Constructive Criticism

2 important pieces of work came out of the U.S. and Canadian federal governments this week related to scoring sustainability data in agriculture.

Governments need to be involved in scoring emissions reduction in agricultural markets in the same way that there are securities exchange commissions and compliance officers. These are early days, with still:

• No regulated cash markets,

• Poor reporting,

• Cumbersome institutions operating conflicted systems, and

• Ineffective collection and reporting of necessary data.

Judging by this week’s reaction on both sides of the border, people are frustrated at the slow pace of progress, compared to what society and markets are ready for governments to do. Criticism is understandable – these programs are super-clunky – but we need to offer feedback to regulators in a constructive manner, and with a heavy dose of compassion for the challenges they face that tend to go unspoken, such as:

1. Just like everywhere else in agriculture, some government employees are climate deniers and stanchions of conventional agriculture. They stop conversations and delay progress from the inside because they sympathize with commercial stakeholders (like fertilizer companies and feedlot operators) on the outside.

2. The entire agriculture sector is designed around bulk exports. Reducing emissions flies directly in the face of how almost every stakeholder views the industry and ways to make money. People are having a hard time wrapping their heads around the fact that we can’t have it both ways.

Understand too, that we are witnessing some of the first-ever efforts to price public goods (carbon sequestration, avoided emissions, biodiversity, wildlife habitat and water cycle functions) into agricultural markets. With taxpayer money involved, the government has to introduce regulations, oversight, tracking, and compensation.

Let’s look first at Canada’s Auditor General Report for the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development on Climate Change Mitigation in Agriculture. Then we’ll review the key takeaways from this week’s long-anticipated release of updates to the U.S. Greenhouse Gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy Use in Transportation (GREET) model.