Soil is Canada’s unheralded national asset: Senator Simons
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Digging up good dirt.
Back in my days as an investigative reporter with the Edmonton JournaI, I thought I knew what that meant. But the really good dirt in Alberta isn’t to be found at city hall or the Alberta legislature. It’s in the rich topsoil which is our province’s greatest resource.
If you look at a map of Canada, you’d be forgiven for thinking that our country must be full of fabulous farmland. Yet only 6.7% of Canada’s landmass is actually suitable for agriculture. Of that, about one-third is found in Alberta.
We need healthy soil to grow our crops and graze our herds, to produce the food we eat and export. But this is about more than economics. Good soil helps to filter and purify our water. Because it has more capacity to absorb water, healthy soil helps to protect us against floods and landslides.
Healthy soil fights climate change, by sequestering carbon. And soil’s organic carbon, in turn, makes the land more fertile and resilient, better able to grow crops and to withstand drought and inundation.
I wasn’t always a soil nerd. But two years ago this month, I walked into the Western Canada Conference of Soil Health and Grazing. And the experience changed my life. I was at the biennial Edmonton event in my capacity as the deputy chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry. Our committee had just begun a study on soil health in Canada. So I came to the conference full of questions.
But rarely have I walked into a room so full of enthusiasts and evangelists: farmers, ranchers, soil scientists, economists and environmentalists, all eager to talk to a city-slicker senator about the soil they tended and studied and loved.
And, oh, how they talked. About the importance of regenerative agriculture. About the environmental role played by the cattle who graze our grasslands. About the value of large-scale composting. And the need for comprehensive soil mapping, and the urgency of establishing genuine carbon markets to trade carbon credits. About the tens of thousands of different tiny soil organisms that are essential for the biogeochemical processes that make possible all life on this planet.
You will find all those ideas, and many more, in our final Senate study, Critical Ground. The report, released this June, explores and explains why soil is essential to Canada’s economic, environmental, human and social health. Our report surveys the state of the soil across the country. Then it delves into topics as diverse as the threats posed by our melting permafrost, to the threats posed by growing microplastic pollution.
The report is also a celebration of the courage and capacity of farmers, ranchers and other producers to innovate, adopt new technologies and adapt to the challenges of climate change.
On December 10, the Western Canada Conference of Soil Health and Grazing returned to Edmonton, for three days of discussion about the future of agriculture, and the path to resilience in the face of environmental and economic change. I returned to the conference, this time as a speaker, to present the findings of our Senate report.
In the end, our committee proposed 25 recommendations to the government, starting with the designation of soil as a strategic national asset, the appointment of a national soils advocate and the creation of a national soils institute and a national soils database, to curate soil research from across Canada.
I spoke with the zeal of a convert. But, of course, I was preaching to the choir, delivering a talk on soil health to a room full of soil-health advocates.
The real challenge will be to convince the people who weren’t in that room, to explain to all Albertans the vital, urgent necessity for us to study, protect and defend our soil, and to create economic and social supports that help farmers and ranchers transition to more regenerative practices. Those are the seeds we must plant now, if we want healthy harvests and communities in years to come.
Senator Paula Simons represents Alberta and serves as deputy chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry.
A version of this article was published in the Edmonton Journal on December 5, 2024.
Digging up good dirt.
Back in my days as an investigative reporter with the Edmonton JournaI, I thought I knew what that meant. But the really good dirt in Alberta isn’t to be found at city hall or the Alberta legislature. It’s in the rich topsoil which is our province’s greatest resource.
If you look at a map of Canada, you’d be forgiven for thinking that our country must be full of fabulous farmland. Yet only 6.7% of Canada’s landmass is actually suitable for agriculture. Of that, about one-third is found in Alberta.
We need healthy soil to grow our crops and graze our herds, to produce the food we eat and export. But this is about more than economics. Good soil helps to filter and purify our water. Because it has more capacity to absorb water, healthy soil helps to protect us against floods and landslides.
Healthy soil fights climate change, by sequestering carbon. And soil’s organic carbon, in turn, makes the land more fertile and resilient, better able to grow crops and to withstand drought and inundation.
I wasn’t always a soil nerd. But two years ago this month, I walked into the Western Canada Conference of Soil Health and Grazing. And the experience changed my life. I was at the biennial Edmonton event in my capacity as the deputy chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry. Our committee had just begun a study on soil health in Canada. So I came to the conference full of questions.
But rarely have I walked into a room so full of enthusiasts and evangelists: farmers, ranchers, soil scientists, economists and environmentalists, all eager to talk to a city-slicker senator about the soil they tended and studied and loved.
And, oh, how they talked. About the importance of regenerative agriculture. About the environmental role played by the cattle who graze our grasslands. About the value of large-scale composting. And the need for comprehensive soil mapping, and the urgency of establishing genuine carbon markets to trade carbon credits. About the tens of thousands of different tiny soil organisms that are essential for the biogeochemical processes that make possible all life on this planet.
You will find all those ideas, and many more, in our final Senate study, Critical Ground. The report, released this June, explores and explains why soil is essential to Canada’s economic, environmental, human and social health. Our report surveys the state of the soil across the country. Then it delves into topics as diverse as the threats posed by our melting permafrost, to the threats posed by growing microplastic pollution.
The report is also a celebration of the courage and capacity of farmers, ranchers and other producers to innovate, adopt new technologies and adapt to the challenges of climate change.
On December 10, the Western Canada Conference of Soil Health and Grazing returned to Edmonton, for three days of discussion about the future of agriculture, and the path to resilience in the face of environmental and economic change. I returned to the conference, this time as a speaker, to present the findings of our Senate report.
In the end, our committee proposed 25 recommendations to the government, starting with the designation of soil as a strategic national asset, the appointment of a national soils advocate and the creation of a national soils institute and a national soils database, to curate soil research from across Canada.
I spoke with the zeal of a convert. But, of course, I was preaching to the choir, delivering a talk on soil health to a room full of soil-health advocates.
The real challenge will be to convince the people who weren’t in that room, to explain to all Albertans the vital, urgent necessity for us to study, protect and defend our soil, and to create economic and social supports that help farmers and ranchers transition to more regenerative practices. Those are the seeds we must plant now, if we want healthy harvests and communities in years to come.
Senator Paula Simons represents Alberta and serves as deputy chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry.
A version of this article was published in the Edmonton Journal on December 5, 2024.