b"1,000s of different studies. There aren't enough researcherssoil health. Or theyre going to reduce input costs, because or research dollars on the planet, in my opinion, to actuallyyoure going to be using fertilizer more efficiently So theres scientifically robustly quantify carbon reduction for every singleadditional input savings there. There's long term environmental practice, or technology that could be deployed in agriculture. benefits, which then translate into productivity. ASG: The government has announced a lot of differentASG: Do you feel this is feasible for farmers to be able programs to incentivize different environmentalto do?practices lately. When you look at some of theseJA: Maybe the practices yes, I think are feasible. It takes time for announcements, do you feel there is an idea of athe understanding of the return on investment, assuming offsets better way forward for ag? are off the table, because we just cant figure them out, but that JA: Honestly, my answer to his question would have beenthe long term environmental and soil health benefits are there.different a week ago. But literally less than a week ago, thereIf you look at, for example, conservation tillage, or zero tillage, was the announcement from Minister Bibeau that they were, Ithe adoption rates, even without any kind of incentives, without can't remember how many dollars, it was like $200 million, wasany kind of offset, the adoption rates increased over time. And being allocated to support farmers and ranchers in working withthat was not an insignificant change that a lot of producers made their advisors and agronomist to adopt practices that reduce orwhen they went to a conservation tillage system, because there's improve nitrogen management, potentially incorporate covercapital investment requirements in terms of new equipment. cropping and continue to reduce the use of tillage.Theres a lot of unknowns around agronomic information like So while its good to be incentivizing, or providing financialseeding rates and weed management and trash management, support for farmers to do this, and it's not tied with an actualand there's a lot of unknown, a lot of uncertainty, a lot of risk, credit its just sort of a general understanding or generaland a lot of upfront costs. And yet, that practice was still adopted knowledge that any one of those practices in those threeover time, and is now the majority, I think of how farmers buckets is going to help reduce the overall carbon footprint ofmanage in Western Canada. ag and our overall society, so we're going to support that, whichSo that example illustrates the fact that if there is a long is good. term environmental or soil health gain to be made, then it is feasible. The challenges though, that were now working ASG: Why is this something that farmers need to beon a compressed timeframe. If you look at adoption rates of aware of or should be aware of? conservation tillage, it took 30 plus years to reach 60 per cent JA: There's huge potential for ag to help Canada meet its overalladoption of conservation tillage. With the government's new emissions targets, because of that massive potential for carbonemission reduction targets, we're basically having to cut our sequestration in our soils. So there's potentially a revenueemissions in half, as a country not just the ag emissions, we generation option there if we can figure out that way to quantifyhave to cut our emissions in half within 10 years. We cant wait carbon sequestration and quantify how we can monetize that,or we cant rely on that natural progression or natural adoption there's potential revenue for Canadian ag.of new technologies. I crunched the numbers at a really high level. based on some modeling and projections, the ag industry has the potentialASG: Is there anything else you'd like to say?to sequester or avoid up to 88 million tonnes of Co 2per year,JA: Everybody's talking about the carbon economy. Like all the just by adopting alternative practices related to nitrogenbig companies are trying to figure out how they can help us management and soil tillage and other established practices.move the needle, so to speak. And it's going to be an exciting Like 88 million tonnes of carbon dioxide sequestered or avoidedyear or two in this space, because there's incentives in terms of over and above our current state, if we were able to monetizethe government mandating or putting into law these emission that and figure out a way to do carbon offsets or credits in a wayreduction targets, which is that catalyst that's required to really that works for ag at say $50 per tonne of Co , thats almost $4.4light a fire, to help figure some of these things out. 2billion per year in theoretical revenue to the ag industry. If weBecause like I said, I don't think the current system is viable can figure out a way to make offsets work, there is a significantfor ag but somebody or some group, or as a collective, we need revenue opportunity there.to figure that out quickly, because these emission reduction But theres also the added benefit, or bonus of most of thesetargets are real and they are accelerated, the timeline is quite practices, if not all of these practices, that reduce emissions orambitious.boost sequestration, also result in increased soil organic carbon, Ashley Robinsonwhich would theoretically increase productivity and long term Fall 2021 27"