Nitrogen is a critical nutrient, essential to life and agriculture, but its byproduct, nitrous oxide (N₂O), is also a powerful greenhouse gas, emissions of which the federal government has aimed to slash.

Canadian agriculture is now several years into the federal goal to reduce N fertilizer emissions by 30 per cent below 2020 levels by the end of the decade. Similar regulations have caused tension in the European Union and elsewhere.

Kate Congreves, a University of Saskatchewan associate professor, has been researching how to improve crop production while limiting nitrogen emissions as part of the second Diverse Field Crops Cluster (DFCC). The most recent five-year cluster started in 2024.

Preliminary results keyed in on the mix of different application techniques and products that resulted in more efficient nitrogen management.

READ MORE: Rethinking nitrogen efficiency

“Nitrogen fertilizers are the largest source of anthropogenic N₂O emissions,” she said during a March presentation.

“What this means (is), if fertilizers and fertilizer applications are a large source of N₂O emissions, anthropogenic N₂O emissions, that means our adjustments to fertilizer and fertilizer management do have an impact on reducing emissions.”

DFCC focuses on research on diverse crops such as camelina, carinata, flax, sunflower and mustard. Spring wheat is tapped as a control.

One of her hopes is to identify “double wins” — that is, the high-value crops associated with the lowest emissions.

Win-wins

The project builds on nitrogen emission test results and practices established in Nitrous Oxide Emission Reduction Protocol (NERP), created in collaboration with Fertilizer Canada. NERP forms a set of guidelines, with a goal of helping the producer hone their N management, reduce emissions, but also protect their crop production.

There are three levels for NERP: basic, intermediate and advanced. “Basic” uses ammonium-based fertilizer applied at seeding, with a rate established from soil testing information. “Intermediate” expands management to include options such as enhanced-efficiency fertilizers, applied at a reduced rate (around 75 per cent of the basic rate), since less would be presumably needed for the same crop effect. “Advanced” NERP guidelines use enhanced-efficiency fertilizer as well, but applied with split application between seeding and in-season.

These guidelines are followed closely in the DFCC project. Congreves uses SuperU at the intermediate level as the enhanced efficiency product, and SuperU with split application at the advanced level. Intermediate treatments band at 75 per cent rates of the basic treatments, and advanced bands at 75 per cent of intermediate (totalled between applications), the first of which occurs at seeding and the second at crop emergence. The in-season application was done with backpack sprayers to ensure uniformity of application.

The project has three research sites in Saskatchewan. Each site is on clay loam soil with similar levels of organic matter and pH. Background soil N, however, is varied. The sites are categorized as having low, moderate or high existing nitrogen levels.

“The background nitrogen levels, they do have an influence on nitrogen cycling,” Congreves says. “And soil priming affects how much nitrogen that would subsequently get released from soil organic matter, for example, and then you’ve got nitrogen from the fertilizer.”

These background levels were one of the factors that went into determining the plots’ treatment levels. Others were consultation of crop fertilizer guidelines, reviews of estimates for soil mineralized land potential during the growing season, and NERP guidelines.

Sampling

Seeding across all sites was underway in mid- to late May 2024. Bases that would allow the team to measure emissions were installed immediately following seeding and fertilizer passes, placed in every plot, maintained throughout the season and sealed at the surface of the soil. Chambers were attached to the top of the bases to capture gases to be measured.

Samples were taken several times a week, but more frequently right after seeding and rainfall events, as these periods see the most flux (the rate that greenhouse gases are added or removed from the air).

“We go in and seal the chamber air tight and we collect our gas samples… with a syringe,” Congreves says.

Samples are taken at various points after the chamber is sealed. To measure the sample, the team uses gas chromatography, a technique that separates organic or inorganic substances from a gas to be analyzed, so as to see the N₂O concentrations in the emitted gas.

Findings are paired with data kept on soil moisture, temperature, weather condtions and crop production, as well as information from soil and plant samples.

