The report, called “Forces Impacting Animal Agriculture In Canada: A Synthesis,” delves into issues surrounding beef, dairy and poultry production in the country and how they are interconnected with the day-to-day life of residents.

Al Mussell, CAPI’s director of research, said the report draws from a lengthy technical report. While both that technical report and the “Synthesis” document conclude that animal agriculture is important, the economic impact of the sector is not as clear.

“It makes the point, and really drives home, that animal agriculture is extremely important in Canada. It’s extremely important from an economic growth perspective, but it is particularly important regionally in rural areas that otherwise would not have the same levels of employment, levels of income in local communities,” said Mussell.

It’s also an industry built on using farming byproducts to increase the value of animals and, in the case of disasters like hail and drought, provides options for grain farmers to recover some value from ravaged crops.

Livestock also enhances pasture lands through grazing, the report said. Mussell pointed to the sector’s links to increased biodiversity when responsible grazing is pursued.

“You look at what we are able to do today to make better use of grasslands, lighten up the footprint of animal agriculture within that. [It’s] pretty impressive, and that’s over and above the basic conversion efficiency of animal agriculture.”

That conversion efficiency applies across Canada and involves calculating land not suitable for crop production that is instead used for livestock feed and grazing, said Mussell.

“We manage all of this in a manner which is profitable for each of the segments involved and which also supports communities that can work together to deal with the many issues that can come up and mitigate those by working together.”

The report also highlights Canada’s relatively low carbon dioxide emissions from the production of pork and beef compared to Western Europe, South America and Australia.

The public trust aspect of the report also gave producers high marks. Farmers are the most trusted people in the Canadian food system, it noted.

Economically, animal agriculture produces $90 billion in sales, 164,000 direct jobs and roughly two-and-a-half times that in indirect jobs across Canada.

Lost in the weeds

Mussell said such points can get lost in the complexity of the agricultural food production system.

“The motivation for writing this report, this major initiative on our part, comes out of the concern there are quite a number of people who need to be involved in decisions that relate to animal agriculture but don’t bring particular expertise to it,” he said.

“Those people are in a difficult spot because there is always a tendency to fall into a subset of isolated facts that might take you in a particular direction when in fact this is a much more complicated type of a system.”

CAPI says the report is designed to provide a well-rounded perspective to such decision makers.

“In Canada, we have an excellent animal agriculture system,” Mussell said. “It’s not perfect. There are problems. There are challenges and they need supportive policy to make headway on those challenges.”

One such challenge is Canada’s steadily shrinking cattle numbers.

The “Forces Impacting Animal Agriculture In Canada: A Synthesis” report can be found on the CAPI website, capi-icpa.ca.

– This article was originally published at The Western Producer.

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The Agricultural Methane Reduction Challenge is part of the federal government’s plan to reduce overall methane emissions 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 and to be net-zero by 2050.

Why it matters: Methane is a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide.

The challenge aims to “advance innovative, low-cost and scalable practices and technologies that contribute to the reduction of methane emissions from cattle and livestock,” said a news release.

Described as the first of its kind, the challenge will accept applications from producers, businesses, not-for-profit organizations and others until Feb. 7, 2024.

An independent external review panel that includes ranchers, academics, stakeholder representatives and others will assess the applications at the first stage and determine which applicants will move to a second stage.

Twenty eligible applicants in stage one will receive up to $250,000 each. Second-stage semi-finalists, to be announced next summer, are eligible for 10 awards of up to $500,000 each. Two final recipients will get $1 million each.

All semi-finalists will also receive mentorship and training.

The government said no single solution will work because of regional conditions and soil types.

“Solutions to the challenge could include novel feed additives, improvements to existing feed additives, improved forage quality and feed efficiency, novel grazing practices” and more, said information provided on the challenge website.

Agriculture was responsible for 31 per cent of Canada’s methane emissions in 2021, and 86 per cent of those emissions came from enteric fermentation from cattle.

At the same time, cattle are helping to preserve about 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon contained in soil and protecting more than 60 endangered species in grasslands.

The government acknowledged Canada is one of the largest exporters of sustainable cattle in the world.

The challenge is the latest in the government’s efforts to tackle emissions in agriculture. It has the On-Farm Climate Action Fund and the Agricultural Clean Technology Program, which are pumping more than $1 billion into mitigation measures for greenhouse gases including methane.

A livestock feed management protocol is in development under the Greenhouse Gas Offset Credit System, and protocols for manure management and anaerobic digestion are planned.

Methane strategy documents noted that agricultural methane emissions have dropped by 20 per cent since 2005 in conjunction with declining cattle numbers. Productivity improvements also play a role.

