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Founded in 1909, UFA Co-operative Limited is an Alberta-based agricultural co-operative with more than 120,000 member-owners. UFA’s network comprises more than 114 bulk fuel and Cardlock Petroleum locations, 34 Farm & Ranch Supply stores and a support office in Calgary, AB. Independent Petroleum Agents and over 1,000 UFA employees provide products, services and agricultural solutions to farmers, ranchers, members and commercial customers in Alberta, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan.
Don Shafer: It takes a certain kind of ambition to do what farmers do. Between the hours and the hard labor, to the public scrutiny and bureaucratic maze running, it's not an easy task. While the agriculture industry feeds millions, quietly tilling and producing behind the scenes, many forget that our food comes from the hands of real people, with real stories.
Join us as we share stories from those with boots on the ground and unearth unique perspectives on agriculture's biggest conversations. It's time to grab your shovel and get to work. I'm Don Schaefer, and this is Digging In with UFA.
What does emission reduction mean for farmers and ranchers? In the hopes of offsetting global climate change projections, the Government of Canada has set a goal of reducing fertilizer emission by 30 percent of the 2020 recorded levels by 2030. Today, it's time to dig into fertilizer emission reduction targets, and what that means for agriculture in the long run.
Tara Sawyer had never imagined a life on the farm. Having grown up in the big city, the idea of raising a family, rearing cattle, and farming thousands of acres as far as the eye can see, away from the conveniences of city life, is not something she would have predicted.
Everything changed, however, when she met that country boy from Acme.
Now with their family and livelihood in mind, Tara has become an agricultural advocate and a champion for the future of farming. To dig a little deeper, here's Tara Sawyer.
Tara Sawyer: My name is Tara Sawyer. I come from a family farm in central Alberta. I'm the chair of Alberta Grains. I am really honoured to be the chair of our organization.
Alberta Grains represents all the barley and wheat farmers in Alberta. It is a non profit, it is a levy paying, and we put a lot of our budget to research that is going to help farmers with better varieties and better opportunities to deal with. The disease pressures and the climate pressure. So we put a lot of focus on that.
And on the policy front, we do a lot because the regulations and decision makers can affect what we do. So we've had to get involved to really advocate. I grew up in Calgary, so I got into agriculture by marrying a farmer. So I came from the lens of an urban person who didn't know anything about agriculture, let alone Canadian agriculture.
People don't know where their food comes from. They think it comes from a grocery [00:03:00] store. That was me until I married my husband. My children are fifth generation on the family farm, and we are growing malt barley, canola, and hard red spring wheat. Our family is very passionate and have been heavily involved in advocating and promoting the family farm and Canadian agriculture.
Most people are three or four generations removed from the family farm now. And so, for me, from the policy lens, when decisions are being made by government, when any form of information is being going out there, a lot of people don't understand what we do. And so there's a lot of misinformation, so you need the farmer at the table to tell the real story and how it affects us, right on our farm gate.
Don Shafer: Don't let the khaki pants fool you with Sylvain Charlebois. As a researcher and author on food distribution, security and safety, with a myriad of publications and peer reviewed [00:04:00] articles, his expertise certainly credits him as a leading expert in the agri food industry. But underneath the scientific exterior is a set of mud soaked overalls and muck boots ready to get down to business as a champion for farmers and ranchers across Canada, driven by his passion for agriculture.
With a little more perspective on emission forecasting, this is Sylvain Charlebois.
Sylvain Charlebois: I'm Sylvain Chalabois. I'm director of the Agri Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University in Halifax. At the lab, we basically use analytics, predictive analytics. We, uh, use even AI. We've been using AI for many, many years to forecast, mainly.
And we work with governments, provincial governments, federal governments, and we work on a variety of issues from carbon pricing to labels, food inflation, how inflation is impacting the entire supply chain and food systems around the world. So this is kind of what we do, and we look at the entire system.
We look at all parts, really, and we do believe that food systems are a political economy. So if one player does something, it will impact other parts from farm gate to plate. So our approach is very systemic, and I would say that right now, the dominant figure in our food system is certainly not the farmer.
Before I became an academic, I was actually a lobbyist for the food industry. As a lobbyist, you kind of have to understand power and influence. And that's when you quickly realize that if farmers aren't well represented, they can easily be squashed.
Don Shafer: While the Canadian government looks to achieve their fertilizer emission reduction goal by 2030, we look to the views of our experts and those most affected.
Tara Sawyer: In my opinion, it's a bit of an unrealistic target in terms of a short timeline, but they're not taking into consideration all the things that we already do. I'm not saying that things couldn't be done better, it always can, but farmers They always wait, they don't consult us, they put something out, which gets everybody in a panic, and then when we push back to say, hey, you didn't talk to us, this is what makes this difficult, then the narrative becomes, oh, well, farmers don't care about the environment, and I'm sorry, but we are the first environmentalists.
My family did not become a fifth-generation family farm unless we took care of the soil, and we continue to care for it and monitor it.
Sylvain Charlebois: As an academic, I find it quite frustrating to see how science is being weaponized against farmers. We do see a lot of different groups being funded, heavily funded, and their purpose is basically to support narrative around these targets without really questioning how these targets could compromise our nation's food security, one.
Two, how could these targets impact food affordability for our consumers over time? There's been some studies suggesting that the impact would be minimal, but the data that was used for some of these studies was actually quite weak. So we're actually going into this funnel blindfolded, really, and what's at stake is farming.
