We have done some work with regard to looking at a harmonized data set at the national level, but it’s still a very challenging process because we’re still trying to source out where all these data sets are.
We have a fairly good feel in terms of where academic- and government-sourced data lie. But when it comes to industry data, I believe that they are the largest holder of data and we should be talking to them.
In terms of your second question on soil carbon sequestration, yes, there are some tools that digital soil mappers can use to map the sequestration potential of our soils. Overall, the mapping carbon sequestration potential is important because it allows us to prioritize our climate change mitigation strategies and allocate our resource.
To estimate sequestration potential, we still need a soil data repository, whether it be at the farm level or at the national level. These samples need to be spatially distributed across the country. Once we have that information, we can figure out roughly the amount of carbon that is on the ground and the maximum amount of carbon that could be stored within the soil. Effectively, the difference between the two is our carbon sequestration potential.
Yes, broadly speaking, we can leverage technologies at the farm scale using things like drones and sensors. But, again, there needs to be a cost-effective way for soil sampling and carrying out the analysis.
Senator Simons: I’m wondering what the privacy implications are. Is it possible to use drones, satellite technology and sensing equipment to estimate soil health without the permission of the property owner, or do you have to have boots on the ground to do the baseline measurements first?
Mr. Heung: It depends on the scale that you’re mapping. If you’re mapping an individual farm, then you do have to have permission of the farmer to use their data.
At the national level, we can leverage some of the satellite imagery and things like that. But, again, we still need a lot of data from across the country in a spatially distributed manner to be able to make these types of assessments.
The importance of a national repository is absolutely critical because the more we know about our neighbour’s soils or your neighbouring province’s soils, the more we understand about our own. There needs to be a coordinated national effort to make all this happen.
Senator Klyne: I too find this quite fascinating. It’s interesting that after all the witnesses that we have heard we come upon this. The one recurring thing that we do hear about is a lack of research in big data, the ability to synthesize that data.
There is a bit of a movement afoot to start to develop a national strategy and work plan to be able to collect this data. Somehow it just seems to me that there is an opportunity here to collaborate with people who are grappling for data. We wouldn’t want to duplicate things, but it seems to me that there is an opportunity to complement one another.
I have to assume that this DSM is more than just a virtual image that gives accurate representation of a particular area. I assume it’s a combination of field inspections, as you were describing, extrapolation and, of course, expert knowledge; clearly, all three of you have that in spades.
I’m interested in the predictions and how they apply. Are you actually getting field samples of soils that you’re mapping? Is there an opportunity to collaborate and leverage up the two things, the people who are looking for research plus it sounds like you’re doing much of it already?
I want to know: Are you collecting soil data or are you using the soil data that StatCan collects? How is this all working? How do you collaborate with researchers who are working on soil?
Mr. Heung: Yes. In my capacity as co-chair of the working group, I have the opportunity to collaborate with government researchers and academic researchers from across the country. Through that process, there are a number of ongoing soil survey programs across the country. If you take Ontario for example, they have been leading the charge, as well as British Columbia.
In Ontario, for example, they have the Ottawa-Peterborough soil survey program. They have a crew of people who are collecting a fairly high density of samples. They are mapping and predicting soil properties using these acquired samples. You’re able to train these predictive models but also validate these models and assess their performance.
Lastly, in addition to getting an accuracy metric saying that our predictions of soil carbon are 70% accurate, we are also providing estimates of uncertainty as well. This is a global requirement that is put out by the GlobalSoilMap.Net, which is a global organization.
Senator Klyne: Is there time for the others to offer some comments on this?
The Chair: Would others like to comment?
Mr. Lynch: I would be glad to comment.
Mr. Heung and I have collaborated on some recent mapping as well. The question is a very useful tool for those of us who like to go out and sample and directly measure.
One of the challenges with soil carbon sequestration is you have a large pool of carbon that is there. You’re going to bring in a new management practice, trying to get a sense of the variability that you’re up against. It’s sort of a signal-to-noise ratio issue, right? You bring in a new, improved practice. Can you pick up that change? What are you up against in terms of the variability?
If we think, for example, of current living labs projects across the country, on-farm projects to look at best management practices to increase soil carbon, if we can bring to bear digital soil mapping to assist with on-farm benchmarking of carbon stock and variability, it’s a very useful application of that. It’s helping you selectively sample. You’re not having to sample as intensively otherwise because you have this interpolation tool to assist with that.