Looking at the results from mustard, Congreves notes that, at the side with moderate levels of background nitrogen, there were incremental “additive” amounts of N₂O throughout the growing season.

“What we’re seeing is N₂O emissions are indeed greater with basic, and then incrementally lower with intermediate, advanced, and then our unfertilized control,” she says.

The site with high background N levels saw larger daily fluxes at application time, but not as many during the growing season. Following this pattern, the site with the lowest background levels had the lowest major emissions.

Congreves says she’s not yet seen any major yield differences associated with the practices. Her 2024 yields had normal rates of variability that were on par with other small plot agronomy trials and aligned with 2024 crop averages.

The other crop data sets show similar patterns.

However, the reasearch is far from wrapped. Spring thaw is a major point of emissions. When the spring 2025 emissions are measured, the cumulative emissions will be adjusted to officially cap off the first year of the project.

“So far we’re indeed seeing, for most crops, the same pattern… so far, based on 2024 preliminary data, improving the nitrogen management practice does tend to practically reduce (cumulative) N₂O emissions.”

Going forward, Congreves notes they plan to link N use efficiency metrics to N₂O data to get a “fuller picture” of what occurs with the gasses and the crops together.

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Demands around the world to restrict greenhouse gas and nutrient emissions from all forms of livestock mean feed formulators need to ensure that animals are efficiently pulling all they can out of both macro and micro-nutrients to reduce the amount of harmful substances that end up in the air, water and soil.

“They look at livestock and see pollution,” said Melissa Dumont, executive director of the Animal Nutrition Association of Canada, summing up widely held public and government attitudes toward agriculture.

Those attitudes result in both scrutiny of and demands upon the feed industry that are relentless and sometimes wrongheaded, some researchers and scientists said.

“The pressure on us … is absolutely immense,” said British feed scientist Emily Burton of Nottingham Trent University.

“It’s the assumptions that annoy me most as a nutritionist.”

Within the livestock and feed industries there is much pride over the ever-increasing efficiency of meat production, with per-kilogram greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impact significantly falling over time.

For example, the U.S. hog industry claims it now has an eight per cent smaller environmental impact, uses 75 per cent less land, consumes 25 per cent less water and runs on seven per cent less energy than 50 years ago, despite producing much more meat.

Each healthy pig or steer today now produces more pounds of gain with fewer emissions than ever before, while preserving grasslands and consuming materials that would otherwise be waste.

However, millions of people around the planet believe livestock production is a primary cause of climate change, water pollution and soil degradation.

While some have pushed back against what they consider misperceptions of net livestock emissions, virtually all feed companies and researchers now include “sustainability” as a key metric when considering advances and characteristics they are trying to build into feed sources and practices.

Before the official opening of the main ANCC sessions, a full morning was dedicated to researchers who are focused on boosting livestock sustainability with better feeding.

Getting to “net-zero livestock production” and turning pledges into concrete sustainability results for pig and dairy cattle producers were the lead-off sessions for the symposium, which drew more than 400 attendees.

American and Dutch experts challenged the feed industry to take more seriously micro-nutrient impact, efficiency and waste, which they said is generally ignored.

“Most of us don’t (pay attention to micronutrient impacts),” said Terry Engle of Colorado State University.

There’s great stress on researchers to improve livestock sustainability, but fortunately for the industry, it appears there is a stream of young researchers keen to get into the industry. Dozens of graduate students from across Canada, many from non-Canadian backgrounds, attended the conference.

The student researcher presentations, both in posters and from the stage, were popular with more seasoned researchers, and the conference sprinkled student participation through the event.

One organization making its appearance at the conference was African Youth in Canadian Agriculture, which is a new national organization attempting to connect African students in Canadian high schools and universities to opportunities in agriculture, which most young urban people are unaware of and have no clue of how to access.

An example of how African-origin researchers are finding places in Canada’s feed industry was seen in University of Saskatchewan graduate student and researcher Roseline Ogory, who presented her work in incorporating Ahliflower seed and cake in chicken diets to produce better omega 3 content in eggs.

