Jerry Ritz served as Canada s agriculture minister from 2007 to 2015 in the Conservative government of Stephen Harper. And before entering politics, he spent over 20 years working as a farmer in Saskatchewan. In this episode, he shares his thoughts on the Trudeau government's new plan to reduce the amount of fertilizer used in the name of fighting climate change.
00:12:59.720After all, you're saying there's a bit of kind of backpedaling from the government or at least trying to manage things and deal with this blowback right now.
00:13:08.240What's going to happen in the weeks and months ahead?
00:13:09.940Well, I think farmers will start to come to grips with this.
00:13:13.600I'm a little bit concerned that the so-called farm groups that live off of checkoffs from farmers themselves aren't up on the battlements with this.
00:13:31.980But at the end of the day, guys, if you don't take a stand now, go to your province because, you know, the administration of all these programs falls to the provincial level.
00:13:43.660The liberals are very good about taking, I'll call them bullshit regulations like this and let somebody else face the wrath of the people that are covered by them.
00:13:52.340And that can't happen in this instance.
00:13:56.300I mean, people are already working with three- and five-year crop cycles that use the nitrogen put into the soil by the beans, peas, lentils, chickpeas, that type of thing, onto their wheat next year.
00:14:09.800They don't necessarily put barley on that because it drives the protein level up.
00:14:13.360And that, of course, then doesn't allow it to go for malt.
00:14:18.180You know, you look at the average age and the average education of farmers now, it is way beyond what my generation was.
00:14:25.720University degrees, these guys are experts in doing what they're doing.
00:14:30.160You look at the technology that they're working with.
00:14:32.700You know, they keep their iPad in the cab of whatever implement they're using because that's what then powers the implement with this information coming back down from the cloud.
00:14:41.600So they're light years ahead of agriculture that I'm watching anywhere else in the world.
00:14:46.720We sequester carbon on a tonnage basis that is unaccounted for in this whole thing.
00:14:54.700I mean, the Liberals have pulled these climate change problems out of thin air.
00:15:02.800First, it was carbon, and we all realize we need CO2 to grow things.
00:15:06.060We have an unprecedented forest cover and crop cover in this country that sucks up carbon way beyond what anybody is allowing.
00:15:15.600We're seeing only one side of the science out there, and that needs to be adjusted, too.
00:15:23.780We have now politicized groups like Farm Credit Canada that have a box to check off, and they're falling back on this.
00:15:31.000And I've still got people there that are on the right side of these issues, but they're saying, well, Trudeau's made it a law that we have to anybody that supported the convoys and other things, you know, they have to check a box saying they weren't serious about it or they won't renew their loan.
00:15:43.460And they're going to follow that same thing with another box that says if you're not following Trudeau's environmental plan, you're not going to get a loan.
00:15:49.680And they're the largest farm-based lender in the country, some $44 billion package in there that they've done a good job to adjust, and they're going to put that all at risk with farmers.
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00:18:05.200Jerry, you mentioned this being part of overall climate plans, and it's interesting.
00:18:08.720I looked at the emissions, and of course the point of all of these reductions here, reduce fertilizer usage or fertilizer emissions by 30% between 2020 and 2030.
00:18:18.320Well, the 2020 numbers show that fertilizers accounted for just under 13 megatons of our emissions back then, less than 2% of our national emissions.
00:18:30.540So when we talk about reducing that usage by a third, you're saying really what we're going to do is reduce Canada's emissions, which we know are just whatever 1.5% of the world's emissions, by something like 0.7%.
00:18:44.800And I go, okay, we're bringing in all this drama for 0.7%, where maybe you're going to have farmers protesting, you're going to have food prices rising, all for such a tiny amount, I think.
00:19:00.980You know, they seem to want to show leadership on the world stage that we're ahead of everybody else.
00:19:04.960We already are, but we're not taking credit for that.
00:19:08.300And to double down on this basically lets him shift people's watching the economy in this country, watching what's happening to our justice system.
00:19:16.040As I like to say, the rule of law in Canada has been perverted to the law of the ruler, and we're seeing all of these other issues out there that are just bombarding us, and we're now arguing about fertilizer.
00:19:28.880You know, Trudeau's flight plans probably cost more in carbon, and you want to name it, than what farmers can clean up.
00:19:37.280As you rightly point out, a third of 2% is a rounding error.
00:19:45.500Canada's 1.6% of the global problem, and somehow he thinks he can fix a global problem by changing what Canada does significantly.
00:19:54.200And that's just wrong-headed political ideology, bordering on idiocy.
00:19:59.920Yeah, I want to pick up on something that you were saying a couple minutes ago.
00:20:03.280Basically, this whole idea of farm credit, different banks getting involved, liking it to what happened in the aftermath of the Emergencies Act.
00:20:12.220So they're pointing out that these targets are going to be voluntary.
00:20:15.020And I'm like, well, okay, why are we even talking about it then?
