Greenhouse Gas, Consumers and Agriculture

 This may seem like more of a rant than an editorial and in some ways it is.

Whether you agree with the various opinions on climate change and the effects of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) or not, we are all paying the cost our government has imposed on the use of fossil fuels.  The fact that most Canadians have no choice but to use some form of fossil fuel (FF) as a source of heat, or transportation tells me that the “Carbon Tax” is aimed much more at producing government income rather than reducing the impact of emissions on the environment.

Agriculture is in a unique position of being stuck with a cost that cannot be passed along to the consumer but at the same time, along with the forestry industry, being one of the only industries that can sequester carbon. If this government were truly interested in reducing the impact of carbon emissions, they would be allowing at least a tax credit for those who are able to show they are providing a benefit to the environment.

The fact that Canadian companies are buying “carbon credits” from American farmers really makes one wonder why. Are Canadian farmers not growing crops that sequester carbon the same as farmers south of the border?  You know they are. The difference is someone in the US has been able to sell large Canadian companies on the idea of buying a clear conscience. The corn grower in Iowa or Illinois isn’t capturing any more carbon than he did last year and the Canadian company isn’t producing any less emissions, someone just figured out how to sell the idea of offsets.

Federal and provincial governments have been providing grants and low cost loans for environmental improvement projects to industry for years.

What makes this system even more bogus is the reports from our Ministry of Environment & Climate Change (that’s not a loaded title) that claim that agriculture is a significant contributor to GHG emissions. Yet we have Canadian companies buying carbon credits from US farmers.

The current government measurements of GHG emissions from agriculture show little or no improvement over recent years, yet there is considerable research to indicate the measurement methods and results are not accurate and do not show the result of improved farming systems such as no-till and cover crops.

So, what if anything, are we as food producers to do about it? We’re stuck paying the carbon tax and have no way to pass the cost on to the consumer.  Our organization as well as all farm commodity groups and gfo’s need to be promoting the work done by agriculture to reduce the impact of FF emissions on our environment.  We, along with OMAFRA and the Univ. of Guelph, need to do more in-depth investigation on the impact of various farming methods on our environment. Development of faster, more convenient soil carbon tests, beyond soil organic matter, would give us an indication of the impact of various activities.  Being able to provide a valid measurement of soil carbon at various times of the cropping cycle or as it relates to management practices would provide another indicator of the benefit of soil conservation practices.  Of course it may prove nothing at all.

Short of planting cropland back to perennial grasses, are we just deferring the release of GHG’s back into the environment when we plant a crop?  Promoting “Carbon Neutral” or “Zero Carbon” has become the by-word of many ad campaigns targeting the consumers desire for “green” products. If a soil carbon test can be developed that would allow us to unequivocally measure how much atmospheric carbon we are sequestering, just imagine what kind of a selling point that would be. Maybe then the government would consider providing credits to offset the cost of the carbon tax. If such a test does exist, we should be aware of it.

We read more and more in Ag media about the disconnect between the producer and consumer. Why is this more of an issue now that any time in the past? Numerous reasons, not the least of which is the fact that an ever-increasing portion of our population has little or no familial connection to primary producers. These same consumers are bombarded daily with news and information from various sources that usually have an agenda that has little to do with fact and much to do with either selling a product or an alternate belief. If this is the only information the consumer sees, they eventually start to believe it, factual or not. Critical thinking is fast becoming as rare as common sense. Or what we think of as common sense.

What does this have to do with us? Well, who else stands to gain from educating the consumer about how their food is produced and what we do to protect the environment while producing it?  It is in every farmers best interest, be they a Holland Marsh carrot grower, a Dufferin County potato grower, a Bruce County beef producer or a Simcoe County dairy farm, to provide their customer with the most accurate, easily understood information about how their farm works.  The grocery shopper in downtown Toronto has no more responsibility to understand how that bag of milk in her cart is produced, than the dairy farmer that supplied it, has to understand how the smart-phone or computer your reading this on was made.  The difference is that the food in the shoppers cart is much more crucial to their and their families health than the producers phone is. I’m sure there are millennials that might argue that point.

We have seen and heard a barrage of ads, berating our federal government for a perceived lack of support of the Canadian farmer relative to the financial benefit “given” to American farmers. Was that the best use of our check-off dollars? Did it really make 1 iota of difference to the talking heads in Ottawa?  Did it have any positive affect on the average urban consumer? How much could that advertising money have done if it was used to produce ads that informed the consumer just what goes into producing a bag of carrots, or potatoes or a roast of beef.

We need to show the urban public what we do to protect our and their environment, how much we have reduced our use of herbicides, how we manage our soils to protect the waterways they drain into, how crop management produces healthy food, contrary to some of the tainted information they are fed. I realize there are some among us that are doing an excellent job of promotion, case in point, Andrew Campbell @FreshAirFarmer.  If you don’t follow him, you should. His style of informing the public is straightforward and easy to understand.

Some (many) will say “they won’t listen to our ads” or the consumer will see it as self-serving. What ad isn’t self –serving? That’s what they’re for. The difference with our ads is they should be selling us, and our methods, as much as our products. Our provincial governments “Good Things Grow in Ontario” ad do a great job of promoting our products, we need to do a much better job of promoting what we do and how we do it.

Now I’m going out to enjoy this fantastic November weather.

Be safe.

 

Alan Lyons, Mulmur ON      twitter, @lyonseed