The notion that there are still radical gains to be made in livestock feeding efficiency ran through the conference. Micronutrients are not the only element of livestock feeding that is likely being supplied inefficiently and possibly counterproductively. University of Saskatchewan swine nutrition scientist Dan Columbus highlighted the relative lack of study on sow nutritional needs and the crude manner in which sow diets are supplied, mostly ignoring the cyclical needs of the animal.

Engle, an expert in copper, acknowledged his favourite element befuddles him, despite decades of study.

“I love copper, but it confuses me,” said Engle.

Researchers feel much pressure to feed animals more sustainably, but many also feel optimism that feeding sustainability and efficiency have major gains waiting to be discovered.

That tension between demands for sustainability and optimism about sustainability dominated the conference.

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Attorney General Letitia James said JBS USA Food Co, the Brazilian company’s American-based unit, has “no viable plan” to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, making its stated commitment to achieving that goal false and misleading.

James said JBS has admitted its “Net Zero by 2040” commitment did not incorporate the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions from its supply chain, including from deforestation in the Amazon.

She also said reaching the goal was “infeasible” given JBS’ plan to increase production and therefore its carbon footprint, on top of greenhouse gas emissions that had by 2021 exceeded those of the entire country of Ireland.

“Families [are] willing to spend more of their hard-earned money on products from brands that are better for the environment,” James said in a statement. “JBS USA’s greenwashing exploits the pocketbooks of everyday Americans and the promise of a healthy planet for future generations.”

The lawsuit filed in a New York state court in Manhattan seeks a $5,000 civil fine per violation of state business laws, and to recoup ill-gotten gains from false sustainability claims.

JBS’s businesses include Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation, one of the largest U.S. chicken producers.

In a statement, JBS said it disagreed with the lawsuit. It also pledged to continue partnering with farmers, ranchers and others toward a “more sustainable future for agriculture” that uses fewer resources and reduces its environmental impact.

The company generated about $53.5 billion of revenue in the first nine months of 2023, about 59 per cent of which came from North America and Central America.

JBS shares trade in Brazil. The company has been seeking to list its shares in the United States.

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Bovaer neutralizes methane in the rumen. When microbes in the rumen break down feed, hydrogen and carbon dioxide are released. These two gases are combine in the presence of an enyzme. Bovaer works by suppressing the enzyme, reducing the amount of methane that is created.

Dsm-firmenich, the Dutch company selling the product says it could be available in Canada within a few weeks.

The feed additive will be a tool for farmers to reduce methane emissions for cattle, but Canadian research has also shown a small increase in feed efficiency and no change in cattle growth rate.

“This will benefit Canadian farmers, efforts of the sector, and support Canada in delivering on its international emissions reduction commitments such as the Global Methane Pledge,” says Mark van Nieuwland, vice-president of Bovaer.

Canadian cattle feeders can reduce methane emissions by an average of 45 per cent by using the ingredient, says the company.

In the case of dairy cows, Bovaer can “reduce methane emissions by 30 per cent on average, potentially lowering the overall greenhouse gas footprint per liter of milk by 10 to 15 per cent.”

A trial run in large trial run in Alberta provided Canadian data to support the approval of Bovaer.

“In 2020, dsm-firmenich successfully completed the longest and largest trial with Bovaer,” said van Nieuwland. “(It was) a two-year trial with 15,000 beef cattle in Alberta and supported by ERA (Emission Reduction Alberta), which demonstrated methane reductions of up to 82 per cent, resulting in savings of 1,473 tons of CO2e during this study alone.”

The company says that once the product is included as a tool in programs such as the Reducing Enteric Methane Emissions (REME) protocol for beef cattle and the Alberta Fed Cattle protocol, cattle feeders will also be able to generate carbon offsets from its use. The authorization comes on the heels of the CFIA approval of 3-Nitrooxypropanol (3NOP) — the active ingredient in Bovaer — earlier this week.

