THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Tuesday, February 13, 2024
The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry met with videoconference this day at 6:30 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: Good evening, everyone, and happy Canada’s Ag Day. It’s good to be meeting for the Agriculture and Forestry Committee on Canada’s Ag Day. It was a great day today across the street, with a number of speakers about food for our future, so that was the topic of discussion today.
I would like to begin by welcoming members of the committee, our witnesses and those watching the meeting on the web. My name is Rob Black, senator from Ontario, and I chair this committee. Before we start, I would like to ask our senators to introduce themselves.
Senator Simons: Senator Paula Simons, Alberta, Treaty 6 territory.
Senator Burey: Sharon Burey, senator for Ontario.
Senator Cotter: Brent Cotter, senator from Saskatchewan, Treaty 6 territory.
Senator Oh: Victor Oh from Ontario.
The Chair: We will continue our study on soil health in Canada. For our first panel on urban soil landscaping, I am pleased to welcome, from the Canadian Nursery Landscape Association, Mr. Alan White, Vice-President and Climate Change Adaptation Chair; and from the Canadian Ornamental Horticulture Alliance, Mr. Phil Paxton, past president, who will be joining us by video conference. Mr. Paxton is from Calgary.
Good to see you both again, gentlemen. It has been a few weeks. Nice to see you. I would invite you to make your presentations. Mr. Paxton will speak first, followed by Mr. White. The floor is yours, Mr. Paxton.
Phil Paxton, Past President, Canadian Ornamental Horticulture Alliance: Good evening. Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear this evening and discuss soil health in Canada.
I’m Phil Paxton, past president of the Canadian Ornamental Horticulture Alliance, or COHA. I am a farmer and a landscape contractor from Alberta.
COHA is a working alliance of three not-for-profit organizations that represent the Canadian ornamental horticulture value chain.
This is our first time appearing before the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, so please allow me to describe our sector.
We are farmers, and we grow plants, such as potted and cut flowers, sod, shrubs and trees. We grow them outdoors and in greenhouses. We also grow food stock, such as vegetable seeds, vegetable seedlings and fruit trees. All in all, the sector grows thousands of different kinds of plants in all sorts of soil and weather conditions across Canada. Many of our plants live for 100 years.
The Canadian ornamental horticulture sector is the sixth-largest crop in Canada and the tenth-largest agricultural product.
We are a major contributor to the Canadian economy with farm gate sales of $2.58 billion in 2022. As well, we exported over $906 million in ornamental horticulture products primarily to the United States, and that number comes from 2022.
We are also an employer of 220,000 people, 110,000 of which are full-time positions throughout the value chain.
I think we can agree that soil is the foundation of our ability to grow plants, and it is a critical tool in climate adaptation and mitigation. Healthy soil equals healthy plants. Healthy plants equal a healthy planet, and a healthy planet equals healthy soil.
We are farmers constantly striving to improve our soil management practices so that our plants grow faster and stronger, with less pesticides and irrigation. Our businesses depend on it.
We do this through significant investments in research and grower-level adoption. The federal government does not have any research expertise on ornamental horticulture, so the onus is on us to find researchers to help us develop practices that are more environmentally sustainable.
When you think of ornamental horticulture plants, you might think of celebrations, holidays, gifts, a contributor to good mental health, fitness, improved indoor and outdoor air quality, the beautification of backyards and the creator of wildlife habitats for pollinators. But our plants also contribute to soil improvement, prevention of soil erosion, land stability, water filtration, flood abatement, green city spaces and reduced urban temperatures.
Because of the longevity of ornamental horticulture products, like trees that live for more than 100 years, their contribution to rural and urban soil health is continuous. Again, healthy soil equals healthy plants.
We undertake on-farm practices, such as planting cover crops and introducing soil amendments. We do this to enhance soil health.
In addition, ornamental horticulture plants and best management practices can contribute to a resilient rural and urban environment, and contribute to Canada’s domestic and international climate change goals.
Our plants help other agricultural sectors improve their on‑farm soil health through plantings that stabilize soil from water and wind erosion. For example, planting along water, such as rivers and lakes, creates riparian zones that provide wildlife habitats, prevent nutrient runoff and protect the loss of valuable soil.
By restoring balance to ecosystems, the sector supports agricultural efforts to reclaim unproductive lands.
Our practices and plants can also help urban areas improve soil health as well as contribute to the mitigation of climate change. After all, 80% of the Canadian population lives in urban areas. For example, residential gardens, green spaces and tree‑lined streets can contribute to improved urban soil health.
Finally, plants and services are utilized to remediate or improve degraded soils in both rural and urban areas. For example, mine tailings and coal-fired generator emissions degrade the soil health of surrounding areas. Ornamental horticulture plantings can promote remediation by removing toxins, chemicals and heavy metals, thereby improving soil quality.
My colleague Mr. White will provide specific examples of how the ornamental horticulture sector can positively impact soil health.
In conclusion, COHA recommends the following: First, the Canadian government should take into consideration the role of plants and beneficial management practices as they establish policies and regulations to improve soil health and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Second, policies need to improve an appropriate balance between adaptation and mitigation programs, and encourage synergies between agricultural sectors as well as between rural and urban environments, while providing appropriate funding and technical support.
Finally, research is needed to promote innovative technologies and practices, and to support their adoption.
Thank you very much, Senate, for allowing me to speak tonight, and I welcome your questions.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Paxton. Now we’ll hear from Mr. White.
Alan White, Vice-President and Climate Change Adaptation Chair, Canadian Nursery Landscape Association: Thank you very much. My name is Alan White, and I represent the Canadian Nursery Landscape Association, or CNLA, as the Chair of the Climate Change Adaptation Committee. Thank you for this opportunity to appear before you today to speak about the critical importance of soil health in urban landscapes.
CNLA is a national not-for-profit federation of nine provincial landscape and horticulture associations representing over 4,600 member companies across Canada. Ornamental horticulture is the sixth-largest crop in all of agriculture, and our industry currently represents over $14 billion in economic impact, creating and maintaining more than 220,000 full-time equivalent jobs for Canadians.
Our value chain, as Mr. Paxton alluded to, starts with our primary producers: our farmers — the people who grow our trees, plants, grasses and ornamental horticulture products, both on farms and in greenhouses. Their products eventually supply our retail garden centres and landscape design, build and installation companies across Canada.
Soil is the foundation of our ability to grow plants, and it plays a critical role in climate adaptation and mitigation. As Mr. Paxton said, soil is a living substance, and healthy soils equal healthy plants, which equal a healthy planet and people. In short, soil is life.
Our farmers ensure the healthiest crops by investing first in the soil. To ensure the growth of strong and healthy specimens, there is constant research, testing and amending or augmentation of the soil. Only then can the products of ornamental horticulture be used in a variety of ways in our urban settings.
As Mr. Paxton identified, it is well known across Canada and around the world that more Canadians than ever are living and working within our cities, but cities are not conducive to natural growth, where nature-based solutions are needed most. By incorporating green spaces, such as parks, gardens and green corridors, cities can provide habitats for a variety of plant and animal species. Our plants provide various ecosystem services that are vital for human well-being. Trees, lawns and vegetation in urban areas help mitigate air pollution, regulate temperatures, reduce the urban heat island effect, and contribute to stormwater management and carbon sequestration, thereby mitigating the impacts of climate change. This is much harder to support without healthy soils.
In consideration of the dedicated efforts of our farmers — who invest time, resources and research into cultivating the soil to foster these robust plants that include the pollinators and grasses — we acknowledge the many benefits these products provide our urban areas, as enumerated above. However, it is imperative to recognize that expecting vibrant plant life to flourish in depleted dead soils is unrealistic.
Urban soils — found in cities and in urban areas — are primarily associated with residential, commercial and industrial land uses. They generally support built structures and roads, and are often modified and compacted due to construction and urban development requirements. Furthermore, they regularly contain higher levels of parent subsoil materials and possible contaminants, such as heavy metals and pollutants, compared to agricultural and forestry soils. The same dry, compacted, dead soil that’s used to support buildings and roads cannot support and sustain life.
Increased awareness about the importance of soil health and its role in urban sustainability is crucial in addressing this issue. While there are areas where efforts to combat the degradation of urban soils exist, the mishandling and mismanagement of this valuable resource continues. Efforts to combat soil degradation in urban environments include sustainable urban planning and soil conservation measures, which include how we handle, store and reintroduce soils into these environments, along with green infrastructure development. There is also the implementation of best management practices for construction and landscaping — the use of the Canadian Landscape Standard.
The Canadian Landscape Standard was developed and managed by the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects and the Canadian Nursery Landscape Association joint committee. The most recent revision includes “Section 5 — Growing Medium.” This section defines the baseline conditions for growing media that ensure successful plant survival and establishment in these environments.
We ask this committee to consider the current soil protection legislation in place in Canada, and to review and determine gaps, barriers and opportunities extending to urban soils.
Cities require special care to be put into the soil which will support the growth of green infrastructure. This, in turn, will reduce our carbon and mitigate the very real concerns of flooding, erosion and urban heat islands. We ask the government to provide support for the development of nature-based solutions by ensuring urban landscapes have soil that is capable of sustaining life.