00:20:16.960Why is the government drafting all this stuff on it?
00:20:19.040If it's voluntary, it means it's not a thing.
00:21:18.180There are avenues under the new NAFTA 2.0 or KUSMA or whatever you want to call it that will allow the U.S. to sue us for this type of thing.
00:21:26.000If it starts to negatively affect their supply chains.
00:21:29.680And is that something that's going to happen?
00:21:31.340I know you were on the Tucker Carlson program the other week.
00:21:33.600He had a great interest in this issue.
00:21:35.380I think also because of how it could affect the U.S. supply chain and U.S. access to food they bring in from Canada.
00:21:41.480Are we going to see that sort of stuff happen?
00:21:43.140That this legislation is basically like a food security risk for other countries?
00:21:47.220Well, I think they are rightly focusing on that.
00:21:51.460And, you know, Tucker took it upon himself to start to follow up on some of this.
00:22:01.040And we're going to see those slow down and not be picked up.
00:22:03.800So that's a huge hit to their industrial side.
00:22:06.740We proved through the country of origin labeling arguments, which we won, that the amount of food products that go to the U.S. to be processed and then sold all over the world really is a significant driver of their jobs and their manufacturing capacity.
00:22:19.800So he was rightly, you know, looking at this and saying, OK, what's what's the impact going to be?
00:22:26.080And it's it's going to be big when you start talking about a 30 percent reduction in emissions.
00:22:32.020That probably means you're going to have to reduce fertilizer use by more like 50 percent.
00:22:35.860And if depending on how they set up the measurement, we still don't have a benchmark.
00:22:41.020They're talking 2020, but nobody really knows what that benchmark is.
00:22:46.780Do you just go by and you put on your little fertilizer goggles and a government inspector stands there and watches how you're spraying it?
00:23:48.200And that's that's why I got involved with a company that is going to apply blockchain into agricultural production.
00:23:54.300We can go right from the bin, right from the field with a GPS locator.
00:23:59.260And that's the ultimate transparency into some of these premium markets like Japan, Korea, some of the European markets, even U.S.
00:24:05.480They want that kind of traceability for their consumers as part of a marketing thing.
00:24:09.440So we can actually go further back than that and start to input all of the products that were put into that field to develop that yield.
00:24:17.620Now, that data is worth a tremendous amount of money from food safety, food security, also the data that can run the other way down that blockchain to apply carbon credits to that land in on behalf of that farmer, the production crew.
00:24:33.680So to me, that's the next big thing is the value of that data.
00:24:38.240Now, one thing that's very interesting I want to pick up on, you talked about people basically having to pause their positive practices to to allow this to come into effect and later be seen in compliance.
00:24:47.960I wonder that all these companies that are all these farmers that are doing these really fertilizer efficient practices right now, it seems like they'd still be hit or I don't know.
00:25:01.220I don't understand really what the law is saying that they would still be hit by a need for a 30 percent reduction.
00:25:06.120And then the ones that aren't doing it would have a 30 percent reduction.
00:25:09.140So the people who are the most efficient could even be the most disadvantaged.
00:25:13.300They'd just be pushed to do even more. Could that happen?
00:25:16.240Oh, absolutely. And that's part of the argument here is why aren't you giving us credit for what we're already doing?
00:25:21.620And farmers can quantify what they've been doing through their environmental farm plans that they've been doing for almost two decades.
00:25:30.080They're not going to, you know, ruin their own land when it comes to further production.
00:25:34.320So the amount, the value of the land has gone up exponentially since the market freedom, especially here in Western Canada.
00:25:42.240But along with that, farmers are doing an excellent job.
00:25:46.120Soil health now, and it is measured by academics and science and so on.
00:25:50.920Soil health now is far better than it was 20, 30 years ago because we leave that tilt in the soil to draw bugs and bacteria and things that help break it down and so on.
00:26:00.640And there's no credit given for that. That's the part that is, you know, sticks in everybody's craw.
00:26:05.460And they just can't get by that fact saying on their own dime and on their own time, farmers have gone beyond what governments have asked.
00:26:15.060You've got to start over at the government's definition of square one, which is, you know, starting that 100 yard dash 20 yards back.
00:26:21.760I mean, one thing I've always found very interesting, to put it mildly, I'm sure very frustrating for affected sectors, is government is obviously behind the curve on whatever innovation an industry is doing.
00:26:33.520Like they got to play catch up to even learn.
00:26:35.080And then they act like they're the king of that industry, like they have everything all covered.
00:26:38.780And here it's kind of like, I know in these policies and I know the government spin on all of this, they're saying, well, look, farmers are already doing very efficient stuff.
00:26:46.580And it's like, well, yeah, shouldn't that be a key indication to you guys that like just step away, just back out of this?
00:26:52.240Like you guys aren't really aware of what's going on.