“We are very pleased to see the regulatory pathway open for innovative feed ingredients that reduce methane emissions which will contribute to our sector meeting its 2030 emissions goal,” says Nathan Phinney, Canadian Cattle Association president.

“We applaud the CFIA for their diligence on this file to ensure this new tool is available, which will allow Canadian beef producers to remain competitive globally.”

According to the CCA/National Cattle Feeders’ Association release, 3NOP has shown no negative impacts on the rumen microbial population when fed to cattle.

The Canadian beef industry has set a goal to reduce primary production greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions intensity by 33 per cent by 2030. Dairy Farmers of Canada has a goal of net zero emissions by 2050.

Karen Beauchemin, retired Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) research scientist, was a key player in the Canadian research.

“I think beef producers are interested in doing their part, but just focusing on enteric methane emissions is not going to get Canada where it needs to be by 2030,” said Beauchemin, in a 2022 interview with Canadian Cattlemen. She worked with AAFC’s Lethbridge research station.

Enteric methane emissions from cattle contribute 3.3 per cent of Canada’s total GHG emissions.

“One thing I find with consumers is they have a real misconception about how much enteric methane from animals contributes to our national greenhouse gas budget,” said Beauchemin in the article.

The product has been approved in more than 50 countries in the world, but as of early 2024, not yet in the United States.

—Jeff Melchior writes for the Alberta Farmer Express. 

–updated Feb. 1 to add additional details, context.

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“By joining the Efficient Fertilizer Consortium, we’re helping ensure that our farmers and producers are well-equipped to make informed decisions that are good for the environment and their bottom line,” said federal agriculture minister Lawrence MacAulay in a news release. 

The Efficient Fertilizer Consortium is an initiative of the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR), a group established by the U.S. in 2014. FFAR a public-private partnership that funds food and agriculture research, as per its website. 

The Efficient Fertilizer Consortium was first announced in late 2022 with plans to fund “applied research that accelerates development and wider adoption of novel fertilizers that increase nutrient-use efficiency and reduce direct emissions of nitrous oxide and other greenhouse gases from fertilizers,” said a FFAR news release. 

Canada joins with a commitment of about $1.3 million over four years, the Canadian government said in a Jan. 31 news release.  

This gives Canada the chance to influence the direction of consortium’s research and strategy, it added.  

The Canadian government plans to work with scientists, fertilizer companies and other stakeholders to conduct research and “ensure its relevance to Canadian agriculture,” the news release said. 

The news released tied the decision to the government’s goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fertilizer by 30 per cent below 2020 levels by 2030—goals which have caused outcry among farmers and agricultural groups due to fears that fertilizer use would be restricted.  Nitrous oxide, which nitrogen fertilizer can emit, is a particularly potent greenhouse gas.  

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“It’s exciting to see the 15 per cent reduction in GHG emissions intensity, which puts us on track to achieve the 33 per cent reduction 2030 goal that the industry has set,” wrote Ryan Beierbach, chair of the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (CRSB).

The roundtable published the report in the third week of January and pointed to increased efficiencies in the beef sector, which they say played into the improved numbers. The assessment reflects three years of scientific analysis highlighting the Canadian beef sector’s progress between 2014 and 2021. Factors included in the study spanned GHG emissions, biodiversity, carbon storage, human health and safety, animal care, economic contributions and more.

The study also pointed to areas the sector could still improve.

“We look forward to further collaborations and innovations to make a positive impact and meet our goals for the Canadian beef industry’s social, economic and environmental performance,” Beierbach said.

The report also reveals that land used for beef cattle production is estimated to store 1.9 billion tonnes of soil organic carbon, or 40 per cent of total soil carbon across the country’s ag landscape.

According to the CRSB, this is equivalent to the annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from over two billion cars.

“This report on the Canadian beef industry’s advancements in sustainability is an important tool to track the sector’s progress towards its 2030 goals,” wrote federal agriculture minister Lawrence MacAulay in a news release.