Thank you again for this opportunity to speak with you on the special needs and impacts of urban soil. CNLA is committed to working with this committee to ensure a better understanding of urban soils, its impacts and its implications for human health and well-being, as well as its effect on climate adaptation. We are available to this committee and, frankly, would welcome the opportunity to consult further.
Thank you. We would be happy to answer any questions.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. White.
We’ll proceed with questions. Before we do, I will remind you that you have five minutes — we’ll go to multiple rounds as needed — for your question, or questions, and the answers. Again, one minute left will be indicated by the hand up, and two hands up will mean it’s time to move on.
With that, I’ll move to our deputy chair for her question.
Senator Simons: Thank you very much to both of our witnesses. I find this absolutely fascinating because, of course, we’ve been focused primarily on agricultural soils, but urban soils are, obviously, important to be healthy — helping us with water management and heat management. Yet, where I live in Edmonton, I’m seeing many people ripping up their lawns and putting down hard surfaces, whether that’s AstroTurf or some kind of concrete paver, because I think they believe a lawn is wasteful in terms of water use, and it’s bad for the environment.
What are some practices that urbanites could be employing in their home landscaping that would allow us to create better healthy urban soil?
Mr. Paxton, I live in Edmonton in Zone 4. Can I have a thyme lawn? Would that work for me?
Mr. Paxton: That’s a great question. I assume you would like me to start because I’m from Calgary. I’m in Zone 2.
Senator Simons: That’s right, yes.
Mr. Paxton: I’m Zone 2; you’re Zone 4.
The urban environment is a challenge, and it is difficult to get education into people’s hands, but the urban heat island effect is real, and people who live in cities know that. One of my favourite sayings is “If you see a bench and there is no tree over the bench, there aren’t many people sitting on that bench. However, if there is a tree over the bench, that shade is used by everybody, and there is even a lineup for that bench.”
To get back to your question about how urbanites can actually live in the city and help reduce the urban heat island effect, one of the worst things they could probably do is replace green with grey. Grey infrastructure, or concrete or asphalt infrastructure, increases the urban heat island effect. Our message is don’t do that. Do whatever you can to keep living with green infrastructure or nature-based solutions where you live.
One of the ways we’re encouraging people to do that is to store the water that they gather on their own private lawns. You can use things such as rain barrels, and then you use those rain barrels to water your grass. We know that the green industry has solved many flooding and heat effects.
I do understand that the question you pose is a challenge for all of us to recognize that pulling out green infrastructure and putting in grey infrastructure is a bit of a trend. We’re hoping that with better education and access to more information about the dangers of doing that, we can introduce some of the old solutions from nature that can help reverse that trend.
I don’t know if you want to add anything to that, Mr. White.
Senator Simons: Can I have a thyme lawn? That is my question.
Mr. White: Certainly, you can have a thyme lawn, as long as you don’t invite the whole neighbourhood over to play soccer on it. It doesn’t like the foot traffic as much.
I’m from southern Ontario, and, frankly, I am a turf manager by training. Lawns and turfs are my expertise, whereas Mr. Paxton is certainly on the tree side. Any ground cover — thyme, grass and all the way up to the tree canopy — is part of that soil structure support.
Living plants do a couple of things when they engage with soils, and most people don’t realize that grass is a key one. Grass has an incredible root system and stores 80% of its carbon in the soil. It also introduces a huge amount of root and organic matter in that capacity, whether it’s natural grasslands or as we move into cities — that gets amplified.
This is the other piece that all plants do, which most people don’t realize: It’s the means and mechanism that actually injects the nutrients, water and oxygen into the soil surface that allows it to be living.
It’s a symbiotic relationship that works back and forth between both. When the soils are dead, that is greatly reduced. Having any plant material, as Mr. Paxton alluded to — but particularly grasses or things that will make use of the significant small green space where trees don’t reside — is way better than grey infrastructure, for sure.
Senator Simons: No one is going to give me a thyme lawn.
Mr. White: No.
Senator Oh: Thank you, witnesses, for joining us tonight. What are the economic, environmental and social benefits of ornamental horticulture products? What is the benefit to our society? My question is for anyone.
Mr. White: I can start, and Mr. Paxton can fill in.
The entire value chain is life. Senator Black was at COP 28 in Dubai, and it’s a new conversation since Glasgow, where plants and nature-based solutions are at the core of the problem. When horticulture products are put into people’s hands, it allows people the ability to engage in the intersection of carbon, from sustaining life and providing clean air back to its residents or those who participate, and also as we keep talking about heat mitigation.
It’s the trans evaporation of water and water management: Instead of our traditional planned infrastructure of moving water as quickly as possible away from human habitat, it’s about bringing water back to human habitat through landscape design and the inclusion of plants with a specific application, which is the evolution of grey infrastructure to green infrastructure. A lot of the same technical aspects are being considered when you’re implementing green infrastructure, but you’re really looking at the nature-based solution aspect of it in order to see where you can draw from nature and bring it into a city, and it will allow those benefits to transplant themselves, essentially, into it.
The shortcoming of it all is when we hear “nature-based solutions,” it is a widely used term, and cities are very unnatural by nature. When you bring a plant into that environment, it’s critical that the design has the capability to support that life, which comes back to the power of soil.
Mr. Paxton can speak from the farm perspective — and landscape contractor in the greater Calgary area — and participating in the Bow River Project after the big flood in Calgary. Plants on farms do really well, which is what we have learned in how we nursery grow these plants to bring them to market — they have high survivability. We introduce them into cities where there is high pollution, compaction, heat and poor subsoil, and these natural living things struggle greatly; the mortality rate of plants in cities is significant. The challenge is how to change that variable versus just planting more and more stuff. From the farm gate perspective, it is excellent because we’re moving more plants. From a sustainability perspective and a human health impact perspective regarding climate adaptation, it’s not a good equation.
That’s how the whole value chain — because it represents everything from the farm all the way through to these very unnatural environments — is the key conduit to bring nature-based solutions to Canadians.
Senator Oh: I travelled to Singapore, and I saw buildings that had plants dripping down on the outside walls.
Mr. White: I wish that could happen here.
Senator Oh: How effective are those here?
Mr. White: It’s effective in those climates, for sure, but they’re not dealing with Canadian winters and the extremes of our growing zones. Then, when you move a plant to the side of a building where it’s greatly exposed, it becomes a lot more difficult in climates like ours.
There is lots of research and innovation that applies to our climate. Some of it may be drawn from environments like Singapore, but we are very adaptable. Again, it comes from our farms, our survivability and the businesses there in horticulture, and then transfers very rapidly — through these partnerships not only in the Canadian Ornamental Horticulture Alliance which Mr. Paxton is representing, but also through the Canadian Nursery Landscape Association and the Canadian Landscape Standard, we have the ability to shorten some of these gaps.
Senator Oh: Thank you.
Senator Cotter: Gentlemen, I want to pose to you two different scenarios and find out whether we did the right thing. When my then-wife and I moved to Regina a number of years ago, she ripped out the whole lawn in the neighbourhood — it was a neighbourhood filled with judges and lawyers —
An Hon. Senator: Are you get consulting advice here?
Senator Simons: Get in line behind me.
Senator Cotter: — and changed it to, kind of, a xeriscape lawn. The next-door neighbour was a judge; he came over, and when he looked at it, he said, “You could sue the city for the way they have ripped up your yard.” But it was a plan. She xeriscaped it. We don’t have thyme, but we had barley and oats growing in our front yard. Were we doing the right thing in Regina?
Mr. White: I’ll let Mr. Paxton start with it, and I’ll finish with it.
Mr. Paxton: Boy, that’s a difficult one to answer, isn’t it, because I could be setting myself up as a target from your wife, so I’ll try to be careful. Xeriscaping is a really good solution in areas where water is of short supply. The short answer to your question is this: On the face of it, yes, it’s a really smart thing to do, especially in areas where you do not have consistent rainfall and, when it does come, it comes in large batches, like it does in Regina or Calgary. You get a big flood, and then you have nothing for 30 days. So the short answer to your question is that xeriscaping works very well in that environment.
If I may, rather than addressing it about your own lawn, I would like to make it broader: Putting the right plant in the right place for the right reason is vital in the city. As Mr. White mentioned, it’s an unnatural environment, and for our cities to actually work — and to answer the previous question around economic and social issues — I can’t imagine the cities that you’ve seen in videos and movies, with cities of the future where there is no green. You just see high-rises, and you see flying cars, and you don’t ever really see a backdrop of any green. Those environments are unnatural, and they’re not places where humans will thrive.
We need to make sure the cities of the future have green infrastructure in them, and this was said before: If it weren’t for the plant material in the city, we wouldn’t have the clean air that we breathe. In many cases, the green that grows in our cities is the lungs of the city. From an economic —
Senator Cotter: Mr. Paxton, can I interrupt you and move on from that? You have invited my second scenario about green in the city. The next question is whether we did the right thing in this next scenario, and whether it is replicable in meaningful ways.
I was involved in raising money to expand the law school at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. To get the gold standard from the Canada Green Building Council, we built a green roof on the addition. Were we doing the right thing? Is that capable of being meaningfully replicated in cities across our country?