00:26:55.640But wouldn't you think that a government wanting to make a sweeping change like this would consult beforehand to find out what's already being done?
00:27:04.640They don't have a clue, you know, the minister we have now was a marketing agent for Quebec, probably never been on a farm in her life, or really realize which end of the cow to milk, as opposed to how you run a tractor.
00:27:19.600I saw Christia Freeland saying how they really appreciate farmers at the same time they're stealing their livelihood.
00:27:25.500And she wanted to learn how to drive a tractor.
00:28:10.800I often say we don't have a prime minister who has an interest in climate change activism.
00:28:14.300We have a climate activist who just happens to be prime minister.
00:28:16.980And when we talk about the negatives that could befall this and how we're really talking about such a minuscule amount of emissions anyway, like, is the reason just why are they doing this?
00:28:26.500Well, because they're obsessed with this stuff.
00:28:28.100They, you know, they don't really care about the consequences.
00:28:30.220They're just like climate change, you know, apocalyptic thinking.
00:28:43.380You know, there's this whole concept that they're going to put in 2 billion trees and that's somehow going to bring us to zero is beyond ridiculous.
00:28:50.860I mean, the forestry industry itself plants hundreds of millions of trees every year in regrowth.
00:28:55.180And farmers do add to their own tree growths and so on.
00:28:59.380But at the end of the day, there's no compensation or even credit for all the growing that goes on in putting a crop in the ground and harvesting it every year.
00:29:07.980And that's the biggest, I guess, weak link in this whole chain of government.
00:29:17.360Because it does seem like the government's slightly backing away.
00:29:21.000But then when you talk about them potentially denying farm credit to them, you talk about potential protests, it really does seem like the liberal government really loved what was going on with the convoy in terms of them being able to vilify the people.
00:29:34.600And they like the idea of protest because I think it plays well to their base and it plays well to vilifying opposition.
00:29:42.880But that's a dangerous game to play with the people who make your food.
00:29:47.620And, you know, it's not that farmers will want to grow less.
00:29:52.760I mean, they have to have a bottom line that's workable, too.
00:29:55.100The overhead on a normal farm now is in the millions of dollars.
00:30:00.380And, you know, they've got a business to protect, a family way of life to protect.
00:30:04.720And at some point, they're going to get mad.
00:30:06.880And that's going to change the whole description around this.
00:30:09.920The liberals are masters that coming out with a knockout punch and then when it doesn't land squarely, they back off and then jab away and jab away and do this stuff by stealth.
00:30:19.840And, you know, the problem is there's nobody sitting at the cabinet table in Ottawa anymore that has a clue of what the ramifications of this are going to be.
00:30:28.360They all get their groceries at Safeway.
00:30:29.880They can't understand why we just don't get more stuff at Safeway.
00:30:34.640I know we talk about how there are policies that can be done to, say, negatively affect Alberta and the liberals don't really care because they don't really have seats out there.
00:31:06.280You know, there's just not enough votes to make a difference there.
00:31:08.700I mean, they'll bring in far more immigrants.
00:31:11.320And I'm not against immigration, but they'll bring in far more immigrants and give them the right to vote right away.
00:31:15.000And that'll offset anything a farmer's going to do.
00:31:16.780And I guess the question becomes then, do regular folks either intellectually see this issue differently and therefore side with the farmers and say, I don't care for this ban, for this fertilizer reduction voluntary policy or whatever I'm supposed to call it?
00:31:34.180Or do we wait until regular folks see it happening in their wallets and go, oh, wow, this is dinging us?
00:31:40.640Well, by the time they see it in their wallets, it's too late.
00:32:04.380Indeed, that's there's talk of that coming back now.
00:32:06.940And that's that's just unfortunate because then you rely on government grants and government programs in order to cover this.
00:32:13.040What I can't understand with the provincial level of governments at the ag sector, why they aren't screaming loudly, because when this hits as it does and we know it's going to be a bite to farmers.
00:32:24.940There's a business risk program, one of them called AgriStability, that uses a rolling Olympic average to figure out where a farmer lost money in which year.
00:32:34.620And then the government has to pony up that difference.
00:32:36.820And 40 percent of that actual cost will come from the farm or from the provincial coffers.
00:32:41.800So this is going to be billions of dollars, like tens of billions of dollars, if this thing hits the fan like we think it will, that provincial governments are going to have to pony up 40 percent of.
00:32:55.420You know, as I said in the lead in, it's like we can talk about all these all the minutia of what the fertilizer does with different crop and everything.
00:33:03.120And it's like, OK, it goes over my head.
00:33:25.640And all they're doing is passing literally not passing the buck.
00:33:29.520The scope of this is really remarkable.
00:33:31.120It's something that seems to know no end.
00:33:33.960So hopefully the actual proposed restrictions will see an end soon, because the more experts speak out on it, the more people are concerned.
00:33:41.020Jerry Ritz, thanks so much for joining us today for your expertise on this.