Why Canadians should pay attention to the Dutch farmers protest

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Jordan At first glance, it sounds like nothing. An obscure protest half a world away, the kind of thing you’d find on page A 27 of the newspaper if you still read your news like that. A bunch of Dutch farmers mad about nitrogen emissions causing traffic chaos, whatever. But no, it’s more than that. Because, as anybody who has heard the words Freedom Convoy over the past eight months can tell you, local protests can go global quickly. In fact, some Canadian farmers have already protested here in solidarity with their Dutch counterparts. But there’s something else happening here as well. A fear that the incredibly strict emission standards the Dutch farmers say will force them to close are coming for Canadian farmers. Now, our targets on nitrogen and fertilizer here in Canada are confusing, but they are nowhere near as aggressive as those in the Netherlands. That hasn’t stopped the spectre of government climate standards forcing hard-working Canadian farmers out of business from gathering steam, led, of course, by those who have a lot to gain from that narrative. There’s a lot going on here, I know, and it’s confusing. But what do you really need to know about the Dutch emission rules? How different they are from Canada’s? How our own farmers can meet the new standards, and just how poorly our government has explained all of this to the people it impacts the most? I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. This is The Big Story. Kelvin Heppner is a field editor for RealAgriculture. He has been reporting on agriculture in Canada for more than a decade. When he’s not working on a story, he is working on the family farm near Altona, Manitoba. Hello, Kelvin.

Kelvin Heppner Hi, Jordan.

Jordan I promise that we’ll explain how this whole thing ties together and particularly focus on Canadian agriculture here. But first, some Canadian farmers, and notably some groups claiming to support them, were protesting in cities around the country in late July in solidarity with farmers in the Netherlands. So can you just briefly outline what’s happening with agriculture in the Netherlands? What are Dutch farmers doing?

Kelvin Heppner So, Dutch farmers have been protesting their government’s plan to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases from nitrogen fertilizer. They’re talking about a 50% countrywide reduction in emissions of these greenhouse gasses that come from nitrogen, which is a key fertilizer for growing crops around the world, as high as 70% reduction in some parts of the country. And according to farm groups in the Netherlands, they’re also talking about a 30% reduction in the country’s livestock herd. So a reduction in the number of farm animals, which will result in some farms having to obviously close. So the Netherlands, Jordan, is a leading agricultural country, I would say very advanced farming practices. They’ve been paying attention to nitrogen emissions for many years. And now the government is coming out with this strict crackdown, you could say, with a relatively short timeline for hitting these targets. And so we’ve all seen the photos and videos online of farmers and others who are supporting the farmers, blocking infrastructure and so on, obviously feeling like they haven’t been listened to by their government.

Jordan And these farmers are saying, and as I understand it, news reports back them up and you kind of just said it, that the targets are so strict that there’s almost no way to hit them without closing some farms.

Kelvin Heppner Yeah, that’s what it sounds like. It’s somewhat hard to separate fact from fiction when it comes to protest movements like this, but they already have some of the strictest environmental rules around fertilizer and manure use in the world. In the Netherlands, they have for a long time. They even have a cabinet minister, a minister for nature and nitrogen in the Netherlands. So there’s definitely been a focus on nitrogen in Europe and in the Netherlands, I would say longer than what we’ve had in North America and so to reduce emissions by that target at this point, I’m thinking it’s an even harder target to hit for them than it would be for us, based on what they’ve already been dealing with for the last number of decades. And then at the same time, there are conversations happening around the world right now around food security and increasing food supplies to countries that need it. And so that is certainly part of this conversation happening in Europe and around the world right now, too, where reduced fertilizer availability to crops results in a direct drop in yields in production and so that food has to come from somewhere.

Jordan And some of the Canadian protests, in solidarity with the Dutch farmers, are saying things like, we’re next, and banning fertilizer equals starvation. So just from their perspective, first, can you explain the Canadian equivalent of that Dutch policy? Like, what do they compare it to here?

