THE COMMENT period closes Aug. 12 on the federal government’s proposed carbon offset program designed to help reduce greenhouse gases.
It has implications for farmers, as both producers and keepers of greenhouse gases, and is worthwhile to review.
The Soil Conservation Council of Canada’s reaction to the plan, released June 10, was negative.
Key to its concerns was criteria that said carbon offset projects must have started after Jan. 1, 2006, to be eligible for inclusion in the federal carbon trading system.
The carbon trading system would allow farmers to trade carbon credits on an open market. Participants who didn’t meet emissions targets set by the government could buy credits from those with a surplus, i.e. farmers.
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An eligibility date of Jan. 1, 2006, would eliminate the vast majority of farmers who embraced minimum and zero-till farming practices more than three years ago. Thousands of farmers and thousands of acres of carbon sinks, a.k.a. fields, would not be eligible for carbon offset credit trading.
However, the plan addresses this concern. The eligibility criteria in the draft document says: “Projects must have started on or after Jan. 1, 2006, except for projects that are susceptible to easy reversal, such as reduced and no-till projects in agriculture, for which the minister may specify a normalized baseline in the Offset System Quantification Protocol that all projects can utilize regardless of start date.
“The project start date will be the date on which initial reductions are achieved from the project. Evidence of the project start date must be provided.”
It appears the challenge for the conservation council, and other groups and individuals interested in carbon offset trading, will be to ensure this “normalized baseline” includes a large proportion of zero and minimum tillage practitioners.
There’s some acceptance of that idea in the draft document: “An historical baseline – a benchmark of past emission performance – could also be accepted if there is evidence that it reflects the ‘business-as-usual’ situation at the time the project is constructed.” It’s unclear whether that also includes past sequestration performance, however.
It is estimated that Canadian cropland can sequester 22 million tonnes of atmospheric carbon dioxide per year under best management practices. Canadian grazing land can sequester three million tonnes annually by controlled grazing, improved fertilizer use and placement, improved cultivars and wetland restoration.
That is a lot of annual tonnage that landowners might be able to trade, thus generating an additional source of income while doing little more than they would ordinarily do for optimum production.
There is a faction particularly strong among farmers that discounts the idea of climate change and global warming caused by greenhouse gases.
But if this faction and all farmers can generate additional credit, in terms of environmental stewardship and cash in hand, why would they not embrace the concept of carbon sequestration?
A review of the government’s proposed policy would be time well spent. It can be found at www.ec.gc.ca.
Bruce Dyck, Terry Fries, Barb Glen, D’Arce McMillan and Ken Zacharias collaborate in the writing of Western Producer editorials.