The livestock industry has already set voluntary emissions reduction targets.

For example, Canadian Beef Advisors, representing seven national beef organizations, aims to reduce emission intensity from primary production by 33 per cent, and Dairy Farmers of Canada wants to reach net-zero by 2050.

Federal agriculture minister Lawrence MacAulay said partnerships with the sector will move Canada further ahead faster.

Nathan Phinney, president of the Canadian Cattle Association, said the country’s beef producers are already environmental leaders.

“The new Agricultural Methane Reduction Challenge is well-aligned with our beef sector’s 2030 goals, and we look forward to continuing to work with government to find innovations to help further reduce beef cattle’s emissions intensity,” he said.

Dairy farmers do not shy away from new technology that will improve production and protect the environment, added DFC president David Wiens.

– Karen Briere is a reporter with The Western Producer.

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That was the take-home message from a group of panelists representing the agriculture sector at the Value of Biogas East conference in Toronto April 24-26, hosted by the Canadian Biogas Association.

Why it matters: On-farm biogas production can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, help farmers manage nutrients and provide a renewable source of energy.

The panel focused on ways agriculture can contribute to RNG via the production of biogas from anaerobic digesters.

“Farmers are on the frontlines of changing climate and farmers are part of the solution,” said panel moderator Kate Bigney, deputy director at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and a member of AAFC’s bioeconomy policy group.

She said farmers are inherently interested in resilience and “by necessity have to adapt to climate change.”

Why biogas?

AAFC sees biogas produced on-farm as beneficial to farmer in terms of reducing input costs and managing nutrients, and also for greening Canada’s economy, which is the impetus of Canada’s Sustainable Agriculture Strategy, she said.

According to the Canadian Biogas Association, capturing and utilizing biogas from the anaerobic digestion of feedstocks such as manure, crop residues and food waste “is a powerful tool” for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

This is achieved in two ways: the biogas is a source of renewable energy that can replace fossil fuels; and it captures methane emissions that would otherwise be released to the atmosphere. Biogas can be used to generate electricity or on-site heat and is interchangeable with natural gas for pipeline injection and transportation uses.

Beef farmer and panelist Carl Frook installed a 750 kilowatt biogas plant from Bio-En Power Inc. on his farm near Hanover in 2012, known as Marl Creek Renewables, under the feed-in tariff program. The Frook family feed 3,000 cattle and crop about 1,200 acres.

The biogas plant has been operating for more than 10 years and generates about 18 megawatts of electricity per day. It is used to power the farm and the excess is sold to the energy grid, Frook said.

The family was motivated to build a biogas plant after the Walkerton E.coli water contamination crisis in spring 2000. Heavy rainfall washed bacteria from cattle manure spread on fields into the aquifer of a nearby well. Walkerton public utility workers failed to treat the water properly, resulting in contaminated drinking water that sickened more than 2,000 people and killed seven.

“Being a beef farmer after the crisis and hauling manure down a road to a farm to spread nutrients to grow a crop and make a living, we felt like criminals,” he said. “It was not a good time.”

Frook looked for safer and more sustainable ways to manage manure from the farm, which led him to biogas. Digesting manure anaerobically to produce biogas removes pathogens and has the added benefit of destroying weed seeds. It also provides a ready-made fertilizer, he said.

“We haven’t bought commercial fertilizer in over 10 years.”

Frook admits to “not really having a clue” about building a biogas plant, but now thinks every farm should have one for the treatment of manure.

“It changes the way animals are cared for in the livestock industry. It changes the way you can produce crops sustainably. It’s nutrient management and the full circle of nutrients and organics and manure coming back to a farm and then applying it to grow a crop. It’s a pretty neat circle.”

Fellow panelist Rob McKinlay echoed Frook’s thoughts on how treating manure leads to greater nutrient management and sustainability on his farm.

McKinlay and his wife Rachel own Harcolm Farm in Beachville, where they milk 84 Jersey cows and “have just enough land to support the feed for those cattle.”

In 2017, they installed what McKinlay believes to be the province’s only mini-biodigester, using the MicroFIT program. Harcolm doesn’t sell electricity back to the grid because the 20 kW mini biodigester doesn’t produce enough excess electricity, but it has reduced the farm’s electricity bill by nearly 70 per cent.

Mini-digesters cost less and are more popular in Europe (Harcolm’s was imported from Belgium), and designed to handle only manure as a feedstock. Harcolm’s unit separates the digested manure into solid and liquid forms. The solids are used for bedding and the liquid is used as fertilizer.

This separation “eliminates trucking of sand or shavings into the farm for bedding,” he said. “In terms of nutrient management, I think what happened at our place was there was a bit of a mindset shift in terms of how we utilize our nutrients.”