Kelvin Heppner So here in Canada, the federal government December of 2020 announced that it plans to reduce nitrous oxide emissions from nitrogen fertilizer, synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, by 30%. 2020 is the baseline year, and the target year that they want to hit that 30% reduction is 2030. So in some ways, this is similar in terms of government wanting to reduce emissions, greenhouse gas emissions from fertilizer. That is a similarity between the Canadian and Dutch government approaches. But the word fertilizer reduction, even the word ban has been used. The Canadian government has been adamant that they don’t want to see a reduction in fertilizer use. They just want to see a reduction in the emissions from fertilizer. So that’s the big question now whether it’s possible to reduce emissions from fertilizer without reducing the actual amount of fertilizer that farmers use because we do know there is a direct connection between our food supply and crop yields and fertilizer. Fertilizer and nitrogen fertilizer, synthetic fertilizer plays a huge role in feeding the world in terms of providing nutrients for crops that people eat around the world.

Jordan So what does reducing emissions from fertilizer look like without banning fertilizer? What are the options? What could be done?

Kelvin Heppner There are quite a few practices and products that are known to reduce the amount of nitrous oxide that’s emitted when a farmer applies nitrogen fertilizer either into the ground or to a crop. So there are things like different timing, variable rates, so not using the same amount everywhere in the field, the placement of the fertilizer in the soil, and so on. These things can all impact how much nitrous oxide N20, enters the atmosphere and how much is left in the soil for the plants to use. So there are also products that are slow releasing or they’re only triggered by rain and so on. And farmers already in Canada and North America used a lot of these practices because fertilizer is extremely expensive. So there is a strong economic argument against wasting any of this nitrogen, against having it be lost to the atmosphere of the environment. And so that’s where we get to the problem with the Canadian government’s proposal right now. It is that how emissions are estimated in Canada each year doesn’t account for any of these practices that are known to reduce emissions. So essentially right now, Jordan, the federal government in Canada, is telling farmers that they should adopt and implement these practices, some of which they are already doing because they reduce emissions from fertilizer. But at the same time, our policy for measuring and estimating emissions in Canada, that calculation doesn’t account for these practices. So basically they’re saying farmers do this, but it doesn’t count towards reaching this target. And that is where a lot of people are jumping to the conclusion that we could see a reduction in the volume of fertilizer used in the country, that the government could somehow restrict fertilizer use. And that’s where a lot of this concern is coming from, about a reduction in yields and where people are coming up with those signs, talking about a ban and linking it to starvation and so on. So that’s where the government has, I would say, the biggest problem to solve here. They have this major discrepancy where they want farmers to move in this direction, but their current policy doesn’t recognize those changes if farmers were to make them.

Jordan In a second, we can get into whether the targets are reasonable and how reasonable they might be. But first, maybe a basic question, because we’ve covered climate change and the causes of it a lot on this program. This is the first time I’ve heard about and discussed the harm done by nitrogen fertilizer. So what sort of harm do they do and what kind of scale are we talking about here?

Kelvin Heppner So, when farmers apply nitrogen fertilizer, the vast majority of it gets used by the crop and goes into the soil and is either in the soil for future crops or is picked up by the plant and goes into the grain and creating and growing that plant that year. And some of it, however, can potentially be emitted through or go into the soil, convert into different forms. And a very small portion of that can go into the atmosphere as nitrous oxide or N20. And nitrous oxide as a greenhouse gas is seen as pretty potent relative to carbon dioxide. I believe it’s 3400 times as potent in terms of CO2 comparisons, so that’s the concern. And so farmers also have an interest in not having fertilizer convert into this N20 form because they want the crop to use it, not to have it go into the air and so there is an incentive for farmers to reduce these losses. And this is also what governments around the world are trying to combat. Both in the Netherlands, the example we were talking about, and here in Canada and other countries are moving in this direction as well to try to cut down on the N20 and increase awareness of the N20 emissions.

Jordan I want to try to get a read on how accurate the protesters are in this situation or how accurate the government is. I know you’ve spoken to some agriculture experts. What do they say about Canada’s targets specifically? I know you described the Dutch targets as quite aggressive. Canada’s are not that high. Are they fair? Are they achievable?

Kelvin Heppner 30%, which is the government’s target for 2030, is reasonable on a relative basis from what we hear from soil scientists, those practices and products that I talked about earlier are proven to reduce emissions on per unit of fertilizer use of nitrogen fertilizer use basis. They can reduce emissions by 30%, especially when used in combination with each other. There are a number of issues, though, as I already mentioned, the challenge with the current emissions calculations, not recognizing these practices is a big deal. And that is really supportive of what the protesters are saying, that this could lead to a reduction in fertilizer use. The other issue here, Jordan, is that the Canadian government’s target is an absolute target. So that means a 30% reduction versus the 2020 baseline, no matter what. So farmers, by 2030, we may have the ability to grow a much larger crop than we did in 2020, especially in response to the food security issues.

