Strategy missing for Canadian farmers to meet environmental targets: CFA

Friday, November 29, 2013

by SUSAN MANN

Despite setting a new target to stabilize or increase biodiversity and wildlife habitat capacity on working farmland, the federal government has failed to clarify how the goal will be met, says a Canadian Federation of Agriculture spokesman.

One of two new targets in the 2013/16 Sustainable Development Strategy released by Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq this month is to “provide a stable or improved level of biodiversity and habitat capacity on the agricultural working landscape by 2020.”

The target is based on voluntary rather than mandatory participation from the farm community.

Greg Northey, Canadian Federation of Agriculture environment policy director, says the agricultural industry is used to seeing these targets being set but what’s unclear is how the targets will be met and what programs will be put in place so they can be met. “Is enough funding going into environmental farm plans to do this? Is there enough funding going into programs that would address a lot of these issues? Those are the biggest questions.”

Reporting on the agricultural industry’s environmental performance is important for farmers because the farming industry can demonstrate it provides wildlife habitat and produces ecological goods and services.

The industry also needs indicators or real measures to help it demonstrate its continuous improvement, Northey explains. “Metrics like this help us justify both our programs and to our consumers that we do provide this environmental value.”

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada does report on the farming industry’s environmental performance, and as part of that work it has developed an agri-environmental indicator.

The indicator measures wildlife habitat capacity on agricultural lands. It “provides a multi-species assessment of broad-scale trends in the capacity of the agricultural landscape in providing suitable habitat to terrestrial vertebrate,” writes Patrick Girard, AFFC spokesperson, in an email.

As of the latest report released in 2010, the average habitat capacity was stable or increasing between 1986 and 2006 on 86 per cent of the Canada’s agricultural landscape “reflecting the strong commitment to stewardship by farmers,” he says. “These positive results are illustrative of efforts farmers are already making.”

The federal agriculture department will continue releasing periodic reports of agri-environmental indicators through the Sustainable Science and Technology Advancement Initiative in Growing Forward 2, it says on the department’s website. But the website does not specify the date for the release of the next report and Girard did not respond to a Better Farming reporter’s question about the date.

Northey questions whether, with budget cuts, the department has the capacity to do another comprehensive agri-environmental indicator report. Losing the ability to generate metrics on environmental impact hampers the industry’s ability to retain markets “or consumer confidence,” he says.

Northey says some of the language used in the Sustainable Development Strategy “especially around the idea of the agricultural working landscape” is positive. “It’s nice to see them (the federal government) acknowledge the value of the working landscape of agriculture when they think about the environment. It’s something we’ve been asking for.”

But he wonders whether “we have everything in place to really meet these goals (in the Sustainable Development Strategy),” he says. “It’s unclear.”

He acknowledges the government has some programs and funding for wildlife habitat protection and enhancement. There is government funding, for example, for a farm environmental risk assessment through the Environmental Farm Plan program. “Maybe the programs we have across the country are enough but it’s tough to know.”

Girard describes the Environmental Farm Plan as a key instrument to encourage farmers to meet the goals. “Biodiversity is considered in provincial environmental farm plans permitting producers to identify ways to protect and enhance biodiversity,” he writes, noting funding is available for farmers using beneficial management practices.

As well, farmers are working with governments at all levels to develop other programs to protect wildlife habitat. He uses the example of Ontario’s Species At Risk Incentive program delivered by the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association. The program helps farmers to protect habitats on their lands.

Nathan Stevens, general manager of the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario, says the organization is concerned about strategy’s phosphorous loading targets for Lake Erie, Lake Simcoe and the St. Lawrence River. “That’s more of a concern because it has been identified in other papers lately,” he says. “Hopefully there’s going to be some cost-shared funding on reducing phosphorous loading.”

The 2013/16 federal sustainable development strategy updates and expands the first strategy that reflected the government’s priorities and decisions since 2010, and it contains refined goals and targets, according to the government’s Nov. 4 press release. BF