On June 6, 2024, the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry presented their report on Canadian Soil health.
Critical Ground” contains 25 recommendations for protection of the soil resource, food security, biodiversity, and key linkages to other policy needs. Some recommendations are for new initiatives, others are for significant changes to existing programs, and others are to reinvent initiatives that were previously cancelled. The report expects more collaboration amongst governments and stakeholders, and more public financial support. The report takes an agriculture focus on soils and points out the externalities of agriculture.
Soil is critical to the environment, the economy, human and social health, and to food systems; but unfortunately, soil health in Canada has been degrading for decades. Globally, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organizations estimates that more than 30 per cent of the world’s soils are already degraded, and that by 2050, approximately 90 per cent of soils could be degraded.
Critical Ground is the latest report on soil health in 40 years and is the only other report on soil health since 1984. The report highlights concerns from farmers, ranchers, producers and soil health experts about the unprecedented challenges to growing food. Floods, droughts, wildfires and the loss of grasslands and farmland are among the many causes of soil degradation across the country.
Over 150 witnesses, including farmers and ranchers, researchers, scientists, and policy makers from across the country, 36 meetings, 60 hours of testimony, and more than 60 briefs from individuals, organizations, and academic institutes have contributed to the development of this report.
The report, through 25 recommendations, urges the government to better understand the state of soil health and its evolution, to build soil-related incentives and initiatives, and to promote soil health, human health, and a better future for Canadians. Among these recommendations is to:
- Develop a long-term overarching strategy to protect and conserve soil throughout Canada.
- Collaborate with provinces, territories, Indigenous governments, academia, and agricultural and forestry producers to create a national soils institute and database.
- Give special consideration to the economic viability of agricultural and forestry producers in the development and implementation of all its future policies and programs related to soil health to ensure that producers can invest in soil health.
- Enhance funding for research and development with respect to agricultural and forestry soils, long-term funding for soil mapping, and soil extension services.
The Canadian beef industry has a critical role to play in maintaining and enhancing soil health across Canada. From the 2024 National Beef Sustainability Assessment, land used for beef production is estimated to store nearly 40% of the total soil organic carbon stock and rangelands and unimproved pasture are important in providing capacity to sustain both carbon and biodiversity in agricultural areas. Grassland management can sustain and improve the health of grasslands and maintain soil health. Keeping native grasslands intact is vital in maintaining its carbon stock and is one of Canada’s biggest opportunities to mitigate climate change over the next decades (Drever et al, 2021).
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