Senator Cotter: Thank you to the witnesses. This is helpful in our understanding of the questions regarding soil health.
Soil is different from air and, to some extent, different from water in that particularly productive soil tends to be in private hands, privately owned. We can measure the air a lot easier than getting access to measure the soil.
My question is this: If we are looking at comprehensive data for a variety of purposes, including issues around soil sequestration, what are the mechanisms by which we engage producers to want to or be required to participate in the exercise of gathering the kind of information that you have identified as so critical?
Perhaps that is the question to each of the three of you, because it seems to me that question influences the work you do and that you are calling for being done going forward.
Mr. Burton: The key is to communicate to the collaborators what’s in it for them. If we can demonstrate to producers that by collaborating and building that larger database they will get better information back for their own system, that gives them a stake in it. When producers or industries have a stake in that and they understand the collective value of their collaboration and cooperation, they are more than willing to cooperate.
In short, that’s my suggestion.
Mr. Heung: I would agree with everything Dr. Burton just said.
I would also add that a clear business case needs to be made for every single industry. The private sector is diverse, and they have diverse needs. Agriculture, forestry, energy and mining all have a stake when it comes to soil data.
Industry cooperation for data sharing requires there to be a business case during engagement activities, but I would recommend that the Senate also explore some of the policy tools at your disposal — in other words, the carrots and the sticks — to make all of this happen. There has been a lot of discussion about best management practices. I think data sharing should be a part of best management practices.
Mr. Lynch: Yes. I would add that there is a diversity of programs that are quite innovative and are engaging producers. They are helping producers help producers and mentor other producers, like the On-Farm Climate Action Fund, or OFCAF, program we have heard about, which is a very important means of developing these new technologies.
I would add, though, that I think there is a lot of resonance of soil health with producers. There are recent social studies on farmers’ stated reasons for adopting best management practices. There is a recent study out of Ontario from Dr. Alfons Weersink looking at six different best management practices across 250 farms. Why did they adopt those practices for soil conservation and soil health? Of the producers, 80–90% said they did it for soil health reasons, not necessarily because it eased or reduced input costs or that it necessarily led to profitability.
Soil health is a very inclusive concept, and some of the social studies we have done in Atlantic Canada, too, have seen very high resonance and interest in soil health among producers from a stewardship perspective alone. That’s important to note.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
I note that we have 25 minutes left, and we have a number of speakers, so we’ll carry on.
Senator Petitclerc: Thank you to our witnesses.
My question is for Dr. Burton. I’m going to quote you, Dr. Burton, from a CBC article in 2020. You closed the article by saying that more resilient soils are needed and that they “will support food production and provide environmental goods and services indefinitely.”
I find that very interesting. We have been hearing that here in this committee, and yet we do also sometimes hear in the media and among the population that putting health soil first is not compatible with agriculture productivity — maybe it’s not sustainable — or the classic idea that you cannot feed Canadians on that model.
I just want to hear you on what we answer to that. What do we tell Canadians who have those questions or fears?
Mr. Burton: Thank you very much for that. Resiliency is a concept that occurs over multiple years. It’s about the longer term; it’s a longer-term perspective about our ability to produce food.
We have come through the green revolution and the subsequent decades. We had very much a commodity-focused effort on the intensity of production, increasing yields, adding nutrients and practices to increase yields.
I think we’re now at a point in North America where many of our limitations to yield are no longer nutrient-related but weather- or soil-condition-related. That’s where resiliency is addressing those constraints: increasing the water-holding capacity of the soil, increasing resistance to erosion, et cetera. That’s what’s going to sustain our yields — that resiliency. It’s no longer a nitrogen or phosphorous limitation in most cases; it’s the conditions of growth.
That’s why resiliency is one of the paramount concerns, and that is why soil health is addressing that concept of resiliency.
It’s a bit of a change in mindset. It’s a move from a soil fertility perspective to much more of a holistic concept of cropping systems and understanding the relationship of cropping systems to overall soil capacity. Again, that’s in part why soil health is a term that’s really engaging producers; it’s because it resonates with that concept of the longer-term productivity of the soil.
Senator Petitclerc: Thank you.
Senator Oh: Thank you to all the witnesses.