We're basically asking the farmers to comply to targets that we don't know exactly how these targets would impact over time our ability to produce food or to export food or to make the world more food secure. These targets without consulting farmers is a bit of an insult because the most important environmental stewards in the world are farmers. They actually rely on the environment to make a living.
Don Shafer: According to the Canadian Department of Agriculture, the Government of Canada consulted with Canadians, including farmers, producers, processors, indigenous communities, women of agriculture, youth, environmental organizations, small and emerging sectors, as well as other key stakeholders and partners.
If we look at who the strategy impacts most, should we be focusing more on the voices of farmers and ranchers, who arguably have the most to say about goalpost implementation.
Sylvain Charlebois: They know best. You need to listen to farmers really to appreciate what is needed. And some studies in recent years have actually suggested that Canada is already carbon neutral.
Tara Sawyer: MNP did do a study. A farmer growing 1, 000 acres of wheat would see their profits reduced by approximately 30%. 38 to 40, 000 annually with an estimated loss to farmers as a whole in Canada at 48 billion between now and 2030. That is a devastating amount.
Sylvain Charlebois: That MNP report, it was actually quite well done because it did actually get to strong field data supplied by farmers.
Did it get any media attention? Very little. Mass media did not actually cover that report at all, which means that most urbanites, people who live in cities who don't understand farming, have never actually been given a chance to understand the challenges, the financial challenges that farmers would face as a result of these changes from a policy perspective.
Tara Sawyer: We are already Using less to produce more. We have made great strides and at a huge investment. The costs of inputs to a farmer already, the rising prices of fertilizers. It's great to say you want a reduction but look at what we're doing already because that's a huge expense to the farmer. Canada, we are blessed to be able to grow all the things that we grow to be the exporting nation that we are.
The government needs to acknowledge the agriculture industry more than it does. That portfolio is a pretty big one to this country and I think sometimes they forget it.
Don Shafer: In midst of a glaring climate conversation, it's important to remember it's a collective effort in reaching carbon neutrality, emphasizing that this target reduction strategy is specifically for direct and indirect emission from the application of fertilizer and not other emissions associated with agriculture at large.
Providing clarity allows us to be realistic about reaching targets without fully uprooting the established system. Doing a little at a time will, ideally, go a long way.
Sylvain Charlebois: When I hear about how we need to discipline farming in Canada, what I hear is a voice that really has no idea how strategic farmers are.
They're not going to waste. inputs. Using too much fertilizer is costly, so they will not waste anything. They will, with precision agriculture today, they're very precise. I mean, AI and all the technology that we've seen in recent years are well used in agriculture. It's been well used for a Decades. And when we hear some of these targets, we're basically telling citizens of our country, well, you know, farmers need to catch up.
Well, if you actually go on farms in Canada, you'll see that some of these farmers are incredibly well educated and they know what they're doing, but the one thing they want to become is more efficient. And to be more efficient, you need to utilize inputs as efficiently as possible, and you have to optimize your operations, and that needs to be recognized.
Tara Sawyer: What data are we using to determine what type of reduction has been achieved? Because I know for us, we're always talking about what is the baseline we're going from. If you're saying we need to get to this point, are you acknowledging what point we are at, though? It's a problem for the profitability and the sustainability of a farm.
And as soon as a farmer says that as raising it is a concern, the perception is that, oh, well, they just don't want to do it. They're not understanding the dynamics on a farm. We are already doing so much and we are constantly improving. They're doing, you know, for ours. They're doing all kinds of carbon sequestration.
When you say you want this target, I just think it's a little bit unrealistic and not understanding the complexities of our operation.
Don Shafer: The 4R's of nutrient stewardship refers to right source, right rate, right time, and right place. This strategy aims to ensure sustainable management practices that maintain nutrient quality in and on the field.
Looking ahead at sustainable and ethical policy expectations for agriculture at large, we look to those who it affects most for a realistic solution.
Sylvain Charlebois: What concerns me a lot, and I did say that in parliament twice in front of finance and ag over last year, is that we do have a ministry not even measuring the effectiveness of some of the policies that we have in place, like the carbon tax, for example.
Why would we ask farmers to sacrifice and change? their ways to operate when we don't even know whether or not targets are being achieved by their very policies that we're implementing right now. We're risking a lot here. We're risking the farm. We need to pause any policies and regulations that could impact farming in Canada until we know for sure how some of these policies will impact our sector's competitiveness over time.
Not two years, not five years. 10 years or more. Risks are a big deal for farmers. Environmental risks, business risks, so they need to know.
Tara Sawyer: We need every tool in our toolbox in order to produce the food we're producing. As an industry, we have implemented a lot of technology to deal with some of these things, but at the end of the day, we're trying.
To feed the world. We have a crop to get in and you start taking some of those tools or you start making all these restrictions, you're making it harder and harder for us to do our job, frankly.
Don Shafer: At the end of the day, we look to our resiliency within ourselves and our communities to make our collective futures as bright as possible. All it will really take is conversations like these, some vulnerability, and a little digging.
Thanks to the support of UFA Cooperative, we're able to share stories from those who live and breathe agriculture. We'd like to thank our guests for sharing their insight into the future of agriculture and for being with us today. For more information and a new episode every month, visit ufa. com. With listeners like you, we'll continue to dig a little deeper here on Digging In with UFA.
I'm Don Schaefer. Thanks for listening. Another Everything Podcast production. Visit EverythingPodcast. com, a division of Patterson Media. Subscribe wherever you get your podcast. The views expressed in this podcast reflect opinions and perspectives from participating guests and not necessarily those of UFA, UFA cooperatives membership, elected officials, or stakeholders.