Does Government really want to help Agriculture?
Recent Budget documents suggest maybe they do.
The annual Spring budget cycle in Canada is usually a good barometer to understand where the priorities will be with respect how Government wants to spend our tax dollars for the coming years.
Amongst the wall to wall coverage about what’s in these voluminous documents (the 2021 Federal budget clocks in at 725 pages in English, 865 in French while the Quebec provincial budget comes in a 508 pages in English or French), how the Government intends to support Agriculture — and what impact this spending will have on your food — tends to be overlooked. It’s just not considered as topical as Daycare, High-speed Internet and small businesses rehiring workers (all of which are important).
But buried in all those pages are some important measures that will have an impact on Agriculture and farmers, revealing not only where Government wants to direct tax dollars in the sector, but also, what underpins the spending.
First, the Quebec budget.
Back in November, 2020, the Quebec government allocated CDN$247M to encouraging both the production and purchase of locally produced and grown food.
This included CDN$157.2M over three years dedicated to three areas:
- promoting food grown and processed in Quebec;
- improving local business production and productivity, and;
- enhancing the provincial food supply, with an emphasis on expanding the greenhouse industry.
The bulk of that amount — CDN$92M — would be dedicated to upgrading food transformation facilities to permit them to process more of the food grown and harvested in the Province, rather than having it shipped out of Province for the same task. The balance of that amount is to be used to further promote foods either grown or processed in the Province, likely through the ‘Aliments du Quebec’ labeling regime and publicity campaign.
In April, 2021, the Quebec Provincial budget set aside CDN$21.1M for the bio-food sector to upgrade the status of the Provincial Agri-food Technology Institute so that it can be more autonomous and better develop training programs for its students that meet current needs in the Agri-food sector. In addition, additional funding was provided to the Commission for the Protection of Agricultural Land to ensure they can better fulfill their mandate of guaranteeing that a certain amount of land is dedicated to agricultural purposes. Finally, they are putting a small amount into further developing the aqua-culture sector in the province, as their aim is to double the production of fish products coming from this nascent industry.
Finally, the 2021 Quebec budget also set aside CDN$30M for small-scale alcohol producers (micro-breweries and distilleries) to help them join the SAQ producers network so that the provincial distribution monopoly will carry their product, as well as assist them with production and marketing initiatives.
In total, the Quebec government is dedicating almost CDN$300M to various agricultural initiatives. Consumers will likely see the results of this spending in the form of more promotional activities concerning food either grown or processed in the Province, additional investments in infrastructure, such as greenhouses and, hopefully, more locally grown and processed food products hitting stores.
In the Federal Budget, the Canadian Government is enlisting farmers in the fight against climate change by supporting a number of activities to both reduce the carbon footprint of farmers, as well as increasing the ability of farms to absorb carbon.
Their initiatives start with a recognition that farmers are using natural gas and propane in their operations, and as a result, are contributing to the emission of greenhouse gases. In order to help combat this, the Government is proposing to return to farmers up to CDN$100M from the proceeds generated by the Federal carbon pricing scheme. In addition, the Government is also prioritizing CDN$50M for the purchase of grain dryers.
In addition to the two existing programs directed to providing solutions to farmers to mitigate the effects of Climate change — the Agricultural Climate Solutions program (CDN$185M), and the Agricultural Clean Technology program (CDN$165M) — the Government is providing extra funding for the following initiatives:
- CDN$200 million over two years, starting in 2021–22, to target projects that will accelerate emission reductions by improving nitrogen management, increasing adoption of cover cropping, and normalizing rotational grazing. What this means, according to Farmers for Climate Solutions — the Canada-wide coalition who proposed these measures — is immediate help to farmers to reduce their use of nitrogen-based fertilizers, which breaks down into nitrous oxide, which by some estimates is 300 times more potent that CO2, and represents about half of all emissions from farms. Other funds will help assist farmers to transition from their current monoculture crop practices to greater use of cover cropping and instituting rotational grazing to build greater reliance on natural fertilizers, and to help stimulate microbial production in soil.
- CDN$60 million over the next two years, from the Nature Smart Climate Solutions Fund, to target the protection of existing wetlands and trees on farms, including through a reverse auction pilot program. Reverse auctions, or conservation auctions, have been used in Manitoba with some success to increase the amount paid to farmers to preserve wetlands and forests, in exchange for them to preserve certain targeted land types.
