With demands for added regulations and taxes to control practices that contribute to climate change, Ontario’s farmers are fighting back by asserting they already are leaders in reducing greenhouse gas.
A report last week sponsored by
AgCare, a coalition of agricultural stakeholders, said farmers who have changed tillage methods or reduced chemical use already have made massive contributions to control emission of climate-altering chemicals and gases.
“Greenhouse gas emissions have been reduced by the equivalent of taking 125,000 cars off the road through improved soil conservation methods,” said the AGCare study.
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“Farmers have spent at least $600 million on environmental improvements and 300,000 days in environmental training. Over 70 percent of them have voluntarily participated in the environmental farm plan program.”
The report Caring for the Land – Our Farm Environmental Program was sponsored by the federal and provincial governments and Ontario farm groups through the coalition Agricultural Groups Concerned about Resources and the Environment.
It claims that soil conservation and farm environmental practices since the 1990s have resulted in:
- Retention of more than 600 kilotonnes of carbon in the soil that would have been released with conventional tillage.
- More than 60 percent of Ontario farmers adopting reduced or minimum tillage affecting almost four million acres.
- Spending of $600 million in on-farm environmental practice improvements.
- A 52 percent reduction in pesticide use in Ontario.
AGCare executive director Jackie Fraser released the report June 5 at the same time as developed world leaders were meeting in Germany to pledge greater environmental effort and the Canadian Green party was releasing a greenhouse gas policy that identified agriculture as part of the problem.
The Green party said last week agriculture accounts for up to seven percent of greenhouse gas emissions and should face penalties for methane emissions as well as receive incentives for carbon storing and move to organic production.
Fraser said the report shows Ontario farmers are “environmental leaders” despite their critics.
“This report reveals the tip of the iceberg,” she said. “There are so many farmers doing great things for the environment, this report merely scratches the surface.”
The report said 33,000 of Ontario’s 45,000 farmers have been involved in the environmental farm plan program. Expanding the program is one element of the next generation of farm policies being negotiated by federal and provincial officials this summer.