Jordan Right? We might need to.

Kelvin Heppner Exactly, yeah, we need to grow a bit, probably. We’ll need to grow a bigger crop. And so that makes that 30% target even harder to achieve. Because what soil scientists tell us is that a 30% reduction per bushel or a ton of wheat or canola or soybean or corn that’s grown, that is doable, but it doesn’t take into account increased production which the world needs. It will be even harder to achieve this target if it’s not relative to the size of the crop.

Jordan What do the provincial counterparts of the Federal Minister think of this plan? And what are they asking for?

Kelvin Heppner Well, we’ve heard the AG ministers from some of the larger agricultural-producing provinces speak out against the policy, and part of that is the natural state of federal-provincial politics. But they’re also concerned about the possibility of restrictions on fertilizer use due to the way the government currently calculates emissions and the likelihood that the simplest way as emissions are currently measured to reduce emissions would be to reduce the volume of fertilizer that gets used every year. And so that’s what’s creating this concern. And provincial AG ministers, specifically in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario have all spoken publicly against this. They had their annual FPT Federal Provincial Territorial AG ministers meeting in Saskatoon in mid-July, and they were hoping to have some discussion on this. And the provincial ministers definitely sounded disappointed that the federal government isn’t willing to consult more on this topic, at least that was the message coming out of that meeting.

Jordan I want to talk to you as a farmer now. I know you’re a farmer and so is the rest of your family. I am not a farmer but come from a family of them. How do you approach thinking about balancing the need for things like fertilizer or the demand for increased crops because of food insecurity with the need to fight climate change? Because I also know that lots of Canadian farmers are seeing changes in the climate, less reliability, and that might require things like more fertilizer. Right?

Kelvin Heppner I don’t think it’s necessarily one thing or the other. There are ways to boost yields and boost production and reduce emissions at the same time. And so I think we should focus on those. In an ideal world, Jordan, every unit of fertilizer that goes into a crop or that a farmer applies to a field or goes directly to growing food or other products that we get from crops, that none of it would go into the atmosphere. So I think that’s the direction that we all want to go. It’s not necessarily one thing or another, use fertilizer and produce crops or fight climate. I think we can do both. In the climate crisis, I think we can do both of those things at the same time. And government policy needs to reflect that.

Jordan How could it better reflect that from what it is now?

Kelvin Heppner That’s where we need to see a change to the way emissions are calculated. So right now, to reiterate, the federal government is telling farmers to implement these practices because we want to reduce emissions. But at the same time, the annual calculation, the national inventory report that the Canadian government files each April with the IPCC, the International Climate Change Panel that reports the way they come up with the number in that report for fertilizer emissions doesn’t take into account these practices that farmers can implement at the farm level or have implemented. And so right now, that’s the issue the government needs to resolve and come up with a way of updating that calculation so that when farmers do take steps to reduce emissions, it’s actually recognized in that bottom line number of national emissions from nitrogen fertilizer.

Jordan What about the science behind agriculture? Are there any advances that are pushing us towards less of a need for nitrogen fertilizer? I guess I’m asking what I commonly end up asking when we end up talking about the climate crisis, which is like, is science going to save us soon?

Kelvin Heppner There are definitely some exciting things happening. And one of those would be nitrogen-fixing crops. That’s another thing we can do to reduce the amount of fertilizer that we would use or the amount of nitrogen that gets applied. Some crops, pulse crops, which Western Canada is known around the world for supplying. So peas, lentils, chickpeas, soybeans, to some extent edible beans or dry beans that we have in our pork and beans. All of those crops fix their own nitrogen. They actually work together with bacteria in the soil and capture nitrogen out of the air and that nitrogen is supplied to the crops. So there is room to or there’s some exciting stuff in the science world when it comes to adding or improving nitrogen fixation in other crops so that they wouldn’t require as much synthetic nitrogen fertilizer. There are also advancements in like I talked about before, the types of fertilizer farmers are applying, where it’s smart fertilizer to use that term that gets applied in every industry these days, where it only becomes available to the plant as the plant needs it. And so there are many different technologies. There’s variable rate technology. We’re getting a better understanding of which parts of the fields need fertilizer and which don’t and so we don’t apply to the areas of the field that don’t need it. There is a lot of room for science to improve. And that, I think, is kind of what when we’ve talked to the federal AG minister, Marie-Claude Bibeau, she’s referred to a lot of that and has high expectations for that. And so that’s all to be determined, though, in terms of how quickly the science will advance in allowing us to reduce emissions or creating opportunities to further reduce emissions from nitrogen.