- CDN$10 million over the next two years, from the Agricultural Clean Technology Program toward powering farms with clean energy and moving off diesel. Some farmers want to transition off of diesel-powered tractors to electric for example, but the electric option is about one-third costlier than equivalent diesel models, so, this money will help a lot of farmers make the transition to electric and other low-emission farm vehicles. These funds will also be used to help farmers purchase solar panels to help recharge their electric vehicles.
In addition to these programs, the Federal Government is also throwing CDN$20M at the salmon farming industry in British Columbia to make it more sustainable by encouraging the migration of habitats from current open net-pen methods (which lead to an accumulation of fish waste on the ocean bottom that is harmful to the local ecosystem) to other more balanced methods.
A further CDN$17.4M has been dedicated to the creation of a Canada Water Agency, that will provide advice to various stakeholders — including farmers — on how to keep Canada’s water resource safe, clean and well managed.
In total, there is about CDN$400M in the current budget in new money, spread out over the next four years, that will have an impact on farmers and producers, aimed at engaging farmers in the fight against climate change.
So, what has the reaction been from farmers to these various measures?
Farmers for Climate Solutions — a national coalition of farmers organizations and other supporters — had specifically asked for a number of elements to be included in the 2021 Federal Budget.
Starting with the premise that Canada under-invests in alternative forms of agriculture as compared to the United States and the European Union on a per-acre basis, Farmers for Climate Solutions suggested 6 different programs as part of their pre-budget advice to the Federal Government:
- Doing more with less nitrogen. An envelope of CDN$115M to drive farmers to use less nitrogen fertilizers;
- Increasing Adoption of Cover Cropping. Another envelope of CDN$115M to encourage farmer to adopt cover crops as a means to reduce soil loss, and increase the microbial activity in their soil.
- Normalizing Rotational Grazing. CDN$25M to encourage farmers to implement systematic rotational grazing by their animals, to reduce erosion, and stimulate soil recovery through natural fertilization.
- Protecting Wetlands and Trees on farms. CDN$30M to help conserve trees and wetlands on farms, and increase the farmers role as responsible stewards of the land.
- Powering farms with clean energy. CDN$10M to assist farmers migrate to more sustainable forms of energy use, and to replace farm vehicles with electric versions.
- Lastly, Celebrating climate champions. CDN$5M to celebrate — via awards and an awareness campaign — those farmers who employ more climate-friendly practices in their farming operations.
Based on those six proposals, Farmers for Climate Solutions got almost all they were asking for from the Federal Government, through its funding of a program addressing the nitrogen fertilizer issue, as well as for the normalization of rotational grazing, and the protection of wetlands and trees. Further, they also got a commitment on the issues of cleaner energy use and electrification of farm vehicles. Their reaction was very positive to the initiatives announced by the Federal Government, characterizing them as ‘good news’ and suggesting that this will accelerate all the good work being done by farmers today on changing their practices, and providing the incentive for more farmers to do the same.
By contrast, the largest producer organization in Quebec — l’Union des producteurs agricole (UPA) — denounced the Federal Budget as a ‘deception’, stating that there was nothing in the budget to help the agricultural sector with regard to compensation for losses because of trade agreements, no new funding for farmers to help pay for quarantine measures for temporary foreign workers, and no new fiscal measures to reduce the penalty on transferring farms to the next generation. As for the Quebec budget, the UPA was quite positive, stating that the Quebec government had respected its spending commitments in the areas of encouraging local production, their greenhouse strategy, the national strategy around the purchasing of Quebec-based food products and the new sustainable agricultural plan.
But what’s clear from the two budgets are the difference in approaches. The Federal government sees farmers almost as soldiers, to be recruited for the fight against climate change. Quebec sees farmers as an ally to increase self-sufficiency in the production of food, and to stimulate citizens to buy more local products.
There’s nothing bad in what the Federal Government is proposing to do. After all, the programs they announced were informed by farmers themselves and will assist them in transitioning to better, more sustainable farming practices. Climate change — the existential issue of our age — needs multiple solutions by multiple parties to solve and if using that issue helps farmers get the support they need, then by all means, lets do it.
However, governments should be careful when their designing policy and support in the form of spending for the farm community. The objective of any agricultural support program should be to assist farmers become better farmers.
After all, in an era of changing climate that leads to unpredictable growing conditions, helping them be better farmers first should naturally lead to follow-on benefits of better soil conservation and stewardship, more carbon sequestration, better variety of products produced and more availability for local markets.
