Climate Change Money For Farmers - Are We Any Closer?

It is a well-known fact that agriculture is 10% of the problem when it comes to Canadian greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change. For years many agricultural organizations have been saying that agriculture could be 20% of the solution. This concept could put money in farmer’s pockets. It looks as if we are moving closer, but it will likely be 2008 before payments could be received at the farm level.

Russia appears to be moving toward signing on to the Kyoto Accord. Once they sign that will make the accord legally binding to all the countries that have signed, including Canada. The federal government is active on many fronts with respect to Kyoto. For years, Canada has participated in international meetings, including the Kyoto accord and subsequent meetings. They have lobbied hard to have agricultural and forestry sinks included and have argued on other fronts for Canadian agriculture. To date, the current government has not indicated what direction it will take on the climate change issue. It is likely that they will continue to support the initiative, especially if the accord becomes legally binding.

Environmental Grants

How will reducing greenhouse gas emissions benefit your bottom line? There are two possibilities. The first would be through grants. Through the Environment pillar of the Agricultural Policy Framework, there could be grants in the near future for practices that would lead to greenhouse gas reductions.

Credit Trading

The second possibility is through offset trading or trading of credits to allow farmers or other sectors to obtain credits for carbon stored in the soil or for emission reductions. A number of agriculture organizations continue to meet with Agriculture Canada to push for a system that could work for Canadian agriculture. These organizations feel that they have been able to positively influence the development of the offsets. The federal government will be releasing their latest vision of offset trading this fall for further consultation.

The way the system looks right now, projects could be started any time after 2002, but would not be eligible for tradable credits until 2008. This allows projects to start working on emission reductions now and prevents the projects from being considered business as usual by the beginning of the accounting period of 2008. It is hard to predict what the credits will be worth at this point. There are still a number of issues to be worked out. One of the key issues is whether participation in a grant program will prevent someone from claiming offset trading credits.

The federal government will be launching another round of the Pilot Emissions Reductions and Removals Learning program this fall. The program funds pilot projects to look at how trading might work in different sectors. This next round hopes to attract projects to pilot trades in agriculture.

Adaptation

To date much of the focus has been on mitigation of greenhouse gases, and research in this area needs to continue. The other issue which Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada is beginning to look at more is adaptation. Even if the efforts to reduce greenhouse gases are successful, global warming will continue for quite some time. Strategies need to be developed to deal with the changing climate, such as shifts in insect populations, new diseases, and changes in production areas. You will hear more about this in the future.

At a provincial level an agreement was signed with the federal government, earlier this summer, to work more cooperatively on this issue. The provincial government continues to work with the federal government as they refine their Climate Change Action Plan. The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food continues to provide input into provincial climate change policy and explores opportunities for agriculture.    

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