I would like to say that Dalhousie University is a great university on agriculture research. I remember seven years ago, this committee had a visit to the university. That was great. It was led by Senator Mockler, who is here today with us. I think it’s about time we go back and revisit the university.
My question is for Professor Heung. It is my understanding that you are involved with the Canadian Forest Service. What are the major influences that forests have on climate conditions, and how will forest degradation affect those conditions? What are the major threats to soil health that cause degradation on forests?
Mr. Heung: Thank you for that question. Yes, I was with the Canadian Forest Service for about four months.
The role of forests is absolutely critical. The majority of our country is forested, and forests are a major storer of carbon, and we should take great efforts to make sure that carbon doesn’t go away.
I would say the main threats are land conversion, such as the conversion of forests to agriculture lands, perhaps, or deforestation. Some threats on soil health regarding long-term soil productivity include compaction and removal of organic matter. Long-term soil studies have indicated that those are the greatest threats, and I tend to agree with what they have to say.
Senator Oh: Okay. Thank you.
Senator Marwah: Thank you to the witnesses for appearing before us today.
My question is really to all three of the witnesses. It is in the context of a comment that Dr. Heung made about the five challenges of data and soil management. It’s the age-old maxim that says that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.
Having said that, how do we go about this? Should a national organization be created to do this or act as the champion for soil data management? If so, should that organization be government, quasi-government or led by private industry?
Could any of you point to the jurisdictions that have done this exceedingly well in terms of putting together a strategy for soil data collection and data management, et cetera? Thank you.
Mr. Burton: Earlier testimony by Dr. Bedard-Haughn suggested a federated approach, and I would also suggest that should occur. One of the challenges that can happen is that if you have a single entity in charge of doing it, if the mandate of that entity changes, things can fall through the cracks, and the mission can be lost. That’s partly what’s happened with our Canadian soil classification system; it was something that was championed by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada for many decades, but Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada no longer consider that a priority, and it therefore languished for a period of time.
A mix of government and academic institutions in some sort of a federation, led by a champion organization, perhaps the Soil Conservation Council of Canada or the Canadian Society of Soil Science — an organization that has multiple stakeholders in industry, government and academic. That is the right way to coordinate that, but I think we need a federated approach where multiple academic and/or government institutions are involved in creating a data warehousing system that has redundancy. In that way, no one organization or institution is responsible for maintaining it. It’s also maintained in multiple locations so it can persist for many years.
As Dr. Heung suggested, we don’t want to build this and have it simply fall apart again. It is something that needs to be central to the way we do agriculture and forestry from here on out.
Who is going to fund that? I think governments have the role of funding these kinds of things, so government agencies need to be called upon to fund it. But I think it has to be a federated approach.
Mr. Heung: I would also say that it’s a great question as to who is going to do it. Broadly speaking, many of us within the Canadian Digital Soil Mapping Working Group and presumably the proposed soil health committee of the Canadian Society of Soil Science provide a place where those types of engagements can occur.
However, none of these forums have any sort of financial resources to take on projects related to centralizing our soil data infrastructure. The consequence is that many of us are left to our own devices via our individual research projects. For example, in my provincial soil surveying work for B.C., we’re working closely with provincial ministries when renewing the provincial soil data set, but at the same time, we are coordinating our efforts with my other colleagues from Natural Resources Canada, Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, or OMAFRA, and Nova Scotia to ensure a common data structure is being used. When there is an opportunity to develop a national data set, we have a lot of the groundwork already in place.
But without a formal organization, those activities will continue to be carried out within an informal setting.
Mr. Lynch: I would agree with my colleagues. The additional benefit of having the private sector is because of issues around data sharing — a lot of the data is held in the private sector — so you have to have that blended construction of this national agency for many reasons.
I would like to make a related point about the provincial data collection and just flag what some of the provinces have done. In particular, Prince Edward Island has, for the last 20 years, had a georeferenced 300-site soil-quality data monitoring network. It is absolutely invaluable when you have such intensive agriculture to track changes in soil quality and soil health and construct policy based on that.
We’re talking about the national role here, but the partnership down to the provincial level for long-term monitoring could have a very important role as well.
Senator Marwah: Would any of you care to comment on any jurisdictions that have done this exceedingly well?
The Chair: Very quickly, please.
