Rethinking Lifestyle

In October the Manitoba Conservative Government released its “Made-in-Manitoba Climate and Green Plan”. This an important document and we commented on it last week. The Plan is accessible on-line and our government is inviting our respond. It is important that we respond. This week, Kleefeld resident, Gary Martens, retired agricultural professor at the U of M critiques the Plan from the perspective of agriculture.

The Plan exempts agriculture from the Carbon Tax. By exempting agricultural emissions, which account for 40% of Manitoba’s greenhouse gases (GHG)(2015), we are making it more difficult on everyone else in Manitoba to meet our reduction targets. More than that, we are denying innovative farmers the incentive to apply best management practises and contribute to reductions in GHG that are achievable and necessary.

Humans have practised agriculture for the last 10,000 years. For over 9,900 of those years agriculture has not contributed to GHG emissions, as a matter of fact it has been a carbon sink. Only in the last 70 years has agriculture become part of the problem by increasing its dependence on energy intensive inputs. The point is this: farming does not produce greenhouse gases; farm inputs produce greenhouse gases.

Agriculture could dramatically reduce its GHG emissions through a number of known management practises. The most effective is for farms to grow their own nitrogen fertilizer instead of buying manufactured nitrogen fertilizer. Farmers can grow their own nitrogen by including more legumes in their crop rotations. In 2017, 2.3 million acres was seeded to soybeans. This is a significant step in the right direction. The manufacture and use of nitrogen fertilizer accounts for 34% of Manitoba’s agricultural GHG emissions. Our target GHG reduction by 2022 is 2.3-2.6 mega tonnes of CO2. Our total emissions are 20.8 mega tonnes of CO2 (2015) so our target is to reduce CO2 production by approximately 12%. If farmers were to cut their purchase of manufactured nitrogen fertilizer to zero (organic farmers do this now) we would meet Manitoba’s overall target with that one practise alone. Unfortunately the Plan gives the farmers no incentive to move in this direction.

And there are other practises that agriculture could implement that would help reduce GHG emissions. Space heating, water heating and stationary equipment could be switched to electricity. There is already interest in developing smaller robotic machines to do farming operations. Potentially these machines could be run on electricity.

There are efficiencies like buying energy efficient engines, keeping engines tuned, using best available tires and keeping tire pressures within range and using track machines to reduce slippage.

The integration of crops and livestock on the same farm produces many synergies that reduce overall GHG emissions from the system. Locally you can see this with hog operations that apply the manure to the fields each fall. That practise reduces considerably the amount of nitrogen fertilizer that needs to be applied to achieve maximum crop yields.

Longer term, increasing soil carbon levels – that is, using the soil as a carbon sink – through the reduction of tillage and the inclusion of perennial crops also reduces the need for synthetic nitrogen fertilizer.

Beyond the farm there are opportunities to reduce GHG emissions in the way food gets to our table. We should rethink our global food trade and return to a more local food economy. A recent study in Waterloo, Ontario found that on average food travels 4,497 km to get to the consumer. Transportation is also a large GHG emitter in Manitoba contributing 39% of our emissions. A change in our food trade practices could have a significant impact on our GHG emissions.

Exempting agriculture from a carbon tax will reduce innovation in agriculture; innovation that could profoundly improve agriculture as we know it and contribute to the overall health of our society.

You are invited to join us, Wednesday, November 22, 7:00PM in the Fireside Room of the Pat Porter Active Living Centre to discuss this Plan further.