Mr. White: In regard to green roofs, as Mr. Paxton said, it is about the right plant in the right place. This is always a double-edged sword in a city because it is a significant problem with the plant’s capacity to cool and to sequester carbon, and to mitigate the environment around it. There is a saying we have: “Rainforests exist because of the forest, not because of the rain” — where you have forests and trans evaporation and cooler environments. Xeriscaping in a hot environment makes sense, but there is also a balance when we move into cities. The reason it doesn’t rain in the city is because of the heat. The way to cool a city is to introduce plants and to have water available to it — in balance — to start to find the precipitation.
It’s an adaptation, but, at the same time, can we — through green infrastructure and urban planning design — actually play a positive influence versus having a reaction, which is why we see many municipalities ripping out landscapes because they don’t have water. We see that as compounding the problem because you’re taking away the very thing that could mitigate your environment.
Senator Burey: Thank you for being here. Thank you for showing the complexity of this issue. On your website — this question is for both of our witnesses — you stated that your products can help mitigate climate change. I’m reading from the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change to reduce emissions in Canada, specifically about agriculture. For that framework, one of the pillars is planting trees. Are you captured in that framework — you heard about the 2 Billion Trees program and where we are on that. Are you part of that initiative?
Mr. White: I can start with the short answer and the long answer, and let Mr. Paxton finish it. We both participated in conversations with this government on the 2 Billion Trees program. We were successful in getting about 10% of the resource allocation to urban areas, which was consumed in a nanosecond.
Again, urban environments are a real challenge because most people see that it is way more expensive to bring a plant in at a size that’s survivable — and then what is also more important in a city is the entire package, not just planting the trees. Around our table, all the time, the constant conversation is that we would rather plant a million trees that survive than plant 100 million trees that die. We will have a far bigger impact on their future.
For a lot of technological innovation, we’re trying to fix a lot of these things, but, at the same time, it all comes back to soil. As I said in my opening remarks, soils in the city are the last thing that’s thought about as it relates to infrastructure, other than to be able to support the cities that we are building. This dates all the way back to the way we manage stormwater and move it away from the landscape versus keeping it in the city. We try to bring it, as quickly as possible, back to our lakes and rivers, which completely dries up the aquifers that are the support mechanisms not just for the plant that is there, but for the entire microfauna and biodiversity that exists within the city to support itself.
I will pass it to Mr. Paxton who is also a government relations chair and was a significant participant in the 2 Billion Trees conversation.
Mr. Paxton: The unfortunate part about the 2 Billion Trees program is it wasn’t put into the department that we work under, which is the Department of Agriculture. It was put under Natural Resources Canada, or NRCan, and 90% of the money put aside for those 2 billion trees went to the forests and not the urban environment. The amount that was assigned, as Mr. White said, was taken up basically in a couple of seconds.
We are heavily involved in advising. We sat with NRCan and gave them some ideas about how they could pursue some success in that area. It has been a good conversation between NRCan and our industry.
It would be great if the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada were more involved with this program so we could, perhaps, put more of the trees in the places where people live.
Someone said to me once, “The forest plants 2 billion trees all by itself every year, but we need those trees where people live, and that is the big challenge.”
You bring up great points around the sustainability goals. I do not know that cities can continue to be sustainable unless we set aside areas where we can collect the stormwater.
As you can see with the snowpack that we have this year and the threatened droughts, we need to look after our stormwater, and have these transitional zones between stormwater management and plantings. I see your hand up, Senator Black, thank you.
We need to encourage more stormwater management within cities and more plantings between the stormwater areas and where people live. It will be great for where people live and walk, and will be good for our climate.
Thank you for the question. It’s a good question.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I have a few questions now. Our plan is to table a report out of this study sometime in the middle of the year. Senate reports are directed at the federal government — that is a given — but it’s our hope that it might resonate with provinces and municipalities.
What are some things you would like us to capture around recommendations to municipalities, if we were to include those in our report? We might start at the federal government, but since the folks that you work closely with are municipalities — and your members do that — what should we mention about soil health and city and urban health when it comes to our report?
Mr. White: I would start right off the bat with the Canadian Landscape Standard, and the work that has been put into the soils piece of that document, which was introduced to support all the plant requirements that are within the rest of the document.
Thank you for allowing us to be here today because of the importance of urban landscapes on our population.
The best example draws a little bit into the previous question as well. This is the best example I can give of what happens in cities: We know well what the greenhouse effect is. The greenhouse effect within a city is as real as a greenhouse is in growing. It is a glass envelope that traps in the greenhouse whatever is inside the greenhouse, and it keeps whatever is outside of the greenhouse outside of it.
Imagine 1,000 Canadians living within the greenhouse, measuring the air quality within that greenhouse, and having it deteriorate with heat, pollution and CO2 levels — and then having the idea to go plant 1,000 trees outside the greenhouse before going back into the greenhouse to see if anything changed. It didn’t. It just gets worse and amplifies. Who suffers? It’s the people who live within the greenhouse. The greenhouse needs to have the trees planted in the greenhouse, not in the forests and outlying areas — that are not subject to all these pressures — where we can grow them.
As Mr. Paxton was alluding to, we are looking at the 2 Billion Trees program, as well as what we are going to introduce to NRCan and how many trees Canadians actually planted that are not counted. It is a significant number, but, more importantly, that is the power of what Canadians are doing. If we were going to make a recommendation to be a part of the study, it would be to go back to where the soil health starts. What is transferable from what we know in agriculture and allowing plants to live? What is missing? What are the gaps within cities?
How can we improve the Canadian Landscape Standard, and how can we get that into procurement and education? I heard it mentioned earlier: “How do we educate to put a thyme lawn in my backyard and have it survive?” It all comes back down to soil. Mr. Paxton, do you have anything to add?
Mr. Paxton: It’s a great question, Senator Black. If I had a magic wand and could impact what your report would say, I would probably have two or three recommendations for you.
I would really like to embed in Canadian policy — as it relates to planning in cities — a basic standard that allowed a percentage of the land mass used for living green infrastructure. In that living green infrastructure, at a base level, that absolutely includes soil health. This committee is studying soil health. Without soil health, we can’t have the things in the city that Mr. White talks about in order to try to help with the urban heat island effect. Having policies that are embedded in planning would be the first thing I would ask you to include.
The second is that as we start to find more and more climate challenges come our way, we are going to have to adapt. We are going to have to mitigate. For example, one of the senators asked about green roofs, and if they are valid or not. That is an adaptation technique that has been developed, and it actually gives the first question some credence: “Can I have a thyme lawn?” On the roof of that building, there would be thyme growing there.
If we had the ability to have some government funding to look at how to do mitigation and adaptation policies — to help all of us be greener — in the form of things like tax credits, that would be a fantastic way of getting, at the homeowner level and at the building owner level, some changes that would actually allow us to mitigate and adapt to the climate that is coming our way.
As I come to the end of my time, the third thing that I would ask you to include would be funding for research. Research is badly missing on what actually creates great soil and great living conditions for trees. As Mr. White said, it is way better to grow a million trees that live than to plant 100 million trees that don’t, and the basis of that is soil. Extra research is what I would be asking for, Senator Black. Thanks for the question.
The Chair: Thanks very much.
Senator Klyne: Welcome to the guests. I am sorry that I missed your opening remarks, but what I have heard so far is pretty exciting and engaging.
Mr. Paxton, we can agree that producing and selling healthy trees starts with healthy soil. Trees are the superstars of carbon capture due to their size and longevity. However, as the soil is exposed to the carbon, it can degrade its quality. What are some of the techniques you use to repair the soil in between tree harvesting?
Mr. Paxton: It is interesting to hear you say that trees are the superstar of carbon capture. Actually, the superstar of carbon capture is soil. That’s 100% the superstar. As good as trees are, soil is a much better carbon capture tool than trees, even though trees are great and we need to encourage more trees for many of the reasons that I spoke of earlier.
In terms of getting soil so that it continues to be healthy, there are many techniques that we can and should use. For example, my farm is around 40 miles outside of Calgary. We grow trees on that farm. We use an enormous number of things, like cover crops. We put Tillage Radishes, turnips and clover in between the trees. Having animals trample and graze is a great way of improving the soil in the urban or peri-urban area where we grow the trees for the cities.
In cities, you have probably heard the term “wilding.” Some of the wilding that is allowed to happen does improve soils. Allowing plants to grow in that wilding area in the urban environment works very well also.
Soils that deteriorate are often in areas where there is high traffic. Allowing the green areas to stay green — that does not mean we should not have access to them; we absolutely should have access to them — and allowing those riparian zones to do what they do best in nature’s way is one of the best ways of ensuring the soil in the urban environment keeps improving. It will continue to keep improving.
I hope that I answered your question.
Senator Klyne: Thank you, Mr. Paxton.
I sit corrected. I meant to say, “One of the superstars.” Thank you for that.
Mr. Paxton: Okay.
Senator Klyne: Mr. White, I was trying to listen and do something at the same time. Were you talking about Dr. Gilles Lapointe at one point — about how Quebec is furthering things along? Did I miss that? I wanted to ask you a question about that.
Briefly then, in the December 2023 issue of Landscape Trades, Dr. Gilles Lapointe wrote a piece about the role of nurseries in carbon capture, and their role to achieve net zero. He provided the example of how Quebec is further along than other parts of Canada due to their integrated system of private sector and public sector leaders.
