PSA to Ag Marketers

New Competition Bureau provisions make some sustainability claims vulnerable to stiff greenwashing penalties.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if someone were to make a complaint to Canada’s Competition Bureau, under the new provisions of anti-greenwashing Bill C-59, about Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s “Guelph Statement?” Developed to advance sustainability in the federal policy framework into 2028, it reads:

“Canada is recognized as a world leader in sustainable agriculture and agri-food production and drives forward to 2028 from a solid foundation of regional strengths and diversity, as well as the strong leadership of the Provinces and Territories, in order to rise to the climate change challenge, to expand new markets and trade while meeting the expectations of consumers, and to feed Canadians and a growing global population.”

Passed last June, Canada’s latest competition law amendments prohibit the use of materially false or misleading representations to promote products or business interests. Known as ‘reverse-onus’ provisions, in a contested case before a court or Tribunal, it would fall to the entity that made the representation to prove that it was appropriately substantiated.

There are many claims in the Guelph Statement, all tossed together like word salad, making practical application impossible. Still, this hasn’t stopped these claims from being passed on and built upon by new research and multi-stakeholder advocacy groups with, in this author’s opinion, thinly-disguised mandates to mask transparency of actual field-level emissions and to argue for preservation of the status quo.

Moreover, they’re unapologetically motivated to grab cash for shallow definitions of sustainability. According to a recent announcement of new funding for MRV (measurement, reporting and validation) from Maple Leaf Foods, Nutrien and the federal government, such a system “will allow farmers to receive a cheque for the climate-smart practices they use to manage the farm,” because “Canadian farms are leading the world in sustainable production and should be compensated for it.”

Not Every Farm

Some farmland managers are actually creating outcomes related to biodiversity, water and nutrient cycling, and restored wildlife habitats, which has material value to their businesses, broader society, and corporations like Pepsi who are already paying farmers handsomely. But other farmland owners are still deep tilling, over-applying fertilizer, removing trees and wetlands, and converting native grasslands and pasture into high-emitting monocrop production.

Please let’s not send cheques to these farms. They’re already abusing taxpayers under government-funded crop insurance, more and more every year as intensive management reduces their farms’ resiliency to extreme weather.

It’s Time for New Data

If challenged by a complaint for making unsubstantiated claims, these groups would right away point to “the science.” It begs the question then, if under the new provisions of C-59, would today’s CO2-equivalency models, based on decades-old data and inaccurate soil testing methodologies, be judged as ‘appropriately substantiated’ to claim that all Canadian agriculture is the most sustainable in the world?