McKinlay said they’ve started to introduce more cover crops in recent years, and they can be harvested in spring for cattle forage. This allows the farm to grow two crops on land that it wouldn’t have otherwise.

“In terms of how we use our nutrients as a small operation, we’re doing things like multiple applications [of liquid digestate] during the growing season, which eliminates the need for commercial fertilizer.”

He said opportunities to achieve greater sustainability from biogas production on the farm aren’t size-dependent.

“In terms of scale and scope, my farm and Carl’s farm are quite different, but the benefits that we see are the same.”

Expansion challenges

Given the sustainability benefits and energy savings of on-farm biogas production, panelists were asked what they thought was hindering more rapid biogas development in the agriculture sector.

Panelist Ian Nokes, a policy analyst with the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, believes there has been too much focus on electrification of biogas. In Ontario, he said most biogas is used to generate electricity and this was partially due to FIT contracts.

“Ontario has been kind of hesitant to look at incenting renewable natural gas,” he said, and there haven’t been incentives to use biogas for direct heat or combustion. Regulations for pipeline transport of renewable natural gas are also more stringent than for connection to the electric system, he noted.

“I think it’s pretty clear that the federal and provincial governments see more electric generation in our load systems and they don’t see room for fuel, even clean fuel generation,” said Nokes.

“I think one of the challenges I see is making sure policy and decision makers understand that, yeah, we’re going to have a more electrified and more decarbonized energy system. But the challenges and opportunities in rural areas, areas outside of cities and urban centres are different.

“And we are going to need incentives, we’re still going to have all passive vehicles and transportation systems to be electric like they want … and we still need grain drying, we still need tractors, we still need these fuels.

“So, the challenge is going to be making sure they understand that in rural areas, biogas and renewable natural gas are going to be solutions for us.”

Geography and infrastructure are other challenges. Frook said when he was ready to install the biogas plant on his farm, it required three-phase hydro, which wasn’t available. He had to foot the bill to install a 3.5-kilometre hydro line.

Nokes believes the cost to implement biogas plants on farms is also a challenge. Co-digestion with feedstocks from off the farm will be needed (such as bakery waste, for example) to make it cost-effective. But, he said, “it could be a gamble every time they get a truck load in” because the quality of other feedstocks is unknown and could affect the anaerobic digestion process.

Without funding incentives, he expects competition for agricultural feedstocks among farm-based biogas plants and municipal ones.

McKinlay said collaboration between multiple government departments is needed.

“We need collaboration from energy, environment, agriculture, and then also across jurisdictions in terms of municipalities, and provincial energy policy.”

He said all these departments aren’t that far apart in terms of shared vision, and the agriculture sector should talk with them about its role and what it could do to help align their visions.

As for incentives, he doesn’t think another FIT program is the answer. He’d like a provincial energy policy that allows producers to monetize production forever.

“A one-time incentive on capital is just kind of dirty. It’s nicer to be able to make that money forever, rather than getting a big fat cheque at the front end, to make up for inefficiencies in the system elsewhere.”

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It is also a good time to pause and think about where you want your organization to be in 10 to 30 years.

Those attending the annual meeting were asked to choose three words to describe AgSights of the future as they hope it will be. Responses included leader, innovation, etc.

The most intriguing answer was “disruptor”.

By definition, a disruptor can be a company or form of technology that causes radical change in an existing industry by means of innovation.

Ask people what they think of when they hear the word disruption, and you will get mixed reactions. Avian influenza has been a big disruptor; so, too, has the iPhone and in using those as examples, some people fear disruption while others welcome it.

Some disruptions come with a great promise of return and yet after significant time and expense, fall short. Though it varies greatly by sector, the implementation of traceability has certainly been disruptive, yet it is incomplete and has failed to live up to the promised return on investment for farmers.

These experiences make us wary of further proposed change.

A key to how change of any kind is perceived is whether or not those being disrupted have choice. No-one chose to have avian influenza wreak havoc across Canada. None of us chose to live through three years and counting of a global pandemic.

We all did, however, have choice with regards to buying a cell phone – although why we cling to the term “phone” is beyond me.

Most times, the only way to have choice is to actively engage in the disruption. It’s often said: “The best way to know the future is to create it.” Creating the future, or “orderly disruption”, as much as that is possible at least, requires some common ground amongst the key players, including producers, government, industry stakeholders and academia.

To help with planning, LRIC has been modelling a new A2B approach in which “A” is where your sector is now with regards to the big issues (e.g., use of antimicrobials), “B” is where you need to get to, and “2” is what needs to happen to move from A to B. Those actions will include research, innovation, policy, emergency management planning and so on.

