As world leaders slunk before a United Nations podium last week to admit they have failed to meet the extravagant promises they made at the Earth Summit in Brazil five years ago, farmers were feeling anything but guilty about their environmental performance.
Since the 1992 meeting, farmers have sharply cut their tillage practices and chemical use, adopted environmental plans and built conservation into their business plans, says a report issued by the Paris-based International Federation of Agricultural Producers.
“It (is) evident that there has been a significant shift in attitude from the farming community towards the environment and in its use and management of natural resources,” said the IFAP report released at the United Nations in New York.
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“The farm community has nothing to be ashamed of with regard to sustainable practices,” said IFAP vice-president and Canadian farm leader Jack Wilkinson in an interview.
In fact, he said one of the impediments holding farmers back is the lack of government support for environmental work.
The Canadian government’s green plan funding has expired “and there were a lot of good programs under the green plan that we will be arguing should be maintained.”
Cost to farmer
Farmers also have to pay for new equipment or changing management styles that make a farm more environmentally sustainable.
“I think producers have shown themselves to be willing to change and to upgrade,” said the Canadian Federation of Agriculture president. “But at some point, they hit a cost wall when they cannot afford any more.”
In New York, prime minister Jean ChrŽtien was not making any promises of increased spending. In fact, he likened the struggle for a healthier environment with the government’s step-by-step fight against the deficit.
The deficit fight has been more successful, despite a 1992 promise by the previous Conservative government that Canada would cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2000 to 1990 levels.
“Canada, like most other industrialized countries, will not meet the year 2000 targets for stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions,” said ChrŽtien.
He called for precise targets that all countries would have to meet. Wilkinson said that is what farmers have been doing.
The 1996 census of agriculture indicated that over five years, no-till acreage increased 135 percent to 11.3 million acres. Other studies have shown pesticide application down by half, more use of precision technology, cultural pest control and less reliance on fertilizer.
The IFAP study complained, however, that efforts to strengthen the sustainability of agriculture were being undermined worldwide by cuts in publicly funded agriculture research to develop new and more sustainable varieties.
