Fertilizer targets impossible without cutting usage

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OTTAWA — Canada can’t cut fertilizer emissions 30 % by 2030 without cutting actual fertilizer usage, despite Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s contrary insistence, according to a recent report by researchers at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy.

In March, Trudeau decried online “misinformation” and assured the Canadian Federation of Agriculture that his government was consulting with farmers on a reduction in fertilizer emissions and “not in the use of fertilizers.” Trudeau also said the initiative would be voluntary, not mandatory.

However, the plan won’t work without cutting fertilizer usage because the government lacks the necessary data and an emissions measurement system to otherwise hit the target, according to the authors of a new report, Planning to Fail: A Case Study of Canada’s Fertilizer Based Emission Target.

While the plan has “laudable” elements, the authors observe that a 30 % emissions cut by 2030 is “impossible without reductions in nitrogen fertilizer, an action strongly opposed by producers and counter to the targets goal.”

Curtailing actual fertilizer usage by even 20 % could cost Canadian grain and oilseed growers nearly $48 billion in lost sales because of lower yields over the next eight years, according to a 2021 study commissioned by Fertilizer Canada.