Agricultural and soil conservation leaders don’t like a recommendation from a national environmental advisory group to replace agricultural carbon credit offsets with carbon taxes.
The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy recently issued a report advising the federal government that a more aggressive policy is needed, including steep carbon taxes, if it is to meet greenhouse gas emission reduction goals.
“Agricultural emissions reductions can be achieved through promoting significant changes in land use and agricultural practices, developing codes of practice and updating current policies,” the report said.
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“Policies relating to these agricultural practices already exist but could be improved to meet GHG objectives.”
The panel recommends phasing out credits to farmers for carbon storage in wood lots and soil by 2015 and replacing them with incentives for farmers to change farm practices and use more environmentally friendly equipment.
The Conservative government, which campaigned against a Liberal proposal for a carbon tax in the 2008 election, has not responded publicly to the report from its advisory panel, which includes senior business, environmental and union representatives.
Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Laurent Pellerin said the recommendation to end carbon sequestration offset payments in six years is misplaced.
“This report demonstrates a deep misunderstanding of carbon offsets from agriculture and how important they can be for Canada’s long-term climate change solution,” he said in a statement.
In an interview, he said farmers have been changing land management and farm practices for years to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
“We expect to get credit for that but I don’t see that in this report,” Pellerin said. “There is some need for recognition of what farmers do and the fact that agriculture contributes 10 percent of emissions and can be responsible for a 20 percent reduction. Until there is recognition of that, this is not a project we can join.”
He said the advisory panel’s proposed carbon tax would significantly raise the price of farm fuel, fertilizer and pesticides.
“This would clearly raise farm costs and we already pay more than enough.”
He said the Liberal proposal during the last federal election for a carbon tax as part of the Green Shift policy was unpopular in rural Canada because it did not include compensation and carbon offsets for the progress agriculture has already made.
“With this proposal to end the carbon offset, we see recognition of new technology but not financial recognition and that is disappointing.”
The Soil Conservation Council of Canada also objected to the proposals. Farm soil management practices have improved over the years and the round table did not recognize the improvement, it said in a statement.
“The NRTEE report does not recognize the contribution that Canadian farmers could make to the reduction in greenhouse gases and it shows a lack of understanding of soil carbon sequestration,” said the release, quoting president Don McCabe.
“The report states a significant portion of agricultural emissions come from agricultural soil management while in fact farmers have been sequestering carbon and soils have become a net sink for carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.”
McCabe also said ending compensation to farmers for carbon storage runs counter to what other countries have been doing.
Increasingly, the Canadian farm lobby is insisting that one of the bases of farm income in the future will be compensation for ecological goods and services, which are environmental benefits farmers provide to society.