“We can all be proud of the industry’s commitment to taking action to reduce their environmental footprint without compromising their high standards and commitment to quality they’re known for.”

The report also noted that beef land provides the majority of habitat wildlife needs for both reproduction (74 per cent) and feeding (55 per cent) when all of Canada’s crop and pastureland is considered. Despite an overall loss of wildlife habitat on Canada’s pasture and cropland, beef’s share in the remaining habitat land has increased.

The report “highlights the important role that beef production plays for preserving critical wildlife habitat and Canada’s grasslands,” wrote Brad Downey, chair of the CRSB’s scientific advisory committee.

“This report also enables transparency of the beef industry to the public and confirms significant progress based on sound data that sets the stage for meeting many of the Canadian beef industry’s 2030 goals through purposeful, science-based actions.”

—Jeff Melchior is a reporter with the Alberta Farmer Express.

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C-234, a private member’s bill sponsored by southwestern Ontario Conservative MP Ben Lobb, appeared before the Commons’ standing committee on agriculture and agri-food on Monday and was reported back to the Commons.

According to Grain Farmers of Ontario (GFO), the bill — which had its first reading Feb. 7 and second reading May 18 — is now expected to come up for third reading during the House’s winter session before moving on to the Senate.

C-234 carries amendments to the federal Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act which expand that legislation’s definition of eligible farming machinery to include grain dryers as well as barn heating and cooling systems, and which extend the exemption for farming fuels to include farmers’ purchases of natural gas and propane.

“This exemption is needed to reflect the realities of the entire Canadian agriculture industry and the undue financial burden the carbon tax places on all the necessary practices undertaken by farmers and ranchers like drying grain, irrigating crops, or heating and cooling livestock barns,” Conservative MP and opposition ag critic John Barlow said in a release Wednesday.

The standing ag committee on Monday did pass several amendments to Lobb’s bill, tightening its scope.

Those include a sunset clause — which Barlow said is a reflection of Canadian farmers’ confidence that new and sustainable technologies will come forward to replace the gas- and propane-fired options they now use to dry grain and heat barns.

That sunset clause will see the exemption brought back in a set period of time for review, allowing whatever government is in place at that time to let it lapse — or to amend or extend it if the available technologies don’t yet warrant ending the exemption.

Barlow’s original amendment called for a 10-year sunset clause, but committee members later voted to shorten that period to the bill’s eight-year anniversary — citing testimony the committee heard suggesting such technology would be available sooner rather than later.

Another approved amendment will limit the exemption’s use in farm buildings, to only include those structures directly involved in crop or livestock production, such as barns or greenhouses.

‘Critical issue’

Grain and livestock producer groups have since lined up to cheer the bill’s return to the Commons, urge MPs of all parties to approve its passage and call for Canada’s Senate to do the same.

“It is clear that (ag committee) MPs understand the lack of current alternatives for grain drying and the need to provide an exemption until viable technological solutions are developed,” GFO chair Brendan Byrne said Tuesday in a separate release.

With “no viable fuel alternatives” available for the practices covered in C-234, imposing carbon pricing on those activities “does not provide a signal to lower emissions from these sources,” Grain Growers of Canada said Wednesday in another release.

Instead, GGC said, C-234 “will put money back into the hands of farmers so that they can continue to invest in practices that drive innovation, further efficiencies and reduce fuel usage.”

“With rising input costs, inflation and supply chain shortages, carbon surcharges on necessary farm activities adds an additional burden and pulls capital away from critical investments,” GGC chair Andre Harpe said in the same release.

The Agricultural Carbon Alliance, a body representing the GGC and 14 other national-level grain, livestock and general farm groups, said Wednesday that with the bill approaching third reading, it now plans to launch a public advocacy campaign “that will call for a bipartisan consensus on this critical issue.”

