Misguided fertilizer cap threatens Canada’s carbon-smart farmers

Posted on September 30, 2024 by Ryan Dahlman

The fall harvest is in the storehouse, and it’s time to put away all proposals to cap fertilizer use in the name of saving the planet.

The Saskatoon-based Global Institute for Food Security (GIFS) conducted a comprehensive analysis of carbon emissions across Saskatchewan, Western Canada, Canada, and among international peers. Its study examined emissions from transportation, seed production, fertilizer and manure use, crop inputs, field activities, energy consumption, and post-harvest processes.

The studies, published last year, had very reassuring results. Canadian crop production was less carbon intensive than other places, and Western Canada was a little better yet. This proved true crop by crop.

In other words, Canadian farmers are focused on ensuring food security, not causing the droughts, fires, or storms that critics unfairly blame on them.

Carbon emissions per tonne of canola production were more than twice as high in France and Germany as in Canada. Australia was slightly less carbon intensive than Canada but still trailed Western Canada.

For non-durum wheat, Canada blew Australia, France, Germany, and the U.S. away with roughly half the carbon intensity of those countries. The U.S. had twice the carbon intensity for durum wheat as Canada, and Italy almost five times as much.

Canada performed exceptionally well in lentil production. Australian producers had 5.5 times the carbon emissions per tonne compared to Canada, while U.S. producers had eight times as much. In some parts of Canada, lentil production even acted as a net carbon sink, absorbing more carbon than it emitted.

Canadian field peas produce one-tenth of the carbon emissions per tonne as found in Germany and one-sixth that of France or the United States.

According to GIFS, Canada excels in agriculture through practices such as “regenerative agriculture, including minimal soil disturbance, robust crop rotation, covering the land, integrating livestock and the effective management of crop inputs.”

The adoption of zero-till farming is especially important. Zero-till farming is an agricultural practice where the soil is left undisturbed by avoiding plowing or tilling, which helps retain nutrients, moisture, and greenhouse gases in the soil.

Western Canada has been especially keen to adopt the zero-till approach, unlike the United States, where only 30 percent of cropland is zero-till.

The adoption of optimal methods has already reduced Canadian carbon emissions substantially. Despite this progress, some net zero advocates are pushing to reduce carbon emissions from fertilizer use by 30 percent, similar to cuts being proposed in other sectors.

This target is unfair to Canadian agriculture, as the industry has already made significant progress in reducing emissions. Nitrates are essential for crop growth, so farmers are already highly motivated to keep them in the soil rather than losing them to the atmosphere, regardless of concerns about global warming. Fewer nitrates would lead to lower yields and decreased protein content in crops.

Farmers are already motivated by their personal and economic interests to use fertilizer as efficiently as possible. While universal adoption of optimal techniques might reduce emissions slightly, Canada is so far ahead in this game that a hard cap on fertilizer emissions could only be detrimental.

In 2021, Fertilizer Canada commissioned a study by MNP to estimate the costs of a 20 percent drop in fertilizer use to achieve a 30 percent reduction in emissions. The study suggested that by 2030, bushels of production per acre would drop significantly for canola (23.6), corn (67.9), and spring wheat (36.1). By 2030, the annual value of lost production for those crops alone would reach $10.4 billion.

If every animal and human in Canada died, leaving the country an unused wasteland, the drop in world greenhouse gas emissions would be only 1.4 percent. Any talk of reducing capping fertilizer inputs for the greater good is nonsense.

Lee Harding is a Research Fellow for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

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