Would you be able to provide us with other examples where the knowledge of soil health from the nursery industry is being used to promote soil health in general?
Mr. White: Thank you for the question. I did see that article. I have not read it yet. There is way too much material to always be reading.
One of our leading research facilities is in Quebec out of Université Laval. In Ontario, we have the Guelph Turfgrass Institute, the arboretum with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and everyone else situated in Guelph. With the research and innovation that is coming out, the knowledge base is significant. Again, we have included a lot of that in our standard.
Going back to Senator Black’s question, there is the question of where we can get legislation that helps bring the knowledge into municipalities. We see, over and over, that what we know on the farm regarding how to manage the soil doesn’t transfer into our urban environments — all the way from how we harvest and store the soils to how we reintroduce those soils. By the time they come back, they’ve either been poorly managed, mixed or are heavily compacted. Or they were stored in too big a pile and they are oxygen-depleted, taking all of the life out of the soil. That soil has the right makeup of structure, but it’s missing that living component that allows nutrients, microfauna and everything else to allow for a healthy root system to survive. Those are key areas from the research aspect — that’s what Mr. Paxton was alluding to. How can we do better, and how can we actually play? A big part of adaptation is what the reality is. How do we adapt to that reality?
I’m assuming there are well-thought-out engineering standards around soil so that our roads don’t collapse and our buildings don’t fall over. However, I would almost guarantee there is zero consideration for the living structure that gets put back in after that happens.
Senator Klyne: Thank you.
Senator Simons: I want to talk to you about the whole issue of topsoil. Before I joined this committee, when I thought about people doing their lawns in my neighbourhood, they would get a truckload of topsoil, and they would put the topsoil on, and I would think, “Oh yeah, the topsoil.” I don’t know where I thought it came from — from the topsoil store? Presumably, every time an urbanite gets a load of topsoil, that soil has been removed from its natural habitat.
Can you talk a little bit about how we manage our topsoil resources? Where does that soil come from? If we are taking soil off agricultural land and moving it into cities, what are the consequences of that? How do you make sure that, as you say, by the time the soil arrives in someone’s yard, it is actually living soil and not desiccated dirt, and it can actually do the soil servicing job that you want it to?
Mr. White: I can start from a soil generality perspective — what happens in urban soil. Then, I’m sure Mr. Paxton, as a contractor and a grower, can speak to it in far greater detail.
The biggest reality of soil, again, is that it is living. Soil, like rock, is made up of parent materials that come up toward the surface. These are from hundreds of thousands of years. The top living soil is a combination of organic matter, carbon and the living microfauna that is there. Why is it in the top surface? It’s because of its exposure to our environment and a plant’s ability to set its roots and send carbon back down into it. Then, both through the living phase and the decomposition phase, it introduces the oxygen and organics that only live in that top two feet of soil. Once you get below the top two feet of soil, it is not oxygen-rich anymore. Things cannot live in it at that depth. That is where the plant anchors itself and finds the aquifers. There are roots that go down. Almost all the trees feeding life roots are on the top. All plants, grasses and shrubs are the same way. They are in the top surface. When we scrape these off, in the old days, we used to dig a hole and put the house in it. You can go through the old neighbourhoods, and all the streets undulate. Now we come in and take an entire former agricultural area, bring it all down to the same engineered topography and introduce all the subsoil to the surface. Then, as you drive by, you see the soils stacked and hopefully separated. But when you start to pile them, and depending on how long they are there, they do not get the oxygen.
Now it is about how they are reintroduced. When you buy the soil, they are trying to make up the soil structure so it has the right amount of clay, sand and silt. Then, they are trying to introduce things that will add life into it — in a lot of cases, it’s manures — so that it has a little bit of life and organics to start. But welcome to my world of the urban environment where we introduce these manures and things into the engineered, amended soil, and — guess what — we get the weeds from the swamp or the farm that came into it. That is not a perfect science either.
Again, it goes back to the research and how we can do better. A lot of it actually starts in the development phase. Can we work better with cities and governments in how we implement and manage soils right from the start? I think that, for sure, we can do better so that we are not buying rich, amended soils because the original soil quality was so poor.
Senator Simons: Are you telling me that if I’m buying topsoil, I may not be getting topsoil at all? It is artificially engineered.
Mr. White: It very much depends on the source that it is coming from and the specs. There aren’t a lot of specs. Each farm will be a little bit different, and the silt content of it can be the difference between what looks nice and fluffy when you get it out of the truck versus — three years later — when it’s not supporting life. I teach my students and employees this all the time. Soil is made up of those three structures: sand, clay and silt. Clay is like a box of paper. Sand is like a box of tennis balls. Silt is the thing in between them all. If you have too much paper in a box, and it is wet and you pack it, there are no air spaces. A box of tennis balls is the exact opposite extreme. It’s way too porous, but allows a lot of oxygen through it. The silt fills everything up in between. If you do not get the ratios right, then the soil can succeed or fail. That is what we’re dealing with when we deal with urban soils. On the farm, we are usually not trucking soils in.
I would like to leave it to Mr. Paxton because he works on the construction phase of reintroducing soils, plus he has the benefit of working on the farm.
Mr. Paxton: My quick answer would be that soil is not always soil, and all soils are not equal. To answer your question specifically at a micro level, when you are ordering your soil, you must ask for the supplier to give you the soil analysis. There are four or five metrics in there that you can compare to make sure the soil meets the requirements you need, depending on whether it is for a lawn, tree or vegetable garden at a micro level.
At a non-scientific level, modern-day subdivisions are all laid up. In regard to those piles you see when a new subdivision is put up, it is like you take about 100 acres of land and strip the topsoil off, and 6 to 12 inches of topsoil are put up in a pile. Those piles vary from 30,000 to 50,000 cubic metres, and sometimes they sit there for five years. The soil at the bottom of that pile at the end of five years is pretty well dead. The clay is put on a separate pile. Think about those big scrapers — they are moving the equivalent of five or six dump trucks at a time in the belly of those scrapers. When they are laid up, sometimes they make mistakes: They take clay and put topsoil in with it. Therefore, when we reuse that topsoil in the subdivisions, it is important that the soil also be analyzed to ensure that it has the correct electroconductivity, the correct organics and the correct pH — all of those things are common metrics when we are looking to plant living organisms in the soil.
Oftentimes, half of that pile or more is spread in areas that do not necessarily have to withstand life. But the topsoil that is reused is really important — that is why when Senator Black asked the question of what the committee should be putting in the report, it is to ensure that the policy actually writes in there that the topsoil meets certain standards so that it can withstand life. Thank you for that question. It is a great question.
The Chair: That’s great. Thank you. My question is focused.
In March of 2022, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada announced an investment of nearly $1.5 million for two projects with the Canadian Nursery Landscape Association to help capture some new opportunities for market growth and boost exports. Can you tell us a little more about those projects and how they are related to enhanced soil health? Does that ring any bells?
Mr. White: I will let Mr. Paxton lead with this one since I take them most often.
Mr. Paxton: Yes. Well, Mr. White, that is probably more to do with the Canadian Nursery Landscape Association than the Canadian Ornamental Horticulture Alliance, but the reality is that with regard to that money, you are talking about the AgriMarketing Program. Are you, Senator Black?
The Chair: I am told it was $1.5 million for two projects, and I would like to know more about the projects and how they might relate to soil health.
Mr. White: Again, it is vague.
There are a couple of streams of funding that come into the association — both the Canadian Ornamental Horticulture Alliance and the Canadian Nursery Landscape Association. One is AgriMarketing, and the other is in our research cluster funding, and that is significant as far as, again, specific outcomes.
Some of it is around soil and plant health, and some studies were funded in Quebec around soil health, nutrient leachate and plant performance.
The other one is really for AgriMarketing, which is for export, domestic product placement and reach, and the development of communication and education, both domestically and abroad.
The Chair: Did you get any additional funding with the new Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership agreement from 2023-28?
Mr. White: That is outside of the scope of my climate committee, but I can certainly get the answer to you.
The Chair: I was just curious. It’s all right.
Mr. Paxton: On the one amount of money, I assume it had to do with the cluster research. Some of the projects that were included in that cluster research were projects that were through Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, including projects about the ways to reduce the amount of peat that is used in potting soil, and that cluster is looking for peat alternatives. The idea behind it is to try to maintain high soil quality while reducing our sector’s reliance on peat, and, in the end, it should improve the sector’s environmental performance. That was one of the research projects, Senator Black. There were other turf projects involved in that cluster. In the end, there were seven research projects in that cluster.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Burey: Thank you. I wonder what the demographics of your industry are in terms of who is involved: women, youth, racialized Canadians and Indigenous communities. Do you have any sense of that?
Mr. White: We certainly have a sense of it. We are trying to gather more numbers on it. At the national and provincial levels, we have committees looking specifically at inclusivity, and making sure that we represent the Canadian demographic makeup. We have a long history of providing opportunities for everybody; some of our best freestone masons are from the Indigenous community.
Then, there is the number of women — not just in Canada, but from around the world — and a lot of immigrants who work within the landscape sector, both on the nursery operations as well as in the urban landscape.
