OTTAWA’S IMPOSSIBLE CLIMATE GOALS: Gov’t blames farmers and puts their mental health at risk, farm leader says

May 03, 2024

OTTAWA — The chairman of Grain Farmers of Ontario is incensed with Canada’s commissioner of the environment and sustainable development for calling out agriculture for lagging behind targeted greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

The federal government has an aggressive 2030 goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions and Canadian agriculture is only 2 % of the way there. Canada’s Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Jerry DeMarco, recently laid the blame at the feet of the federal ag department for lacking a strategy to carry out its share of the country’s overall emissions reduction target of 40 % to 45 %.

“Given the current climate crisis and limited results thus far, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada will need to ensure that all its expected reductions in greenhouse gas emissions for 2030 take place in the six growing seasons that remain,” DeMarco warned in a press release accompanying his April 30 report.

The prime minister promised farmers last year that fertilizer emission cuts would be achieved voluntarily, but as of January 2024, no volunteers have come forward, according to the report.

Ag Canada is doubling down on its commitments and has “agreed” with the report’s recommendations to reach emission targets by implementing a “sustainable agriculture strategy” with “concrete deliverables.”

The commissioner found that Ag Canada successfully complied with its requirement to track program applicants by their gender identity and minority-group status.

The commissioner’s report rankled Grain Farmers of Ontario chair and Eastern Ontario cash crop farmer Jeff Harrison, who highlighted the mental health challenges that arise from setting impossible targets and casting farmers as an environmental problem.

“Painting this climate picture as the fault of agriculture, it vilifies farmers,” Harrison said. “It’s part of the added stress on farmers that they are expected to do the unachievable. They’re expected to solve a problem that they didn’t necessarily create.

“We were doing good things for generations, feeding the world, and now we’re being cast in the shadows as part of the blame on this.”

The government has placed “unachievable targets and unrealistic goals” on farmers, Harrison said. The commissioner’s report appears to bear that out, though Harrison was irritated by an underlying assumption that farmers are “almost failing the climate.” He exclaimed: “It kind of pisses me off , to be honest.”

Leading scientists have argued that it is impossible for Canada to affect the earth’s temperature in any meaningful way and a reduction in man-made carbon dioxide emissions has not been shown to reduce global warming. Moreover, global warming and cooling might be cyclical and normal. Also, Canada emits only 2 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gases, while China is the biggest emitter and its policy is full steam ahead with increasing carbon emissions and building coal plants.

If the federal government “wants to do something for the environment, maybe they should reduce the hot air coming out of Ottawa,” Harrison said.

Saddling farmers with increasing regulatory costs is nonsensical when input costs are already skyrocketing, he also pointed out. “Whether it’s parts for my machinery, or diesel fuel for my equipment or my fertilizer, it’s just absurd.” The recent drop in the Canadian dollar “makes it almost impossible” for farmers to invest in new equipment, he added.

By chronicling the failure of the federal government to cut emissions, the report exposes the uselessness of the carbon tax and other programs intended to do exactly that, he observed. “Tell me what good the carbon tax has done, other than take money out of people’s pockets.”

Canadian farms emit 69 megatonnes of greenhouse gas annually, about 10 % of the country’s total. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada says it will cut annual agricultural emissions by just over 11.2 megatonnes by 2030. Figures in DeMarco’s report show the actual reduction currently stands at 0.2 megatonnes, or less than 2 % of the department’s 2030 goal. Ag Canada measured no reduction in fertilizer emissions, though the federal government also wants to cut fertilizer emissions by 30 % as of 2030.

Source : Farmersforum
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