Mr. Heung: In terms of the data management side, I would think that B.C., with their Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy, has done an excellent job in compiling and working with us in terms of analyzing the soil data. I think OMAFRA in Ontario has done an exceptional job in terms of leading investments toward advancing digital soil mapping research and doing soil surveying. They are fairly good examples of where things are moving along nicely.
Senator Mockler: I’m going to follow up on some of the questions that were asked earlier. I will start with Senator Marwah’s.
Looking back through the years, I believe that the best inventors in the world are farmers. That is especially evident in our country link with our universities’ research labs and stakeholders.
To the witnesses, you have been very informative. When you look at Canada and its regions, which region of Canada would be the leader when it comes to soil health? Can you grade them for us?
Mr. Burton: Maybe I can start. The Prairies have the benefit of very extensive cropping systems and have led the adoption of reduced tillage, which has resulted in dramatic increases in soil organic matter content. As a result, I think some of their soils are perhaps the most robust in terms of recovering from the impact of intensive cultivation.
One of the agri-environmental indicators that we often put up is a map of soil organic carbon in Canada where we see this large green section in the Palliser’s Triangle, reflecting increasing soil carbon. That’s an example of where one particular practice was implemented and has had a very positive effect.
In Eastern Canada, it’s a bit more challenging because we have more rainfall and more intensive production systems. That much greater intensity makes it much more difficult to sustain organic matter contents. It’s a bit more of a challenge. That’s where we need to direct some of our attention. But I think we can look to the West, where more diverse rotations, reducing summer fallow and reducing tillage have helped to improve soil health.
The Chair: Any other comments?
Mr. Lynch: I would build on what Dr. Burton was saying. One of the differences in Eastern Canada is that we’re not in a semi-arid region; we don’t have that moisture limitation. We can integrate cover crops without the potential limitation of moisture. There are a lot of producers-innovators who are doing very innovative agronomic work on integrating cover crops in Eastern Canada.
So it’s a very exciting time in terms of that innovation aspect of agronomy in this region.
Senator Mockler: Thank you.
You alluded to us that one of the challenges is data sharing. Farmers know best when we talk about climate change. I want to hit a bit on sequestration to follow up on Senator Simons’ question. Farmers need to see there are benefits in the long term when you look at changing the way they are managing their soil. Because of climate change, what policy mechanism would encourage farmers to sequester carbon in agriculture soils, and how can we convince them?
The Chair: We have one minute.
Mr. Burton: Maybe I can start with that. The transactional costs associated with carbon trading often make soil carbon storage financially problematic.
It’s basically a risk management strategy: By increasing soil carbon, we’re reducing the risks of weather impacts. Our business risk management packages within Agriculture Canada are maybe one of the ways in which we can encourage producers to avoid risk proactively, rather than simply compensating for the impacts of weather. We can use that to encourage practices that will reduce the potential for future risk.
The Chair: Does anyone else wish to respond very quickly?
Moving on, I have one question for each of you. It’s the same question: If you were the authors of our final report, what would your first recommendation be?
Mr. Burton: We need to measure more.
The Chair: Thank you. Dr. Heung?
Mr. Heung: I would think data sharing, addressing issues of data sharing, data privacy and how that relates to industry and their willingness to share data. In other words, coming up with a clear business case to the different industry sectors and communicating that effectively, but at the same time also investigating the different policy tools that government has that they can use to promote data sharing.
The Chair: Thank you. Dr. Lynch?
Mr. Lynch: Measure more, but link it back to a refined understanding of how specific management practices are changing that soil health and soil carbon.
The Chair: Thank you.
Moving into second round, we have three senators who have questions. We have 10 minutes left.
Senator Simons: This question is for Dr. Burton and Dr. Lynch. When we talk about soil health, we talk about cover crops as one measure of repair. When you have soil that’s been seriously depleted, what are the methods to bring it back to functionality? Carbon sequestration might help a bit. What do you have to do to jump-start soil that’s been played out?
Mr. Lynch: We can see examples of that where the topsoil has been degraded, and the productivity of soil has been degraded, and you are in a real remedial action needed.
There have been discussions in our region of how we can link to — I know previous panel discussions have been about this — integrating compost that may be available regionally as a remedial strategy to increase organic matter more quickly. That’s perhaps one intervention that can be considered, although you have to look at the quality of that compost, the trucking and all the other considerations.