Could it always grow? A lot of it has to do with the demographics of those who are immigrating to Canada, and some of the things that are happening for vulnerable communities. We’re trying, through foundation work, to introduce landscape and its importance and relevance to young people in some of the inner cities where there are opportunities. We do volunteer projects where we engage the community to come out and help us. Putting professionals and equipment there is a great way to inspire people sometimes — just to have equipment ready for them to learn how to use. And then there is the power of everything else, and the landscape when it is complete — it just has such a connection to it versus something that is more tactile like a grey infrastructure or a brick wall.
Senator Burey: Yes.
Mr. White: Can we do better? Always. It is a changing demographic in Canada too. Landscaping has been a passion of Canadians for a long time, but for many newcomers to Canada, maybe landscaping wasn’t a pastime. I think that it is an active part of what we’re trying to do. We do have significant committees — I sit on a couple myself — to look at this specific question.
Senator Burey: Any further comments?
Mr. Paxton: The only thing that I would add to that is that we are a young person’s profession. We are open to everybody to join our profession. I believe that we are well represented. If I think about my business, for example, we would have great representation from all of the areas that you talked about. We’re proud of that. We are especially proud of how we connect with young people. We are especially proud of how we connect with rebound young people. What I mean by that is they are people who have taken one career on, but realized it was not necessarily the career that was meant for them, and they find a home with us. That career has a glass ceiling, where you can bring people in and ask them to exchange time for money, and, in that exchange, they learn life skills that will include many things, from handling materials all the way to becoming experts in understanding botanically why plants grow. I found it really invigorating for the last 45 years of being in this sector, working with young people from Canada from all walks of life. It has been extremely rewarding for me. That is an anecdotal answer, I realize.
From the association, all my colleagues feel the same way and talk the same way as well. It is a great opportunity for young people to join.
The Chair: Thank you. Mr. White and Mr. Paxton, thank you for your participation. Your passion shines; it did a few months ago when we met, and it did again here tonight. Thank you for being with us. Your assistance with this study is very much appreciated.
Colleagues, for our second panel on sustainability in regenerative agriculture and building soil health, I’m very pleased to welcome, from North Carolina and the Soil Health Institute, Cristine Morgan, Chief Scientific Officer — nice to see you again, Ms. Morgan. From the Nature Conservancy of Canada, we welcome Melanie Bos, Agriculture Policy Manager — she’s joining us from Pollett River, New Brunswick, by video conference. And from Acadian Plant Health, we welcome David Hiltz, Director, Global Regulatory Affairs, who is joining us from Halifax, Nova Scotia.
It is great to have you all here today. Thank you very much.
I will invite you to make your presentations. As I’ve said before, one hand up means you’ve expended four of your five minutes, and when you see both hands up, it’s about time to wrap it up.
I’ll invite Ms. Morgan to start, followed by Ms. Bos and Mr. Hiltz.
Cristine Morgan, Chief Scientific Officer, Soil Health Institute: Good evening, everyone. I’m pleased to be here today and hear people talking about soil.
Today, what I would like to do is highlight what we know about soil health measurement and assessment based on data collection and analysis from Canada.
I am a soil scientist who spent her formative years growing up on a cow-calf operation in Texas. Watching my parents work with local biologists and conservationists, I learned that agriculture and ecosystem regeneration are compatible.
For 15 years, I was a professor of soil science at Texas A&M University, and became engaged in a global initiative — Soil Security — which led me to join the Soil Health Institute as their Chief Scientific Officer.
The Soil Health Institute is a global non-profit with a mission of safeguarding and enhancing the vitality and productivity of soils through scientific research and advancement. The institute conducts research and outreach to empower farmers with the knowledge to successfully adopt regenerative soil health systems.
Our vision is a world where farmers and ranchers grow quality food and fibre using soil health systems that sustain farms and rural landscapes, promote a stable climate and clean environment, and improve human health and well-being.
To achieve this vision, our team of scientists works to quantify the business case for adopting soil health practices — to identify affordable measurements, provide locally relevant assessment for soil health and integrate all these advances into local, place-based education programs for farmers and their advisers.
The Soil Health Institute’s work in Canada is made possible by strong partnerships with Canadian farmers, scientists, businesses and non-profits. For example, in partnership with General Mills, we conducted partial budget analyses for small grain farmers in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Ontario. Based on farmer interviews, we found that when farmers use a soil health management system, they save an average of US$27 per acre, and their net farm income improves by an average of US$31 per acre.
That is in U.S. dollars. I was going to translate, but many Canadians told me to keep it in U.S. dollars.
Farmers also reported benefits of their soil health management systems, like increased resilience to extreme weather, more timely access to their fields and improved water quality. To identify a minimum suite of cost-effective soil health measurements, the Soil Health Institute evaluated over 30 health indicators on 124 agricultural research sites, where conventional systems were compared with regenerative systems. These sites were located across North America, including 17 sites from Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Ontario.
Site selection enabled statistical assessment of whether the measurements were responsive to soil health-promoting practices. We also assessed measurements of whether they were accessible by commercial labs and interpretable. Based on these results, the institute recommends four soil health indicators: soil organic carbon concentration, carbon mineralization potential, wet aggregate stability and available water-holding capacity.
Together with the Greenbelt Foundation, we are piloting an approach across the Golden Horseshoe region of Ontario to benchmark soil health using these measurements. In this pilot, we provide a regional assessment of soil health, including its current state, improvements already being made with soil health practices and the potential for further improvement.
By measuring soils and management, we will provide producers with insight on how healthy their soil is, and empower them to generate a goal on how healthy they want their soil to become.
After one year of sampling 124 farms, we determined that the current adoption of reduced tillage and cover cropping can increase soil organic carbon, carbon mineralization potential and aggregate stability by 20%. These are great improvements, but we also have evidence that changing management can do even more.
In summary, at the Soil Health Institute, we have evidence that adoption of soil health systems improves on-farm profitability. Successful implementation of soil health management systems requires practice and learning from other farmers who have successfully adopted them.
Lastly, we have demonstrated that it is possible to quantitatively track changes in soil health at the farm, regional and continental scales.
On behalf of my colleagues, partners and fellow scientists, thank you for the opportunity to be here today.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Melanie Bos, Agriculture Policy Manager, Nature Conservancy of Canada: Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for inviting me here today to contribute to your study. I would like to thank you for your leadership in advancing our understanding of the status of soil today and its vital role to Canadians.
I grew up on a hog farm, which is now a dairy operation in southeastern New Brunswick. I’m happy to be here representing a conservation perspective, but I’m also proud of my farming background.
The Nature Conservancy of Canada, or NCC, is the nation’s largest not-for-profit conservation organization. For nearly 60 years, we have worked with partners to help protect more than 15 million hectares across the country.
We are a proud partner of the Government of Canada through the Natural Heritage Conservation Program and the Nature Smart Climate Solutions Fund, among other federal programs. Programs like these allow us to maximize the impact of each dollar by matching funding from our incredible donors, including corporations, philanthropy groups and private individuals.
Protecting and conserving nature means protecting natural areas and the species they sustain, but it also means ensuring ecosystems and landscapes are connected and resilient. Productive and working landscapes are an important element of this, as all areas are important for contributing to biodiversity conservation, not just large tracts of untouched habitat.
The importance of soil in all of this should not be overlooked, yet they often are. Soils hold over half of the earth’s biodiversity. This biodiversity within the soil and the ecosystem services which soil provides play an outsized role in the balance of our planet and the ecosystems upon which we all rely.
NCC works with partners across Canada to build healthier, more resilient ecosystems. In particular, we recognize sustainable agriculture as a solution for increasing biodiversity and contributing to resilient and connected landscapes across our country. After all, we share common ground — the distribution of Canada’s biodiversity is also where our farmland is — so we are working with the industry to demonstrate that agriculture and biodiversity can work hand in hand for mutual benefit, and make for stronger economies, communities and ecosystems.
The Canadian Prairie grasslands are a prime example of agriculture and biodiversity working in harmony. This ecosystem is one of the most endangered on the planet — more than 80% of native Prairie has been converted, and this loss continues. Most of the remaining grasslands are owned and managed by private landowners, mainly cattle ranchers.
What many people may not realize is that grazing is an important process in the functioning of grassland ecosystems. In fact, livestock can play an important, positive role in the environmental stewardship of grasslands.
Maintaining healthy grasslands not only provides critical habitat for migratory birds, waterfowl and many of Canada’s imperiled species, but they also provide a number of important ecosystem services. They are an integral habitat for pollinators, which we rely on for food security; they capture, store and filter water; and they ensure that healthy, fertile soils are not lost to erosion and compaction.
An important one to mention is the carbon that is sequestered and securely stored in the soil and root networks of Prairie grasslands. A 2021 study by several collaborators, including conservation organizations, academic institutions, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and Natural Resources Canada, indicates that protecting our native grasslands is the single most effective nature-based solution available to Canada for mitigating climate change over the next 20 years.
NCC is actively collaborating on the development of mechanisms that reward the conservation of ecosystem services and nature-based solutions. While my example highlights grassland agricultural landscapes, these principles can be translated to other working landscapes across Canada.
