Quick Facts
- Farmers have kept their emissions steady for 20 years while almost doubling production, resulting in a decrease of GHG emission intensity by half.
- With the proper support and investment, Canadian agriculture can become a carbon sink through new technologies and techniques.
- As stewards of the land, farmers face the brunt of climate change and are heavily invested in the fight against climate change and mitigating its impacts.
Issue Overview – Carbon Tax
Farmers are stewards of the land, committed to preserving resources for generations to come.
Canadian agriculture occupies a large and important part of the Canadian environment. The farm community is the chief steward and manager of extensive natural resources, owner and architect of much of the landscape and protector of precious soil resources.
In its concern for the environmental fabric of Canada, CFA believes that great importance should be placed on measures of environmental management to ensure maintenance of land resources which provide food for the people of Canada and a large part of the world’s population.
Carbon pricing: Addressing competitiveness challenges
Canadian producers are concerned about maintaining competitiveness as they face the prospect of higher costs for inputs due to carbon pricing. Machinery used for grain drying, livestock heating and cooling and irrigation are critical for mitigating the increasing on-farm impacts of climate change, including summer droughts and heat waves, and a shift towards rainfall during the autumn harvest months.
Unfortunately, while climate impacts increase the need for farmers to rely on these tools, the carbon tax drives up their fuel price. With limited alternatives available, farmers are instead left to eat the cost of producing food for an increasing population in the face of economic and environmental uncertainty. Penalizing farmers for responding to environmental conditions that are out of their control leaves little money left over to invest in these reduction efforts.
Where fuel efficiencies can be made, we believe they should be done so through incentives like the carbon offset protocols and programs dedicated to funding producers for:
- clean technology
- research and innovation
- climate change adaptation and mitigation
- resilience building measures
- compensating for higher inputs costs
CFA also believes that the Federal Government must recognize the value of other ecological goods and services besides just carbon sequestration. These services are delivered through activities such as wetlands stewardship, which provides flood management services; enhancing riparian areas and hillside, which provide soil erosion control; and conservation of ponds and lakes to provide recreational activities. Market mechanisms must be developed to value these services at the national level in order to help maintain these public benefits on private land.
Working towards solutions – Carbon tax
As farmers often have no alternatives to carbon-intensive practices, CFA has been pushing for farmers to have exemption for various fuels and uses such as grain drying and heating/cooling livestock barns.
CFA is in support of Bill C-206, which would add marketable natural gas/propane to the list of qualifying farm fuels to be exempt.
CFA has been heavily involved in the consultation process around the carbon tax, to ensure this program does not place an undue burden on farmers.
CFA continues to work with the government to identify policies that can further aid farmers in the fight against climate change, and has recently joined the Agriculture Carbon Alliance to provide a unified voice on these issues.
CFA recommendations – Carbon Tax
- That the government expand the list of qualifying fuels under the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act to explicitly include marketable natural gas, propane or a prescribed type of fuel, while revising the definition of eligible farm machinery to extend this exemption to grain drying and livestock barn heating.
- All on-farm fuel use, including propane and natural gas for purposes beyond greenhouse heating, must be exempt from carbon pricing
- No climate policy should have the effect of directly or indirectly negatively impacting food security
- Agriculture requires a non-carbon pricing approach that focuses on incentives, adoption of clean technology and management improvements to reduce emissions
- Agricultural-based GHG emissions should be considered on an intensity basis to reflect food security needs and the vast differences in efficiencies that exist
- Governments must strive to achieve greater consistency in climate change policies in order to reduce impacts on agricultural producers
Issue Overview – Greenhouse Gas Pollution Offset Program
In 2021, Canadian farmers are finally beginning to be recognized and rewarded for their environmental efforts through the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Offset Program. Incentivizing and rewarding practices that reduce emissions and sequester carbon will propel the agriculture industry to adopt technologies and techniques which benefit the environment and aid in the fight against climate change.
Working Towards Solutions – Greenhouse Gas Pollution Offset Program
Priority activities for protocol development include livestock manure management, increasing soil carbon, forestation of previously agricultural land, and aerobic composting to name a few.
CFA is working to ensure that the dollar value for credits is high enough to reward existing efforts to reduce greenhouse gasses and incentivize investment in innovations that reduce emissions ahead of the programs expected 2021 implementation.
In December 2020, the Federal Government pledged to invest $631 million over 10 years to boost carbon sequestration in agricultural lands, wetlands and grasslands.
CFA will advocate for this funding to be made available to help farmers adopt offset protocols and generate new income from credits.
CFA Recommendations – Greenhouse Gas Pollution Offset Program
- Government must provide support to ensure that credit programs under the Clean Fuel Standards and Greenhouse Gas Pollution Offset Program have low cost of participation. Support includes funding programs to help farms make the investments needed to participate in these programs the moment they start.
- Funding is also needed to incentivize the provision of additional ecological goods and services such as erosion control and flood management.
- Government must invest in agricultural innovation to fully capitalize on the sector’s carbon offsetting potential
- Incentives should be created to ensure that carbon sequestration opportunities are available all farmers across Canada
- The co-benefits that agriculture provides must be carefully considered when designing climate policy
- Canadian agricultural producers should be recognized for their early investments and provision of climate related ecological goods and services
Issue Overview – Clean Fuel Standards
The recently implemented Clean Fuel Standards will allow Canadian farmers to generate credits through two actions:
- Undertaking projects that reduce the lifecycle carbon intensity of fossil fuels (e.g., carbon capture and storage)
- Supplying customers with low carbon intensity fuels (biofuels)
This program provides an important opportunity to incentivize farmers to partake in activities that will reduce the carbon intensity of fuels.
Working Towards Solutions – Clean Fuel Standards
Much like the carbon tax, Government must work to ensure that any increase in direct and indirect fuel price resulting from the Clean Fuel Standards does not have a disproportionate impact on rural Canadians.
This can be done by ensuring that rural Canada has access to low carbon intensity fuels and that sectors such as transportation have support to reduce their carbon intensity to prevent costs form transferring down to farmers.
Farmers will be eligible to generate credits under two of the three CFS credit categories. CFA will work to ensure that the dollar value for credits is high enough to reward farmers for their emission reduction efforts.
CFA has worked with stakeholders to address concerns about how CFS will verify its Land Use and Biodiversity criteria, which awards credits to facilities who purchase from farms that meet this criteria.
In December 2020, Government pledged a $287 million two-year investment to continue the $5000 rebate incentive for zero-emission vehicles.
These incentives could potentially be used by farms to invest in the electrification needed to generate CFS credits.
CFA recommendations – Clean Fuel Standards
- Government must provide support to ensure that credit programs under the Clean Fuel Standards and Greenhouse Gas Pollution Offset Program have low cost of participation. Support includes funding programs to help farms make the investments needed to participate in these programs the moment they start.
- Funding is also needed to incentivize the provision of additional ecological goods and services such as erosion control and flood management.
CFA Recommendations – General
- That the government provide support to ensure that the upcoming Canada Water Agency has a designated agriculture unit to coordinate with the necessary departments and agencies on matters of runoff prevention and gathering water data for pest control product decisions.
- Governments must take action to ensure that carbon pricing policy is truly revenue neutral for agricultural producers
- Greater recognition for the role of clean technology that has and will reduce emissions further
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