Fram group representatives appearing before the ag committee echoed many of the same concerns. “We understand that the carbon price is a market signal for producers to adopt low-emission energy alternatives wherever possible, but over the past year that signal has been dwarfed by skyrocketing costs for inputs such as fertilizer, gasoline and diesel,” Canadian Federation of Agriculture vice-president Todd Lewis said at the committee’s Oct. 24 meeting.

“Even when fuel prices aren’t at record highs, farmers constantly seek to increase fuel efficiency wherever possible.”

However, another speaker, University of Saskatchewan associate professor Tristan Skolrud, cautioned the committee at the same meeting that C-234 runs the risk of further drawing out the timeline for development of viable alternatives.

With “limited changes in producer behaviour, there will be limited reductions in (greenhouse gas) emissions from grain drying before greener alternatives become available,” he said.

“The development of greener alternatives will require significant private capital, and if grain drying is unregulated, the signal to private capital will be lost. Previous testimony on this amendment suggests that sufficient alternatives are at least 10 years away.

“Keep in mind that this estimate is a function of the carbon price. A higher price will shorten that time frame if private capital senses a profitable opportunity.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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N2O is described as a very strong greenhouse gas that has a warming potential of 298 times that of CO2 according to the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report or 265 times according to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report. I have not been able to find the factor that is used by the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report.

On that basis, our federal government has landed on nitrogen fertilizers as a source of N2O, and it wants to deal with that problem. The government has created a discussion document that many farmers, agrologists and CCA types will have responded to already. If you have not, do it now as the response time ends on June 3, 2022. Put the words “simple survey AAFC N2O emissions from fertilizer” into Google and the survey will pop up. You can also email aafc.fertilizer-engrais.aac@agr.gc.ca.

The discussion document

The following two paragraphs are directly from the discussion document on reducing emissions arising from the application of fertilizer in Canada’s agriculture sector.

The document states, “This discussion paper addresses one of these measures: a national target to reduce absolute levels of GHG emissions arising from fertilizer application by 30% below 2020 levels by 2030.

“For example, practices such as the use of enhanced efficiency fertilizers, minimizing fall application and/or broadcasting of fertilizers, increased use of pulses in crop rotations, and annual soil testing can improve nitrogen use efficiency and reduce emissions.”

Enhanced efficiency fertilizers do what they say in many cases but the N2O emissions are often reported in grams per hectare of N2O-N: 500 grams per hectare equals 0.45 pounds per acre. However, the extra grain in the combine tank is very elusive, so no profit for the farmer. Some “enhanced” products can reduce emissions by about 25 to 50 per cent. But 25 to 50 per cent of almost nothing is still almost nothing.

Fall broadcasting of urea fertilizer is a bad practice and we have known that since John Harapiak did all of those field trials decades ago. Most urea is now applied at seeding as a band near the seed.

As for pulses in rotation, that has been practiced in Saskatchewan to the point that we need more legume species to deal with rotation/disease problems.

Soil testing is a good management practice and there is definitely room for that to be expanded.

The discussion document states, “Canada accounts for approximately 1% of global agricultural emissions. However, available data show that Canadian cereal production likely has one of the highest levels of emissions intensity.”

Canada accounts for a whopping one per cent of global agricultural emissions. If we stopped farming, world emissions would drop by 1 per cent. Whatever happened to common sense?

The document states, “For example, the practice of replacing synthetic fertilizer with manures, compost, or digestate has the potential to reduce emissions by 10-20%.”

Manures can lead to much higher N2O emissions than fertilizers. For fields receiving high manure rates for many years, annual N2O emissions can very high. PAg and CCA types can check out Chang, C., Cho, C.M., Janzen, H.H., 1998, “Nitrous oxide emission from long-term manured soils.” Soil Science Society of America Journal, Volume 62, pages 677-682.

It sure looks like our Prairie provinces are not much of an issue for N2O, but we do have a lot of acres. Areas in the east have higher emissions but still not a huge number and fewer acres.

