Agriculture Canada says its scientists will develop an on-line “virtual farm” within a few years that will allow producers to calculate the environmental impacts of changes in production methods.
“This will allow farmers and policy makers to pose the ‘what if’ questions,” Lethbridge experimental farm soil and carbon sinks expert Henry Janzen told a Dec. 17 news conference at Ottawa’s Central Experimental Farm.
A farmer considering changing tillage methods, adding livestock or changing his livestock-feeding pattern to reduce methane production will be able to enter the information into the “virtual farm” computer program and find out how it will affect the farm’s emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.
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“It will allow farmers to assess the environmental significance of a proposal before they commit the investment needed to implement,” Janzen said.
On the day that Canada formally presented its ratification of the Kyoto protocol on climate change to the United Nations in New York, Agriculture Canada produced five scientists from across the country to talk about how agriculture can help reduce carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane in the atmosphere.
The farm sector produces 10 percent of Canada’s greenhouse gases – mainly nitrous oxide and methane from livestock and use or misuse of nitrogen fertilizer.
The scientists – Janzen, Raymond Desjardins from Ottawa, Daniel Massé from Lennoxville, Que., Philippe Rochette from St. Foy, Que. and Shannon Scott from Brandon – described research projects under way to improve feeding and digestion efficiency to reduce methane release by livestock, precision farming work to reduce excess nitrous oxide release and efforts to convert methane gas into usable biofuel in colder temperatures.
Even though it is not a major contributor of carbon dioxide, Janzen said agriculture can be a major part of the effort to reducing carbon dioxide through its ability to absorb and store carbon when farmers use minimum, no-till or set aside practices.
However, he cautioned that agricultural land is not an infinite storehouse for carbon. Carbon levels will stabilize after two decades or so.
A change in tillage practices can release stored carbon and undo the benefits achieved.
“Farmers are really managers of carbon and how well they manage it affects us all,” Janzen said.
He said that as a scientist, he could not speculate on how and when farmers should be compensated for making management decisions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions or store carbon.
But he said agriculture can be a major player in Canada’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to six percent below 1990 levels by 2012.
He illustrated the point by noting that journalists driving to the news conference had sent carbon dioxide molecules into the atmosphere. By next spring, they could have migrated to Saskatoon, been taken out of the atmosphere by a wheat plant and become part of the food chain.
“This is a very interconnected system.”