Jordan So, Kelvin, this has been a really illuminating conversation so far, and I’m so glad we’ve been able to focus on the realities of the situation, what can be done, what we need to do, how can we revise our targets, all that practical stuff. Before you go, I do want to finish with how this is playing out in the media because I’m always wary of how good old Canadian farmers are portrayed. And I began by saying that some farmers and those who claim to support them for a reason, what do we know about who is pushing the Canadian comparisons to those really aggressive Dutch targets we talked about?

Kelvin Heppner Well, first of all, I appreciate that you take note of how farmers are portrayed, I think it’s often an unfair stereotype that gets applied. And I definitely don’t want to lump all farmers into one opinion here either. But when it comes to pushing these comparisons to what’s happening in the Netherlands, there are some similarities between the policies. So I think it’s fair to note those similarities, but at the same time not to exaggerate them. And it’s fair to describe the people who are driving this as those who are opposed to the current federal government, that is opposed to Prime Minister Trudeau and the liberals. And when you look at a map of rural farming areas of Canada, there’s not a lot of liberal red on that map. And so, as well, because the government has left us with kind of the stay tuned message, there’s this large gap of unknown and uncertainty of how we’re going to hit this 2030 target where we’re at today, versus where the government wants us to be by 2030. And so that gap has left room for people to fill in the blanks. And that’s where a lot of the concern and unease about this policy, I think, is coming from.

Jordan Would you say you’re seeing it take hold then, in some of the farmers who might otherwise be engaged in a reasonable, evidenced-based debate with the government about what’s needed and instead end up seeing this kind of comparison? And, look, if you’re not paying attention and this is your livelihood that we’re talking about, it’s really easy to get sucked into anger around this.

Kelvin Heppner I’d agree with that. Yeah, it feels personal. It would have a direct if I’m not allowed to use as much fertilizer or pick up as much fertilizer from our local retailer as what I think our crop needs, that would feel like it’s a direct hit on my family and our business and our potential to earn a living and that sort of thing. So, yeah, there is an emotional, personal element to this. I think that’s definitely part of it. And it’s a human response to feeling. And that’s maybe where some of the messaging about targeting farmers is coming from that people feel targeted. And so I think there are some lessons to be learned, or hopefully learned from the way the government has communicated this because there’s been some efforts, I would say, in recent weeks following some of the backlash that we’ve seen lately, to try to clarify things. Well, why weren’t these things made clear in the first place? Or why wasn’t there a better plan in place before announcing this target? In some ways, the government has brought this on themselves in that sense.

Jordan Are you saying, heaven forbid, there is a lack of clarity around federal agriculture policy?

Kelvin Heppner That’s exactly what I’m saying, yeah. This is an example of a target, a goal being announced without having a lot of discussion or planning or any even real understanding of the complexity of how to reach that goal. And I think that’s something yeah, we’ve seen that in other areas of agricultural policy in this country as well. And I do think the government, specifically Agriculture and AgroFood Canada, the AG Department, has increased its understanding of this issue immensely since first announcing it in December 2020. There are questions about who’s driving this policy. It’s likely ultimately being driven by the Environment and Climate Change Department, the Environment Minister and now Agriculture and AgroFood Canada have to kind of come up with the details of how to reach this goal. And that’s where I think the rubber hits the road or the devils in the details kind of thing. It’s more complex than the original target that was announced back in December 2020.

Jordan Hopefully, it gets clear. Kelvin, thank you so much for walking us through this. I feel like I understand it now, and that’s not something I could have said half an hour ago.

Kelvin Heppner Well, thank you for the opportunity and hopefully, it made sense because it is a complex issue, but I think it affects all Canadians as it involves our food supply.

Jordan Wonderful. Thanks again. Thank you. Kelvin Hepner, farmer and agriculture writer. That was The Big Story. For more, head to thebigstorypodcast.ca. Find us on Twitter at @TheBigStoryFPN. Talk to us anytime via email [click here!] and call and leave a message 416-935-5935. You can find The Big Story wherever you find the podcast, you can ask for it on your smart speaker by saying play The Big Story podcast. And wherever you can toss us a rating, a review, whatever it is, tell a friend, sign them up. It all helps. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow. Back to top of page