Building and maintaining healthy, biodiverse soils allows us to increase food production sustainably, thus reducing the pressure to convert marginal or natural areas. But we’re also seeing farmland lost to urban development across the country. When we lose farmland, we lose the opportunity for protecting biodiversity, climate change mitigation, food security and growing our economy.
The challenges we face, and the commitments we have made to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and to the Paris Agreement in response, necessitate that we come together to find solutions.
In closing, I hope that my message to reinforce the connection between conservation and soil health is clear. Healthy communities benefit from a mosaic of landscapes, including lands used for crop production, animal agriculture and wildlands. All of these benefit from — and rely upon — healthy soil to thrive, and we must take collected, concerted efforts to ensure that Canada’s rich and productive soilscapes are conserved and nurtured now and for future generations.
Thank you. I look forward to our discussion.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Mr. Hiltz, the floor is yours.
David Hiltz, Director, Global Regulatory Affairs, Acadian Plant Health: Thank you, senators. Good evening and thank you for your introduction.
Acadian Plant Health is a success story. Our company is the largest independent marine plant research and development company. Our corporate headquarters are located in Halifax, Nova Scotia, but our global footprint is significant. We span operations in five countries with over 400 employees — the majority of whom are in Eastern Canada. In the simplest of terms, we harvest seaweed, and we create innovative plant extracts with beneficial compounds for use in agriculture.
Our seaweed extracts can contribute to soil health, and ultimately regenerative agriculture, in two ways. First, we have peer-reviewed scientific research that shows an increase in soil mycorrhizal fungi when our extracts are applied to crops. An increase in fungi is a key indicator of improving soil health. Second, our research shows that an application of Acadian’s seaweed extracts results in increased root and shoot biomass. This, in turn, will be converted to soil organic matter, which, as we heard earlier, is another important soil health indicator. Our extracts can also contribute to climate change mitigation through carbon sequestration in the regrowth of the seaweed we harvest and by helping crops thrive in harsher weather conditions. In our view, this is very exciting because it creates a symbiotic relationship between a blue economy in the ocean and a green economy on land.
Through a well-established body of evidence, scientists have been able to document that seaweed extracts have a large potential role in agriculture. Even though our products are used on over 100 crops in 80 countries, the adoption of plant biostimulants, like our seaweed extracts, remains low — utilizing only a fraction of their potential — and, as such, we consider ourselves to be in the early stages of commercialization. Acadian has not yet achieved what you might call mainstream agricultural recognition, but the more we succeed in changing that, the better things become for sustainable agriculture, soil health and our company’s ability to grow and create jobs in Atlantic Canada.
What makes seaweed special? It has been known for millennia that seaweed applications can help plants grow. Seaweed has evolved a unique set of highly unusual biological properties as part of its ability to survive in some of the world’s most stressful conditions. This helps it thrive in variable salinity waters, and withstand temperatures ranging from below freezing to the extreme heat of summer months. It can also survive exposure to the air as tides rise and fall, and it is able to absorb nutrients without the advantage of terrestrial root plant systems. Today’s advances in science and technology have enabled us to understand and isolate the specific molecules involved, which, if extracted properly and consistently, can help crops grow stronger roots, improve nutrient use efficiency, resist drought and remain healthy in the face of other abiotic stresses like salinity or excessive heat.
As I mentioned, seaweed extracts fall into the category of plant biostimulants, which enhance natural processes in plants. Acadian sustainably harvests an especially robust seaweed called Ascophyllum nodosum found predominantly in North Atlantic waters. We manufacture and sell a uniquely stable extract developed through more than 40 years of collaboration with scientists, which began with our founder’s pioneering efforts in the 1980s.
We believe the recognition of the benefits of plant biostimulants to plant production and soil health is at a tipping point. While some of the largest crop input companies in the world are beginning to incorporate plant biostimulants into their portfolios, most growers do not understand the benefits of our extracts, or how they contribute to sustainable agricultural practices.
What can the government do to help support this success story? We believe there should be greater recognition in government programming of the emerging market in biostimulants, and the vast and underexplored opportunities they present for sustainable agriculture. While the Canadian regulatory framework is among the more favourable in the world toward plant biostimulants, the time required for their review and approval is long, which delays their adoption and use. Financial support could be provided for early adopter farmers who help us explore the full potential of biostimulants for the soil and broader environment, as well as aid in the dissemination of information about improved nutrient uptake and other agronomic benefits to producers.
Thank you for your time. I look forward to any questions you might have.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Hiltz. Now we will carry on with questions. We’ll start with our deputy chair.
Senator Simons: Thank you very much to all of our witnesses. That was all very fascinating, but I want to hone in on Ms. Morgan, who has come here from North Carolina.
We’ve been at this study for some time now, and we’ve met so many farmers who are so passionate about regenerative agriculture, and who have become true evangelists for this, but who expressed to us their frustration that they’re not able to convince more of their neighbours to adopt these techniques. We’ve heard over and over again how hard it is for people to adopt the strategies at scale, especially when they don’t have access to affordable carbon mapping and affordable soil. There’s lots of great tech out there, but people are still struggling to figure out what they need to do the smart farming techniques.
I’m really curious to know this, because you work on both sides of the border: What are some American examples of strategies that have worked to convince people that this isn’t just some crunchy granola trendy thing, but that this is something that can be practically beneficial to putting cash in farmers’ pockets?
Ms. Morgan: Thank you for that question. It’s the toughest one out there. Agriculture is culture, and, many times, it’s not technological accessibility. It’s changing culture.
We know that there are a lot of barriers. When you speak with those who have not adopted, or are not interested in adopting, the first thing they’ll say is that it’s not profitable; they can’t afford not to adopt. However, in all of my experiences talking to farmers, generally, they adopt these soil health management practices because they can’t afford to continue going on business as usual. That is a common reason, and that is why we do partial budgets. We’ve done over 150 in the United States, and we just finished the ones in Canada.
In Texas, when we talked to farmers, I worked with a sociologist and an economist, and we looked at groups of farmers and we did interviews. At the end of the day, I was so frustrated because we interviewed the farmers who had adopted, and we interviewed the farmers who had not adopted, and we all heard the same stuff. We heard “a moral responsibility to take care of soil.” We heard “profitability.” We heard all these things, but there were two groups of people doing completely different things. At the very end, we were talking to those who had adopted; I was asking a question, and one of the guys said, “Oh, ask so-and-so. Here is his phone number.” I looked around and said, “Do you all know each other?” Even though this is a part of Texas where they represented five counties, which is a huge area, every one of them knew each other, and every one of them had each other’s phone number. There was a strong mentoring network.
With the sociologists, we went back and looked at the non‑adopting farmers. One of the things we recognized with the language was this is a dog-eat-dog world: “I know the secret sauce to making money. I don’t want to share it.” It was a much more competitive point of view, and it was interesting because the sociologist whom I was working with said, “Yeah, 15 years ago, I published a paper on conservation adoption, and we found that the two most significant indicators of whether or not a farmer had adopted, sadly to say, was whether or not their father was dead and whether they trusted their neighbour.”
It’s really cultural, and I think one of the biggest investments we need today is investment in understanding the sociology. The technology is there. We know what to do. We know that the application of what to do is very site-specific and very local. We’re trying to set up mentoring networks so folks can safely ask others what is working and what is not working.
Senator Simons: I just want to make sure I understand this. If dad is dead, they were more likely to adopt than if dad was alive watching them and saying, “Why don’t you do it the way I did it?”
Ms. Morgan: Yes, ma’am.
Senator Simons: Wow.
Senator Klyne: Ms. Morgan, welcome to Canada — the land of milk and honey.
Ms. Morgan: Thank you. Ottawa is beautiful.
Senator Klyne: There is a “Strategy” drop-down tab on your website that says, “. . . improving soil health increases carbon sequestration . . . .”
Ms. Morgan: Storage.
Senator Klyne: Thank you. You know what I’m saying. It works in Texas too. Your website continues:
. . . reduces greenhouse gas emissions, increases drought resilience, enhances water quality, boosts crop yield, increases nutrient availability, provides pollinator habitat, and suppresses many plant diseases. Yet today, less than 5% of cropland in the U.S. is managed using the basic soil health practice of cover cropping. . . .
This is an exciting initiative you have going on here. Does the Soil Health Institute have other such programs as the one that was initiated last year with farmers in the Greenbelt region of Ontario to test their soil? Do you have other such programs that you could share, and is there a potential for us to roll out a national strategy — call it “CISHN” for “Continuous Improvement of Soil Health Network”?
Ms. Morgan: Yes, we have a lot of examples. The example in Ontario is our Canadian example, but we are currently on year three of benchmarking soil health for cotton-growing soils all across the Cotton Belt of the United States. We’re putting out regional reports and specific farmer reports.
Interestingly, we’re finding similar things: Farmers who have adopted soil health management systems in the Cotton Belt have generally increased their carbon storage by about 20%, but then we can also see that more successful adoption and integration can increase the carbon even more, as well as aggregate stability. Aggregate stability is a good measure for erosion risk and the water and drought resilience components of soil.
