Senators Paula Simons (right), Rob Black and Sharon Burey at Wray Ranch, west of Irricana, earlier this summer. (Senate of Canada)

By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

"a rare and vanishing commodity"

Canadian Senators studying national soil health visit Alberta

Sep 16, 2023 | 1:45 PM

A group of Canadian senators who recently visited Alberta on a fact-finding mission are attempting to flesh out the overall state of the country’s soil health.

Healthy soil is of course vital to growing food, they note, as well as purifying water, cleaning the air and sustaining life.

Senators Paula Simons (Alberta), Rob Black (Ontario), Sharon Burey (Ontario) and Mobina Jaffer (British Columbia) are members of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, and they together toured farms and research centres in Alberta, including in Olds, south of Red Deer.

Tours allowed a chance to speak with producers and researchers about how the federal government can help preserve the resource that is this nation’s soil, and it’s all for a study that’s the first-of-its-kind since 1984.

“We only have one layer of topsoil which took millenia to build up, and if we let it blow away, be paved over, or poison it, it’s not coming back for a very long time,” says Senator Simons, speaking to rdnewsNOW.

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“Anybody who cares about food security in Canada cares about access to healthy food, and what scientists have realized over the last few years is the incredibly essential role healthy soil plays in sequestering carbon.”

As Simons points out, a healthy tree population is important for fighting climate change, in that trees sequester carbon, but a well-managed grassland can be every bit as vital in that endeavour.

(Senate of Canada)

With food banks seeing record numbers, and recent shocks to the supply chain, Canadians’ eyes have been opened to the vulnerability we all face by consuming so much imported food, she says.

Since certain foods can’t be grown here, that makes it all the more important to ensure the soil in Canada is fertile. But that also applies to the food Canada exports and makes money off, which could not be done if growing conditions aren’t sufficient.

“It was very clear that the senators are passionate about sustainability and agriculture, and want to figure out how the government can best support producers,” says Dr. Joy Agnew, VP, Research at Olds College. “There is misinformation out there too that is not accounting for the full life cycle or big picture relationship with other sectors like energy and transportation. That’s problematic because if you’re making decisions based on just part of the whole picture, you’re unlikely to make good decisions.”

Agnew says that’s why it’s good the senators have done said tours, as well as others, including at the University of Guelph.

Ottawa can help first and foremost, she believes, by supporting research related to agriculture and providing dedicated long-term funding.

“The second piece is understanding the importance of knowledge sharing and extending information to producers,” says Agnew. “The third piece is developing a program and ways to support or incentivize producers to build their own knowledge, and adopt practices and technologies that will help them be more sustainable than they already are.”

On having Olds College be part of this study, Agnew says it proves the institution is meeting the vision it set out five years ago to be a leader in smart agriculture, and a lead advocate and information source for good decision-making.

(Senate of Canada)

“It’s incredibly fulfilling to know we have built that credibility. Alberta, even central Alberta, has an important role to play in this area because of the magnitude of ag production that happens here. Look at livestock production and crop production in Canada as a whole, or even western Canada; Alberta is a huge contributor to all of that, and we have strong voices on both the production and research sides.”

Agnew says provincial and municipal governments can also play a role, not to mention the average citizen who can foster backyard gardens and host pollinator-friendly habitats.

“Whether you’re a farmer or not, you should have a general understanding of soil and soil health, and the things that are or aren’t beneficial to the soil. We need to make decisions that will ensure healthy soil in perpetuity,” says Agnew. “We don’t have an infinite amount of land; and it actually seems to be shrinking each year due to various factors, so we need to take care of what we have as the population continues to grow.”

What’s the next step after hearing from around 100 witnesses, including farmers, ranchers, soil scientists, economists and agronomists?

“We’re going to come up with a report to be out by spring or early summer of 2024, and what we really hope is that the report has recommendations for government, primarily Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, and it will ignite the public conversation we really want to get out to Canadians,” says Senator Simons, a former journalist in Edmonton.

“That includes understanding the vulnerability of our soil and mitigating the impacts of climate change. That means understanding that healthy soil can better absorb water in times of flooding, and that healthy soil is better able to retain water in times of drought. We need people who take the soil for granted, who think of it as just dirt beneath our feet, to understand that it is a rare and vanishing commodity.”

That extends to being good stewards of the land, and acknowledging and appreciating the soil for the deep ties it has to Indigenous people, Simons says.

The Alberta tours also took senators to Carmangay, Calgary and Irricana.

Looking for more agriculture news? Visit farmnewsnow.com.