Fall harvest is in the storehouse. Now, let’s put away all proposals to cap fertilizer inputs to save the earth. Canadian farmers are ensuring food security, not fueling the droughts, fires, or storms that critics unfairly attribute to them.
The Saskatoon-based Global Institute for Food Security (GIFS) did as fulsome an analysis as possible on carbon emissions in Saskatchewan, Western Canada, Canada, and international peers. Transportation, seed, fertilizer and manure, crop inputs, field activities, energy emissions, and post-harvest work were all in view.
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.
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. For durum wheat, the U.S. had twice the carbon intensity of Canada, and Italy almost five times as much.
Canada was remarkably better with lentil production. Producers in Australia had 5.5 times the carbon emissions per tonne produced as Canada, while the U.S. had 8 times as much. In some parts of Canada, lentil production was a net carbon sink.
Canadian field peas have one-tenth the carbon emissions per tonne of production as is found in Germany, and one-sixth that of France or the United States.
According to GIFS, Canada succeeds by “regenerative agriculture, including minimal soil disturbance, robust crop rotation, covering the land, integrating livestock and the effective management of crop inputs.”
The implementation of zero-till farming is especially key. If the land isn’t worked up, most nutrients and gases stay in the soil–greenhouse gases included.
Western Canada has been especially keen to adopt the zero-till approach, in contrast to the United States, where only 30 percent of cropland is zero-till.
The adoption of optimal methods has already lowered Canadian carbon emissions substantially. Despite all of this, some net zero schemers aim to cut carbon emissions by fertilizer by 30 percent, just as it does in other sectors.
This target is undeserved for Canadian agriculture because the industry has already made drastic, near-maximum progress. Nitrates help crops grow, so the farmer is already vitally motivated to keep nitrates in the soil and out of the skies–alleged global warming or not. Fewer nutrients mean fewer yields and lower proteins.
The farmer’s personal and economic interests already motivate the best fertilizer use that is practically possible. Universal adoption of optimal techniques could lower emissions a bit more, but 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.
