‘Sticks’ needed to improve soil health, Senate told

Glacier FarmMedia – If the federal government and Canada’s agriculture industry want to get serious about soil preservation and soil health, rules and regulations may be necessary, said two speakers who addressed the Senate committee for agriculture and forestry Sept. 22.

Cedric MacLeod, executive director of the Canadian Forage and Grassland Association, along with Don Lobb, a farmer from Ontario, said that financial incentives and government programs don’t convince enough farmers to adopt practices that are better for the soil.

Some sort of consequence is needed to get producers to change their ways.

Why it matters: The Senate is undertaking the first soil study in nearly four decades and recently had its first meeting.

“Without a stick, you’ve only got a carrot. There needs to be a penalty, in my mind. I know that’s not a really popular perspective,” MacLeod said in response to a question from senator Robert Black, who asked what government policies are needed to maintain and improve soil health in Canada.

Policies that encourage farmers to try conservation tillage or plant cover crops can be helpful, but something harsher is possibly needed to get more compliance, Lobb added.

“It might be attached to property taxes or crop insurance,” he said during an online question and answer session with senators. “This may sound heavy-handed to those who don’t like that kind of activity, but our experience really hasn’t been good with less aggressive types of activity.”

MacLeod and Lobb spoke to the agriculture committee for the first hearing on a new Senate study on soil health.

“As part of the study, the committee will investigate ways to improve soil-health strategies, help Canadian forestry and agricultural producers become leaders in sustainability and boost the industry’s economic growth,” says a Senate news release on the study.

Black, the agriculture committee chair, has been lobbying for a soil study since he joined the Senate in 2018.

“There’s air and water and soil. There’s lots of focus on air and water. Soil, in my mind, is the (overlooked) second cousin,” Black said in 2019.

The Senate conducted a previous study on soil, which was published in 1984. Senator Herbert Sparrow released a report titled “Soil at Risk: Canada’s eroding future.” The 1984 study included a list of possible remedies for soil degradation in Canada.

The updated Senate study will look at the current state of soils in Canada and the role that soil can play in mitigating climate change.

MacLeod told Black and other members of the agriculture committee that he remembers the moment he chose soil preservation as a career path.

He was in his first year at the Nova Scotia Agricultural College (now known as the Dalhousie Agricultural Campus) planning to become a veterinarian and was sitting in a classroom listening to a lecture from Ralph Martin, a now-retired plant scientist.

“He spoke to soil sustainability, how soil erosion was such an impediment to long-term sustainability,” MacLeod said. “That really struck me deeply… because I come from potato country in New Brunswick, where intensive tillage is part of the package. Seeing those rivers run brown… I saw them as I grew up and I saw them on videos at university… I went that afternoon to Dr. Martin and I changed my major from pre-vet to soil science. And I never looked back.”

He told the Senate agriculture committee that soil health begins with soil preservation.

“The natural regeneration capacity of our soils is far less than what we are losing,” said MacLeod, who earned a master’s in soil science at the University of Manitoba.

“We’ve got to keep those soils covered (with plants) and keep them in place. And then we can move to advancing the health of (soils).”

Lobb said he remembers the Senate soil study from 1984 and the government programs that came in its wake.

Farmers have made progress on soil erosion and soil health since 1984. But when high crop prices came along, many reverted to old habits, he said.

“People just spent more money on more iron, to do more tillage,” he said. “We need policies and actions that have a long- term effect… We really have to be innovative about how we move forward, to make government dollars be spent effectively and responsively.”

Lobb’s son David, a University of Manitoba soil scientist, has found that large quantities of money are at risk if soil erosion and degradation are not addressed.

He’s estimated that $3.1 billion worth of crop production capacity is lost annually in Canada because of soil erosion from agricultural lands.

Conservation tillage is practised on tens of millions of acres in Canada and thousands of producers have become more interested in cover crops, regenerative agriculture and other concepts that improve soil health.

Changes have been made and are still happening, but “I believe it is too slow,” MacLeod said.

“Evolving the producer mindset and advancing these sustainability practices really becomes the challenge of the day.”

– This article was originally published at The Western Producer.