The chair of the Liberal rural caucus vowed last week that rural
Liberals will fight hard within government to increase the amount of
credit and compensation farmers receive for their contributions to
reducing greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.
“We have to get credit for what we are doing,” Ontario Liberal MP
Murray Calder said Dec. 5 at a meeting of the House of Commons
agriculture committee hearing evidence on the implications of the Kyoto
Protocol for farmers. “That’s what I will be working for.”
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Farm witnesses told MPs they are skeptical of the benefits promised,
worried about potential cost increases, angry that they will not be
compensated for land management changes already made and in some cases
not entirely convinced climate change is the crisis the government says
it is.
With the principles of the Kyoto Protocol expected to be put to a vote
late Dec. 9, the Commons agriculture committee held hearings last week
to gauge the impact on farmers and farmers’ reactions.
MPs were told clearly that the government has decided farmers will
receive no direct credit for improvements to soil management and farm
practice already made. Ottawa estimates that farmer moves to minimum
till and better management systems will contribute 10 million tonnes of
greenhouse gas reduction by 2008 when Kyoto credits are supposed to
start counting.
Those gains in carbon sinks and other practices will be “embedded” in
government assumptions of progress already made and not be credited to
farmers.
Improvements in carbon sequestration after 2008 will allow farmers to
sell carbon credits, government witnesses told MPs.
However, Canadian Alliance MP Howard Hilstrom said carbon sales may not
be the financial incentive many farmers are hoping. He said a farmer
signing a contract to receive compensation for stored carbon will
essentially lose management flexibility over the affected land.
Bill Stewart of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association agreed.
“Before a farmer signs a lease, he should be careful about what it
means,” the cattle rancher told MPs Dec. 5. “You can’t expect a farmer
to sign a lease for 21 years with a caveat (that the land not be
cultivated in a way that releases the stored carbon.) It just ties his
hands.”
James Bruce of the Soil and Water Conservation Society said he has
watched mid-west American farmers already making some money by selling
carbon credits. He recommended renting one year at a time.
Ontario farmer Don McCabe, representing Grain Growers of Canada, warned
that government predictions of a potential $10 per acre benefit to
farmers for stored carbon could be far too optimistic.
Stewart, from the CCA, suggested the debate over the value of carbon
credits and the ways farmers can cash in is missing a far larger point.
Many farmers doubt the rationale behind the Kyoto Protocol.
“As a group, they are very skeptical at the whole idea of climate
change,” he said.