Yes, we have examples in the Cotton Belt. We just finished the Des Moines Lobe of Iowa. We’re doing the major dairy regions of the United States, and we’re also rolling out a measurement and benchmarking campaign in the central part of the United States. Our ideas are very scalable but also extremely locally relevant. For every sample we collect from a farm, the farmer gets a soil health report, and their soil is compared to similar soils of similar management and references, like the ideal — how good that soil can look — and then also the baseline of whatever the preponderant practice is in that area.
Senator Klyne: One size doesn’t fit all? It’s tailor-made?
Ms. Morgan: Soils differ across climates, so yes. That is one of the unique aspects of our project. Many folks, scientists especially, will say it’s so hard to quantify soil health, but what they’re saying is soils in different places, different climates and different properties have different capabilities. If you and I trained and were really healthy, we would probably still only have the ability to run a marathon so fast, and any man who’s my age will run a marathon faster than me; soils are similar. They have their basic genetics, and so our program accounts for that. That gets farmers excited because they know their soil is different across their landscape. For us to give them a report for each of their soils, they like that and believe it. It comes with some credibility.
Senator Oh: I have a question for Melanie Bos. How does the conservation of soil health support broader environmental conservation goals? What are the potential consequences of negating soil health in the context of natural ecosystems?
Ms. Bos: Thank you. I’d love to answer that.
This could be approached from a few different levels. I would like to reinforce some of the messages that Ms. Morgan was saying: Regenerative agriculture practices, or practices that build soil health, are a form of biodiversity conservation. When we have healthy soils, it’s providing all sorts of ecosystem services that extend beyond the farm boundary. There are many ecological interactions between the farm system and the broader environment.
When we’re building healthy soils, and reducing chemical inputs or fertilizers or pesticide inputs, and thus reducing the risk of them being lost to the surrounding environment, it’s all reducing the stresses that the surrounding environment and landscape are under, as well as the biodiversity that they support. That’s to address your first question.
A biodiverse and resilient landscape also has inputs and important influences onto the farm. Having pollination areas on your farm directly contributes to pollination of important crops, and it’s not just these on-farm things being in close association with conserved lands. Agriculture being close to other conserved lands is important for pollination services.
We did research at NCC to understand the value of wild pollinator habitats, for example, in contributing to people in terms of nutritional value and farmer income. Our findings showed wild pollinators sustain nearly 24.2 million people in Canada, and generate an annual income of nearly $2.8 billion for farmers. That’s just one highlight, I guess, and while some of these things may seem like small or individual on-farm actions, they can cumulatively create a positive feedback loop where, as I said, these practices are reducing the various stresses to the surrounding environment and the biodiversity that it sustains. This, in turn, brings positive impacts back to the farm through reduced input costs or reduced losses in crop yield. They’re increasing the ability to produce more food on the same amount of land, for example. I hope I addressed your question.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Burey: Thank you so much for being here. My question is directed at Ms. Morgan. In celebration of World Soil Day, you announced the release of the smartphone application Slakes to empower and engage citizens around the world to measure soil aggregate stability, as it’s one of the most common indicators, which you spoke about. Can you tell us a little bit more about that project — what it involves, and what the uptake was like?
Ms. Morgan: We did this North American project to evaluate soil health, and we were picking our measurements. I push this as a scientist regarding what’s the best scientific measurement. We pulled those measurements out, and then we started talking to commercial labs about what they would and would not measure, and none of the commercial labs would measure our absolutely best-performing measurement of aggregate stability. They said it is too hard to do. It is too much labour.
In this project, we were trying this image recognition app that a colleague of mine at the University of Sydney had created, and it worked just as well. One of the things we decided is this needs to be an app, and we need to release it. We released it on World Soil Day. The cool thing about the app is that it is not just something that anyone can use, but it is also published in peer-reviewed science that it works just as well as traditional measurements. So that is really nice.
On the uptake, I have not checked lately, but I think there were 600 downloads at the beginning of January. A lot of labs are starting to use it. We also wrote some script — some code — that they could not use the app; they can do it en masse. We have a couple of labs in the U.S. that we are interacting with to use that app to measure soil health for farmers, and there are a few labs in Canada that we started to talk to who are interested in using it.
This is the way it works: You can get it on your phone. You just pull little pea-sized dirt clods off the top of the soil and put them in water. You start the app, follow the instructions and take a picture of the clod when it is first in the water and then again 10 minutes later. It projects the area, and it counts the number of pixels of how much that clod has dispersed in water. The more dispersed it is, the less water stable it is.
It’s exactly like what the gentleman spoke of before about those silt particles plugging up the pores. When soil is not water stable, it disperses out into mud, and then the mud plugs up the pores and seals the surface.
This is one of the interesting things that happens: It does not matter how healthy your soil is because if the very surface is not in good shape, then after a rainfall, the surface can seal, and it short-circuits the hydrology cycle. Instead of the water going in, it starts to run off and form gullies.
Senator Burey: We saw a little bit of this on our adventures in Guelph, but we also saw it in Calgary, I think.
Because we are talking about measurements and you are a scientist, we have heard from many experts that the devil is always in the details and the standards —
Ms. Morgan: Yes.
Senator Burey: — and then using these measurements to say it is a measurable amount of soil health or carbon capture, and having farmers be rewarded or compensated for this type of best management practice.
How far along are we in that process of getting recognition for the practice in terms of a financial return on investment?
Ms. Morgan: The United States does a lot of payment for practice. What we are really trying to do is encourage payment for outcome, and payment for the reality of improving the soil.
I would love to talk about it. We are short on time. There are many examples that we have seen: In our dairy project where there is payment for practice, the practice is actually realizing a worse situation in aggregate stability specifically than business as usual. It is so important to measure outcomes. That is what we’re all about. We want to make these accessible. All of the measurements are on our website. The standard operating procedures have been developed with commercial labs, and we have a framework for doing this measurement. I agree; if you treasure it, you measure it.
Senator Burey: Thank you.
Senator Dalphond: Thank you to the panellists. This is very interesting.
My question is for the Nature Conservancy of Canada, and it is about the Prairie Grasslands Action Plan.
I understand that about 80% of the Prairie grassland is being used for cultivation, urbanization and industrial development, and there is 20% left. What is the plan? Is it to protect the 20%, or increase the 20%, or do you contemplate that it might even be reduced and maintain sufficient equilibrium?
Ms. Bos: Thank you. I would say that the immediate priority is to try to protect what remains. For our Prairie Grasslands Action Plan, the goal of conserving 500,000 hectares over the next eight years is founded upon primarily the rate of conversion that we are seeing right now, which is around 140,000 to 160,000 hectares per year.
We will also focus on restoring lands that have been converted back to Prairie grasslands. That is also equally important. Yes, I would say the main priority right now is to conserve what is left and then work on bringing back what has been lost.
Senator Dalphond: How do you work with the local communities who are interested to develop and generate more taxes, more industrialization or more real estate taxes, and the preservation of a substantial part of the grasslands?
Ms. Bos: Yes, I can discuss the ways that the Nature Conservancy of Canada works and how we are partnering with the agriculture industry.
First off, a lot of the Nature Conservancy of Canada’s owned lands in the Prairies are actually grazed by local ranchers through grazing leases. That is an important way that we are a part of the community there.
We also support and work with several community pastures in Manitoba and Saskatchewan to help support biodiversity outcomes on these important landscapes. The pastures are the bulk of the remaining intact habitat in the Prairies. The community pastures are significantly important, as well as the members who are maintaining those lands.
Beyond that, we are a delivery partner of the Weston Family Foundation Stewardship Investment Program. This program is helping to address the barrier of the upfront costs of doing stewardship on grasslands. So it supports a range of practices or projects ranging from infrastructure for water or fencing all the way to doing rangeland health assessments and developing plans for how we can increase biodiversity outcomes on that land.
We are also working with industry in several ways. We are supporting and collaborating with the Canadian Cattle Association to identify solutions for making conservation and stewardship of grasslands more economically profitable for farmers so that it can be a successful business model. We are looking at different strategies for doing that.
We are actively involved on the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef. We are a part of the committee that developed the framework for their sustainability.
We have a lot of industry —
Senator Dalphond: I understand that you work in trying to build partnerships. Thank you.
To sum up, I understand that you are trying to work out partnerships with the local communities, the industries and the farmers?
Ms. Bos: Yes, exactly. We’re reinforcing that there is opportunity for greater collaboration and partnership between conservation and agriculture, and that we can work together on mutual solutions.
Senator Dalphond: Thank you.
The Chair: I have a question for Mr. Hiltz. What is the uptake of Acadian Plant Health products among farmers? Is it mostly in Atlantic Canada? Are your products going across Canada? Give me some sense of that.
Mr. Hiltz: Thank you, Senator Black. No, a very small part of our business is in Atlantic Canada. While that is where we harvest all of our seaweed and manufacture our products, the majority of our products are used, I would say, outside of Canada. Our biggest markets would be Europe, the United States and Brazil.
As I mentioned earlier, we sell into about 80 different countries around the world. Some of those markets that have been more progressive, let’s say, to the uptake of plant biostimulants are the ones where you see the biggest adoption by farmers.
As Ms. Morgan had mentioned earlier, it is surprising that many of the younger farmers are the ones who are most interested in using these products. They want to look at new ways of doing commercial agriculture, and not necessarily just following what we’ve done in the past.