Crop residues and N20 emissions

Recent work at the University of Saskatchewan’s department of soil science has shown that emissions from residue of the previous crop can be much higher than from urea.

What about native prairie?

In today’s world, information is readily available with a few mouse clicks. I was curious, so I put “N2O emissions native prairie” into Google and out popped, “Nitrous Oxide Emissions from a Native Shortgrass Prairie,” by Mosier et al., 1981. Soil Science Society of America Journal, Volume 45, pages 617-619.

The work was done northeast of Fort Collins, Colo. They “spiked” the native prairie with urea to simulate urine from grazing stock. The N2O emissions only happened when they added water to the microplots or rain came. So, even native prairie can contribute a bit. That study agrees with almost all other work — water drives everything. No rain, no N2O. I assume 2021 was a good year for low emissions.

What does the latest report say about N20?

The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, page SPM-9, has this to say about N2O, “Since 1750 … increases in N2O (23%) are similar to, the natural multi-millennial changes between glacial and interglacial periods over at least the past 800,000 years (very high confidence).”

If the IPCC says N2O increase is within the range over time for 800,000 years, what are we worried about?

The punchline: Answers to questions posed in the headline

N2O, a powerful greenhouse gas — or is it? It may be 298 times as large per unit as CO2 but the amounts are measured in grams per hectare and even IPCC says it is very confident that the current level is not different from pre-industrial times — so why all the fuss?

Fertilizers, the big culprit — or are they? The big culprit is the NO3- ion, and most of the nitrate in our current environment is due to human activity in some form. It is NO3 that can be converted to N2O if moisture, pH, etc., conditions are correct. That nitrate can come from fertilizer, it can come from crop residues, it can come from livestock manure and it will come in spades if we ever break up an alfalfa field. Fertilizers are not the big culprit but are viewed as the low-hanging fruit in efforts to regulate by the government.

Be sure to have your say and we hope we can persuade the feds to stop and take a second look at what they are doing.

The real bottom line

Warning: this is all personal opinion and not scientific fact, so take it as that.

This planet Earth we all rely on for our sustenance, and in our case our affluence, is indeed in peril on many fronts. However, the basic problem is there are too many of one species (Homo sapien) and we are too interconnected — we can fly from anywhere to anywhere by squeezing into a claustrophobic tube. If a serious communicable disease breaks out anywhere in the world it is everywhere in the world in a flash.

Our unique brain power has let us control Mother Nature to our liking and it has not always been good. The “throw it out” mentality leaves lots of junk to clutter up the land. Many of our appliances and modern conveniences are purposely made to crap out in a few years, requiring the purchase of new and to throw out the old. They are purposely made so repairs are difficult if even possible.

Our continued “mantra of growth” is at the heart of the matter. We grow our population until we cannot stand the site of one other. We must grow cities until they become concrete and glass jungles not fit for habitation — at least by an old Saskatchewan farm boy with dirt under his fingernails and proud of it. We like our open roads and wide open spaces.

In the past two-plus years, Mother Nature has been fighting back hard with this pandemic. This column has so far avoided any mention as readers hear enough about it. In a future column, I will do a piece called “Pandemics I have read about” but will leave it at that for now.

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The government said protocols for four other sectors including agriculture and forest management are now being developed. It will also start developing protocols for carbon capture technology, which Canada’s high-polluting oil industry is betting on to slash its emissions, this summer.

For agriculture, the federal offset protocols now under development for future launch include “enhanced soil organic carbon” and “livestock feed management.”

As those and other protocols are completed, work on protocols including “livestock manure management” and “anaerobic digestion” will begin, the government said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government has pledged to cut climate-warming emissions 40-45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. Greenhouse gas emissions from waste, including landfills, make up seven per cent of Canada’s total carbon output.

The greenhouse gas offset credit system is intended to support a domestic carbon offset trading market, and the government said it will create new economic opportunities for companies and municipalities reducing emissions.

