Policies & Advocacy

The Agriculture Carbon Alliance (ACA) is a national coalition of 14 farm organizations committed to meaningful and collaborative dialogue with the federal government around carbon pricing. The ACA’s mandate also includes advocating for practical options regarding offsets, rebates, and exemptions; and building consensus on policy solutions that support the ag sector.

The ACA’s membership are stewards of roughly 62 million hectares, which represents >7% of the land in our country — and includes 190,000+ farm businesses.

A resilient driver of our economy, Canada’s primary agriculture industry contributes over $32 billion to our gross domestic product, while the entire agri-food industry represents another $143 billion and provides 1 in 8 Canadian jobs. Agriculture is a national success story in terms of productivity and growth; however, it requires a policy environment to that enables agricultures continued growth. Farmers have a history as environmental stewards who, in addition to adopting new technologies, have proven their ability to soften their environmental footprint while protecting their profitability. Sharing the story of Canadian agriculture’s history of innovation as a climate-solutions provider will be an important part of ACA’s advocacy.

The ACA’s initial federal policy priorities are as follows:

On-Farm Exemptions

Farmers and ranchers continue to face rising costs for producing food, including on such necessities as inputs and transportation. These costs are compounded by the carbon surcharge.

Farmers and ranchers are required to dry their grain, irrigate their land, and heat or cool their barns and greenhouses in order to feed Canadians and drive our export market. With no alternative fuel sources available, these necessary practices are unfairly penalized by any increase in the price of carbon.

As such, amendments must be made to the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act to extend exemptions for qualified fuel to marketable natural gas and propane, and include machinery used for grain drying, irrigation, and heating and cooling of livestock barns and greenhouses.

Offsets

Carbon offset protocols must be accessible to early adopters and open to science-based measurement. This should include the recognition of activities that began prior to January 2017, where appropriate, and incorporate flexibility to accommodate advancements in verification.

The ACA welcomes the opportunity to engage on Enhanced Soil Organic Carbon Protocol and it’s applicability to no-till, intercropping, grazing, and winter cover cropping. We also look forward to engaging on future protocols for Livestock Feed Management, Avoided Conversion of Grasslands, 4R Climate-Smart Offset Protocol, and Livestock Manure Management.

Rebates and Research

The Climate Action Incentive Fund (CAIF) commits a portion of revenue collected by the carbon tax for rebates and retrofits that reduce carbon emissions for small and medium size enterprises — such as farms.

Unfortunately, CAIF has not been open for applications since the summer of 2019 and ACA will look to engage the federal government on how to efficiently return this revenue for critical emission reduction projects.

The ACA also welcomes the opportunity for further engagement on the Nature Based Solutions Fund for Agriculture (and other forms of research), particularly with the recent announcement to expand the living labs into model farms throughout each province. It is critical that these initiatives engage with farmers to ensure that critical innovations in sequestration are developed into offset protocols as soon as possible.