Fight climate change with organic farming and agroecological principles

The ever-growing threat and impacts of climate change are all around us, with many populations in poorer countries already bearing the brunt of shifting global weather patterns and catastrophic weather events. Thinking about solutions for tackling these issues can be daunting and disheartening—it requires a paradigm shift in the way we live and in reflecting on what we will leave for future generations. As the NDP’s agriculture critic, it’s clear to me that our farming future needs to be one that sees conventional and organic farming methods coming together, with agroecological intensification of existing farmland and the adoption of new technologies to reduce the use of pesticides and synthetic nitrogen fertilizers. By using these methods, we can increase crop yields that are required without sacrificing people or our environment. Farm biodiversity and sustainability techniques have been shown to reduce agriculture-related greenhouse gas emissions and sequester more carbon than industrial farming practices. A well-managed hectare of land can sequester between 10 and 20 tons of carbon from the atmosphere per year. Farming can play a major role in climate change mitigation and adaptation, leading to not only fewer emissions, but also increased soil health and stability, and higher soil water retention. These characteristics will be sorely needed as we see more and more extreme dry periods and/or major flooding events. That’s why, when two high school students in my riding proposed an idea through last year’s Create Your Canada Contest, suggesting a tax credit as an incentive for shifting toward organic farming methods, I took the idea and ran with it. Hannah Pachet and Morgan Bottomley from Chemainus Secondary School proposed this idea, and I was proud to bring them to Ottawa in February to witness their idea come to fruition through Bill C-430, which I introduced in the House of Commons. As stated at the outset, the daunting task of tackling climate change requires a paradigm shift, and agriculture’s role will be essential in not just stemming it, but reversing its worst impacts. I’ve found Paul Hawken’s book Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming to be instructive in informing my work. It’s a collaboration of research by leading scientists and policy-makers from around the world, containing a list of 100 techniques and practices to help reach “drawdown”—the point at which greenhouse gases in the atmosphere finally hit their peak and their decline on the bell curve will begin. Conventional farming ideology does not prioritize carbon sequestration and treats soil as a medium—a means to an end—rather than embracing soil as an important and complementary part of a complex ecosystem. An example of this is when fields are plowed; the tilled topsoil is turned under the surface, exposing the nutrient-rich organic and microbial plant matter, which promptly decays and releases carbon into the atmosphere. For the role agriculture can play in achieving drawdown, one of the most profound techniques will be wide-scale adoption of holistic, regenerative agriculture practices to restore degraded land. This involves using no-tillage, a greatly reduced application of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, and diverse intercropping. There is strong scientific evidence that with transformation of our food-system techniques it’s possible to not just mitigate the effects of climate change but actually reverse it. With the population of our planet expected to reach nine billion or more by 2050, and the impact feeding our growing population will have on carbon emissions, the implementation of regenerative agricultural practices, along with transitioning to sustainable, clean, renewable energy resources, will be crucial to stemming the tide of climate change. What’s needed now is the political will to make it happen, by providing farmers with the incentives and resources they need to implement the kind of shifts that will ensure the stability and survival of future generations. Alistair MacGregor is the Member of Parliament for Cowichan-Malahat-Langford, B.C., the NDP critic for agriculture and agri-food, and has a small farming property in the Cowichan Valley using agroecological practices. The Hill Times

Fight climate change with organic farming and agroecological principles

Farm biodiversity and sustainability techniques have been shown to lower agriculture-related greenhouse gas emissions and sequester more carbon than industrial farming practices.

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Fight climate change with organic farming and agroecological principles

Farm biodiversity and sustainability techniques have been shown to lower agriculture-related greenhouse gas emissions and sequester more carbon than industrial farming practices.

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