Cdn. ag group asks Ottawa for green incentives

Sep 02, 2020

Farmers for Climate Solutions includes provincial and national organizations

By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com

The federal government should provide Canadian producers with incentives to encourage them to implement green and climate-friendly solutions on their farms, an industry group says.

Farmers for Climate Solutions (FCS), a national organization made up of existing industry groups and supporters, believes “that agriculture must be part of the solution to climate change,” its website says.

The national group launched on Feb. 11 to coincide with Canada’s Agriculture Day. Its members include such organizations as the National Farmers Union (NFU), Canadian Organic Growers and Rural Routes to Climate Solutions.

“Climate-friendly practices will look different from one farm to the next, but every farmer has the capacity to be part of the solution,” Stewart Wells, second vice-president of the NFU, said in a February statement.

FCS also involves farmer advocates like Brenda Barritt to help guide the organization with their policy requests.

“We bring a bit of a reality check at the front end and help demonstrate what high-level policy looks like and how it affects the day-to-day farmer,” Barritt, a rancher from Alix, Alta. told Farms.com.

The approach to how the government shapes any potential incentive programs is just as important as the program’s goals.

Farmers may not want to see a prescribed idea, Barritt said.

The federal government should look at “how to enable farmers to make better choices and reward results,” Barritt said. “Each farm is different and that needs to be taken into consideration.”

One area of the industry with potential for improvement is moving into perennial-based tillage systems.

Research should be done into how leaving land undisturbed for multiple years can affect the climate and individual farm economics, Barritt said.

“When we take an annual-based tillage system and convert it into pasture because we’re only tilling it maybe once every 15 or 20 years so we can do rejuvenation, we’re not being incentivized to do that and we’re not having that conversation widely in agriculture,” she said.

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.