Often this planning process will unveil needs in documenting where you are today and so benchmarking is a critical first step. The process also creates a common goal that all parties work toward, which is often not the case today.

Creating as well as preparing for disruptions feeds into an innovation system. That system has five components: funding, priorities, project management, GRIP (getting research into practice) and commercialization.

LRIC’s International Research Advisory Committee prepared a report on this system last year and this year it is focusing on collaboration in setting research priorities and improving GRIP in the livestock sector. The results of several recent initiatives suggest that a new model of GRIP is needed and one step toward that will be LRIC’s GRIP Roundtable on April 19.

It is a fact that the livestock industry will face multiple disruptions in the coming years. These will arise from the issues of climate change (reducing impact of production as well as adapting production to changes in weather); reducing the use of antimicrobials; water use and quality; more disease challenges; and from some sides we cannot yet imagine.

It is far better to be an active participant in those disruptions, creating some and mitigating the impact of others, than waiting and hoping that others, including Mother Nature, have your interests at heart as they disrupt your business.

Being a disruptor will cause blowback and so it will require a critical mass of people willing to change to drive toward orderly disruption. I’ve learned that the status quo carries tremendous inertia across organizations. The harder, but better way is to embrace orderly disruption.

Mike McMorris is Chief Executive Officer of the Livestock Research Innovation Corporation and has more than 30 years’ experience in the livestock sector working for government, producers, and industry organizations. Follow LRIC on Twitter at @LivestockInnov.

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Quantum computing will affect analysis of big data, drug development and many other aspects of livestock production. Genomics is already changing livestock production and that impact is sure to get much larger. 

Consumer demand and retail pull will drive new production standards that may be incentivized in the short run but will become the new norm over the long term. Climate change will impact all that we do in society, and that includes how we raise animals. 

Livestock producers must not only make positive change but very deliberately demonstrate themselves as part of the solution. Even more, the livestock industry must proactively position itself as a key element of Ontario’s economy, environment and food security, and commit to working with academia and government to innovate and grow the sector in a sustainable manner. 

Shortly after giving that presentation, I saw mention on Twitter of a webinar titled “The Future of Livestock”, hosted by the International Association of Agricultural Economists. 

The moderator got my attention right away as she spoke of being a child in rural Zimbabwe and how the 15 to 17 kilograms of meat from the one slaughtered goat per month fed the grandmother, her eight children and 17 grandchildren. It was definitely a different perspective.

The next speakers talked about animal-sourced foods and their impact on stunted growth in children, which is not something we even think of in Canada. 

Stunting rates can reach 20 per cent at birth and climb to 40 per cent by two years of age. There is a clear link between increased consumption of animal-sourced foods and reduced rates of stunting. Given that knowledge, calls for reduced meat consumption from some in the West seem rather self-centered and mean spirited.

Next up was Frank Mitloehner, professor at University of California, Davis, speaking about livestock and greenhouse gas (GHG). According to Mitloehner, livestock production does impact the environment, but there is a strong link between productivity and GHG emissions. More productive animals have significantly lower GHG emissions per unit of product. 

In fact, 70 to 80 per cent of livestock-produced GHG comes from developing countries due to low productivity. 

Mitloehner went on to address options for consumers in develop countries, including plant-based replacements and cellular agriculture or “lab meat.” He did note concerns with highly processed foods, choosing not to eat them himself. 

Another possible choice for consumers is the product of cellular agriculture, or lab meat. There is a lengthy article at thecounter.org that provides an excellent critique of the process. 

It highlights serious issues around infrastructure cost, particularly at a scale to have any meaningful impact as far as meat replacement, the ability to have both scale and a level of cleanliness to avoid bacterial or viral contamination and the cost of growth medium. 

To date, this has not hindered the ability to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in investment. Suffice it to say, many investors may be in for a shock.

So, what is the future of livestock? There seem to be two distinct visions. 

One involves highly productive animals as part of food generating businesses. The other involves low productive animals in situations where the food produced is primarily for the owner and their family. We need to understand both and work hard to ensure that the future for the Ontario industry is a bright as possible. 

There will be calls for change from non-agriculturalists that are based on non-understanding of the diversity of these livestock worlds and their own agenda. There is a bright future available for the Ontario livestock sector, but it won’t happen on its own. 

Now is the time for all interested parties to commit to and work toward that bright future.

Mike McMorris is Chief Executive Officer of the Livestock Research Innovation Corporation and has more than 30 years’ experience in the livestock sector working for government, producers, and industry organizations. Follow LRIC on Twitter: @LivestockInnov.

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