Cover crops — I have done a lot of work looking at the agronomic benefits to the next cash crop — but it can be a slow process of increasing organic matter with a cover crop. Perennials are a better intervention if we really need to remediate that soil and build back biological activity, soil organic matter and the structure of that soil because, if it’s really degraded, all of those functions, the physical functions, water holding, root growth, everything is being affected.
It’s all about organic matter, but it is how you do that. What’s the cropping, or what’s the amendment to bring that in?
Senator Simons: Yes. Magic beans will not fix this.
Mr. Lynch: Right. Cover crops have their place. But if it’s a serious degradation issue, then we have to look at combined best management practices to intervene with.
The Chair: We have less than a minute, Dr. Burton.
Mr. Burton: Maybe I can simply add, diversify our rotations and reduce our disturbance. That’s one of the things that Western Canada has succeeded in doing. That helps the soil retain that organic matter, in addition to Derek’s comments.
The Chair: Thank you. One of our colleagues didn’t have a chance in the first round. Senator Duncan, we will limit it to four minutes, and then the other ones coming up will be three.
Senator Duncan: Thank you, I appreciate it. This may be a quick reference back to the textbook, but it’s for Dr. Heung.
I wanted to ask about the gaps in data management. You mentioned that there is data throughout Canada. You continually said, “across Canada.” I’m wondering where the gaps are in soil mapping and in the data. Is there a map? Is there a list that shows us where we’re missing the information?
Mr. Heung: Great question. One of the biggest tasks of our group is to do an inventory of where all this data exists. You are from the North. We are missing a lot of data from the North.
Over the course of the hearings, we have heard the constant mantra of “we need more data.” Yes, I would agree with that. But at the same time, there already is a lot of data out there. We might not be looking in the right places or talking to the right people.
Much of the discussion has been centred around agriculture and forestry, which makes perfect sense, as this is what this committee is about. However, again, I think a wealth of data can be sourced from the mining, gas and energy sectors. For example, whether we agree or disagree with it, oil pipelines are constantly being proposed. Environmental impact assessments are constantly being conducted. Through that process, there is a lot of soil data that’s being collected. This process generates a wealth of soil information that could then be used to improve our understanding of soil health at the national level.
There needs to be a concerted effort to inventory all the data sources that are out there, beyond agriculture and forestry, so we can answer that question as to where our gaps in coverage are.
Senator Duncan: Thank you.
Senator Klyne: I want to go back to my original question and also build on Senator Marwah’s. I’m missing something here.
I have heard a number of things — measure more, data management, sharing that — I also heard the reference to federated and national role. When I think about federated and national role, I start to think about federalism, the federal government, the provincial and territorial governments all needing to collaborate on this.
The thing that I just can’t get my head around is — I think Dr. Burton mentioned the Soil Conservation Council of Canada. You have groups like that which are trying to get a hold of some way to do further research and collect data, because soils all across this country are so different region to region to. Is there some barrier here that I’m missing as to why you and, say, the Soil Conservation Council of Canada are not collaborating and coordinating the efforts here?
You talk about financial resources. It seems to me if I were sitting in a federal, provincial or territorial seat, I would want to bring you together, find some financial resources — and pull in industry as well — to make all this happen.
What am I missing here?
Mr. Burton: I don’t think you are missing anything. I think those organizations, the Canadian Society of Soil Science, the Soil Conservation Council of Canada, would like to do just that; they just don’t have the funding. I think it is about the resources to do that.
Senator Klyne: Here’s the leverage. We need to figure out soil health and how to stave off soil degradation. We should be able to rally around that. Thank you very much.
The Chair: It appears that all of the questions have been asked and answered. Thank you to our witnesses today, Dr. Burton, Dr. Heung and Dr. Lynch. Your assistance as we proceed with this study is appreciated. We appreciate you keeping an eye on what we’re doing. Thanks again for your contributions today.
I want to thank our committee members for your active participation and thoughtful questions.
As always, I would like to thank those who support us from behind: our colleagues, staff members, interpreters, the Debates and Publications team who are transcribing the meeting, committee room attendants, multimedia individuals and the recording centre, our page, our clerk and her team. Thanks again to everyone.
Colleagues, our next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, October 25, at 6:30 p.m. Eastern time, when we’ll continue to hear from expert witnesses with respect to this study.
Senators, we will proceed in camera.
(The committee continued in camera.)