Participants can register projects and generate one tradeable offset credit for each tonne of emissions reduced or removed from the atmosphere, providing their projects follow the federal offset protocols that set out exactly which activities are eligible.

Credits can then be sold to others, such as heavy industrial emitters obliged to limit carbon pollution, or to companies wanting to voluntarily offset their emissions.

“Starting with landfills, we’re putting in place a market-based mechanism to incentivize businesses and municipalities to invest in the technologies and innovations that cut pollution,” Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said in a statement.

Once adopted, the livestock feed management protocol will credit methane reductions from livestock, the government said, while the enhanced soil organic carbon protocol would allow eligible farmers to generate offset credits by adopting “sustainable agricultural land management activities.”

The exact ag practices that can be followed to generate offset credits are to be determined during the protocol development process, the government said. Public comment periods will take place for future draft protocols, and “technical expert teams” have been set up to advise on “the latest science.”

Farmers “have made significant gains in reducing the GHG emissions intensity of the sector in recent years,” Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said Wednesday in a statement. “We look forward to the development of specific details on how the agriculture sector can benefit under the federal offset credit system.”

The government expects the price of credits to broadly track Canada’s price on carbon — which is currently set at $50 a tonne and is scheduled to ramp up to $170 a tonne by 2030.

However, environmental groups warned allowing polluters to purchase offset credits instead of cutting their own emissions risked undermining climate goals.

“Offsetting doesn’t stop carbon from entering the atmosphere and warming our world, it just keeps it off the books of big polluters responsible,” said Greenpeace Canada spokesman Shane Moffatt.

— Reporting for Reuters by Nia Williams. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

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But the changes are unlikely to happen unless governments act to spur them along, the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released on Monday found.

“We are in the early stages of climate and agriculture policy development, but we need to start with acknowledging the urgency of the challenge,” said Ben Lilliston, director of rural strategies and climate change for the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. “The IPCC warns that governments thus far have not been up to the task.”

About 22 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions came from agriculture, forestry and other land use sectors in 2019, the report said, around half of which were from deforestation. Much of the rest came from the combustion of fossil fuels.

Mitigation measures in those sectors — including protecting forests from clearcutting, sequestering carbon in agricultural soils, and more sustainable diets — can provide as much as 20-30 per cent of the emissions reductions needed to limit global warming to 1.5 or 2 C above pre-industrial levels.

Scientists say that is the threshold at which climate change risks spinning out of control.

“Indigenous peoples, private forest owners, local farmers and communities manage a significant share of global forests and agricultural land and play a central role in land-based mitigation options,” the report said.

While the changes required in the agriculture, forestry and other land use sectors — dubbed AFOLU by climate specialists — would not cost much to implement, there is little momentum so far to trigger them, the report said.

A lack of institutional and financial support, uncertainty over long-term tradeoffs of how land is managed, and the dispersed nature of private land holdings have hindered implementation so far, it said.

“Land provides us with so much, for example, food, nature, and our livelihoods,” said Diána Ürge-Vorsatz, vice-chair of the IPCC working group that authored the report. “These competing demands have to be carefully managed.”

One major obstacle is that dictating diet is divisive.

The IPCC panel’s initial report summary included a recommendation that consumers shift to plant-based diets and reduce their intake of meat, according to a draft seen by Reuters.

But the final version of the summary included a recommendation instead for balanced diets that include sustainably produced animal products alongside plants like grains and legumes.

Asked about the changes, Joanna House, an expert on land use at the University of Bristol and an author of the report, said she could not comment on why the changes were made but said the issue of dietary changes is complex.

“If meat is produced sustainably, it can be low-carbon and support soil carbon and nutrients,” she said. “If produced unsustainably, particularly in intense systems requiring large amounts of animal feed that result in deforestation, it can cause large net emissions.”

Global demand for livestock products is growing, a headwind to cutting agriculture’s emissions, the report said.

— Leah Douglas reports on the U.S. energy and agriculture sectors for Reuters from Washington; additional reporting by Gloria Dickie.

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