We have certainly optimized fertilizer use and plant genetics. We certainly have a whole suite of crop protection products for growers to use. But a lot of that has come at the expense of soil health. That is where a lot of the growers now are starting to look to innovative products such as plant biostimulants, where we can demonstrate benefits on some of the factors that Ms. Morgan was talking about earlier.
Can we improve microbial diversity in the soil? Can we improve soil organic carbon? That is where companies like Acadian are focusing our research now and going out with that message to try to demonstrate to farmers that they can use these products, and still have very productive cropping systems, but do it in a way that is also improving the regenerative agriculture movement as well.
The Chair: I have a question for each of you. You have a pen in hand. Our analyst has given you an opportunity to put two recommendations forward for our final report. What will they be?
I will start with Ms. Bos.
Ms. Bos: Thank you. I would say the first one is something that I mentioned already. Investigating how we can foster better collaboration and partnership between conservation and agriculture communities for soil health outcomes would be helpful in your report.
The second — to build on this — would be to look at soils from a broader lens or systems approach, if you will. It is great to see the emerging work of all the actors across the value chain coming together to unlock financing and market-based solutions that create value from stewarding and providing ecosystem services on farms — rewarding outcome-based practices — but I wonder how we can take these models further and consider the overall landscape to create additive and aggregate outcomes. In your soil health report, considering how these ecosystem services influence the broader landscape off the farm would be a helpful step forward in how we might bring some of these unlikely partners together and consider incorporating land use planning into the emerging work and into federal programs.
I completely agree with what Ms. Morgan was saying earlier; it is culture. Bringing partners together in local communities and bringing farmers together in this way to identify stewardship goals and outcomes on a broader landscape might help reduce the pressure and risk associated with transitioning to some of these on-farm practices, and help everyone understand how specific soil health practices on the farm translate to larger ecosystem interactions and important ecological value. That would be my second recommendation.
The Chair: Thank you. Mr. Hiltz, please share two recommendations for our report.
Mr. Hiltz: One of the big ones I talked about at the end of my presentation is the idea of having the government become more involved in talking about the emerging market for plant biostimulants, and how these types of innovative technologies can be used in commercial agriculture applications going forward to improve sustainable agriculture and benefit soil health and soil regeneration. We have seen this in some of the other regions around the world, where those types of products get mentioned in some of the progressive policies that are being put on the table to try to improve regenerative agriculture and impact soil health.
Mentioning that type of class of products in government policies would help.
Second, there should be some type of financial incentive. I like Ms. Morgan’s comment that it is an outcome-based thing where, again, you see early adopters or growers who are genuinely embracing some of the practices that are required for soil regeneration, soil health and regenerative agriculture being recognized and incentivized to do so.
The Chair: Thank you. Ms. Morgan, please share two recommendations.
Ms. Morgan: First, focus on the culture. Think about dynamic, creative ways to change the culture of agriculture, including mentoring networks, and focus on a net farm income rather than yield.
Second, if you treasure it, measure it. Measure the changes that are occurring across the landscape. I like the idea mentioned before of a national strategy to measure changes in soil health with changes in practice adoption.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Simons: One of the challenges that we have heard again and again from people, especially people who have been the early adopters, is they say, “When the government comes up with an incentive program, it rewards the laggards.” Where is their reward for having taken the chance and pioneering the technique?
You can say to them that the reward is that they have a more profitable farm, but I think that they still feel that their noses are out of joint. I have dubbed it “the prodigal son conundrum.” You have been doing the good thing, and now buddy down the road — down the correction line — does the thing, and he gets a pat from the government and you have gotten nothing.
Are there any examples that you can give us from the American side of the border about strategies that have worked as an incentive for new adopters, and that don’t seemingly penalize the people who were first out the gate?
Ms. Morgan: I think the strategy for new and early adopters will probably be different. The example in the United States is the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities. They have a specific call-out to also reward early adopters.
For the programs that we’re engaged in with early adopters, we’re paying them to be mentors, and we’re developing mentoring networks with them. We are also paying them to measure their soils, because they are that example of where your soil can be today.
Senator Simons: When you say “change the culture,” this is the hard part. Those of us who have had the chance to go out into the field and meet the farmers have met people. I do not want to trivialize the role of religion in people’s lives, but it is really as if they have had a “road to Damascus” moment, and they say, “I did this the way it was always done, and then one day it didn’t work anymore. My soil was too compacted, and my crop yields were down. Suddenly, I was intercropping. Suddenly, I was cover cropping.”
I’m from Alberta, so they all do no-till anyway, but they have adopted other things. I sense their frustration. Some of them said to me, “I hide my more innovative techniques off the road line so that my neighbours cannot see and make fun of me.”
Goodness knows that a bunch of senators coming from Ottawa and telling people that they should change their ways is very unlikely to move minds. I’m from Alberta; you are from Texas. How do you get people to do it?
Ms. Morgan: Find a creative sociologist and marketing strategies. When I drive around in rural Texas and listen to the radio, all of the commercials are about “Add this, get more yield. Be tough. More yield, more yield.”
Senator Simons: Roundup.
Ms. Morgan: There is no one saying, “Have you calculated your recent net farm income? Are you putting too many inputs on your soil? What kind of money are you making?”
I honestly think it’s clever marketing. I’m a scientist, but I have seen clever marketing work.
Senator Simons: If you want people to put seaweed extract on their soil instead of potassium fertilizer, you need to tell them that there is seaweed extract that they can put on their soil instead of potassium fertilizer.
Ms. Morgan: Yes, when I say “marketing,” it is not to sell them something to buy, but to sell a different culture.
Senator Simons: Yes.
Ms. Morgan: You are right. In the United States — I do not know how it is here — we have so many non-operating landowners. They own the land, and they rent it out. We have talked to farmers who have adopted it. On some of their lands that they rent, they are not allowed to no-till and cover crop because it looks trashy, or it doesn’t look like when the landowner’s ancestors tilled the land in the spring. Tilling the land has such a beautiful smell, and it has a look of cleanliness. That is the culture. It’s tough. It’s not easy.
Senator Simons: But you’re right. You could say to people, “You’re spending so much on fertilizer. You’re spending so much on herbicide. You could use soil mapping to only put the fertilizer where you need it. If you use carbon capture techniques, you wouldn’t need as many imported organics.”
Ms. Morgan: There is a quick example: Back in the day, when liming first came out, farmers were very resistant to it because the benefits were spread across the long term. But then measurement and research showed that liming worked. That is a great example for soil health management practices as well.
Senator Simons: Thank you so much, and thank you for travelling to see us.
Senator Klyne: I have a question for Mr. Hiltz, but I want to offer a comment to Ms. Bos.
I want to wish you all the best with conserving more than 5,000 square miles of grassland on the Canadian Prairies. Best wishes especially for improving the soil health for us on those Prairies. Thank you for that.
Mr. Hiltz, I see that Acadian Plant Health has joined the “4 per 1000” Initiative. Can you please tell this committee what the “4 per 1000” Initiative is? Is it being widely adopted? Is it catching on?
Mr. Hiltz: The “4 per 1000” Initiative is something relatively new. I freely admit that I am not that familiar with it. To my understanding, it concerns the idea of putting a certain amount of carbon back into the soil. It is fairly new to us in the company. I believe that is the goal. The initiative is trying to improve carbon sequestration in the soil and contribute to regenerative agriculture.
Senator Klyne: It’s referenced that you have just joined the “4 per 1000” Initiative. Are there five of you on the block or 5,000 in the country?
Mr. Hiltz: Again, I apologize. Another member of the company was looking after this. I can get you that answer, but I won’t even take a crack at it here because I am not well versed in the area.
Senator Klyne: Good. Well, at least you’re engaged.
Ms. Morgan, do you have anything to offer on that?
Ms. Morgan: We’re a member of the “4 per 1000” Initiative. The “4 per 1000” is, on average, across the globe, the estimated concentration of soil carbon that we can increase. It’s a big average and it’s a catchy jingle. The “4 per 1000” Initiative group is global. I think it’s led out of the Food and Agriculture Organization, or FAO. Members meet fairly regularly and discuss different practices that are going on in different countries. It’s an awareness campaign by scientists.
Senator Klyne: Okay. Ms. Bos, are you involved in that?
Ms. Bos: I have heard of it recently, but I’m not aware if the Nature Conservancy of Canada is involved in it yet. I will get back to you on that.
Senator Klyne: You should go and explore some of your FAO work. Thank you, guys.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We have no more questions from our senators.
I thank our witnesses — Ms. Morgan, Ms. Bos and Mr. Hiltz — for your participation today. Your assistance has added greatly to our Senate study. We look forward to sharing with you our report when it’s done.
I also thank, as I like to do, the committee members. Your questions always amaze me. They’re well-thought-out, they’re intense and they’re good questions.
Thank you to the staff who supports us: our office staff, our interpreters, the debates team transcribing the meeting, the committee room attendants, the multimedia services group, the broadcasting team, the recording centre, ISD and our pages.
Our next meeting is scheduled for Thursday, February 15, at 9 a.m. when we will continue to hear from witnesses on the committee’s soil health study. The deputy chair will hold the gavel on Thursday.
(The committee adjourned.)