Manitoba PC caucus asks Ottawa to stop fertilizer reduction strategy

Oct 05, 2022

The federal government’s targets are “totally irresponsible,” one MLA said

By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com

The Manitoba government wants the federal government to do away with its fertilizer emissions reduction strategy.

Ian Wishart, the MLA for Portage la Prairie, introduced a motion in the Legislative Assembly on Oct. 4 with the support of Brad Michaleski, the MLA for Dauphin.

The federal Liberals are moving forward with their plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fertilizers by 30 per cent below 2020 levels by the year 2030.

At a time when inputs and food costs are high, now isn’t the time to add red tape to the ag sector and further stress on Canadians, Wishart said.

“Justin Trudeau and the NDP-Liberal coalition’s plan to impose fertilizer reduction targets is totally irresponsible during a time of food insecurity and high inflation,” Wishart said in a statement. “This harmful policy will drive up the price of groceries.

Manitoba fertilizer motion

“This policy will impact anyone who consumes food in this country, and like many current federal policies, those struggling the most will be the ones who are disproportionately impacted.”

Manitoba is the latest provincial government to criticize the federal plan.

Alberta and Saskatchewan issued a joint statement about the fertilizer emissions reduction target in July following the announcement that Canada’s ag ministers agreed on the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership, which will replace the Canadian Agricultural Partnership in April 2023.

“The commitment to future consultations are only to determine how to meet the target that Prime Minister Trudeau and Minister Bibeau have already unilaterally imposed on this industry, not to consult on what is achievable or attainable,” the Provinces said.

Ontario’s minister of agriculture also disagrees with the federal government’s goal.

Different levels of government need to be on same page for farmers to succeed, Lisa Thompson said.

“As our farmers work to feed Canada and the world, we need to work with them and support their ongoing efforts to grow and produce the food we need. The federal government needs to be true partners, rather than simply imposing targets that make it harder.”

A report earlier in the year identified the effects cutting fertilizer use could have on the Canadian ag sector.

An MNP report commissioned by Fertilizer Canada indicated reducing fertilizer use by about 30 per cent by 2030 could cost Canadian farmers nearly $48 billion in farm income between 2023 and 2030.

Wishart introduces the motion at 1:27:00 of the YouTube video.

Video: Can Gene Editing Give Seeds a Stronger Start?

Reagan Reed has a way of describing his research that might make a plant breeder pause.

“I’m the sort of person who likes to break things to understand them,” he says.

What he breaks are genes involved in seed germination. Reed, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Davis, is investigating whether changing those genes can help seeds establish healthy plants under a wider range of conditions.

Reed recently attended the National Association for Plant Breeding meeting in College Station, Texas, as an NAPB Borlaug Scholar. His work speaks to a question that matters well beyond a research lab: what does it take for a seed to get a crop off to a strong start?

A seed that germinates quickly, alongside the others planted with it, spends less time vulnerable to stresses before seedlings become established.

“If you’re able to bridge that gap between germination to stand establishment, then that’s going to give you the highest probability of having a solid yield that year,” Reed says. “There’s a bunch that can go wrong after that, but it maximises your yield from the start, at least.”

Reed works in Dr. Imtiyaz Khanday’s lab at UC Davis, where his research focuses on seed quality in tomatoes and potatoes. He brings an unusual academic background to the work: at Skidmore College, he studied both biology and Latin.

Reed believes that combination prepared him for research. Translating an ancient text means studying each word, weighing its possible meanings and using context to reach the best interpretation. There is rarely a way to know with complete certainty what an author intended. Science, he says, requires a similar willingness to work through uncertainty.

“Attention to detail and comfortability working with uncertainty,” is how he sums up what Latin taught him.

In the lab, uncertainty can produce a surprise. Reed describes changing one gene and seeing little effect. Changing a second gene also appears to do little. Put both changes in the same genetic background, though, and the result can be substantial.

“I break this gene, nothing really happens. I break this other gene, nothing really happens. I combine them into the same genetic background, and now there’s a massive effect,” he says.

Those interactions matter as researchers gain the ability to edit multiple genes at once. They also complicate any simple account of how a trait works: improving a seed may depend on understanding what several genes do together.

For Reed, the question is whether that knowledge could help seeds germinate reliably when conditions are difficult. Some of the genes he studies prevent germination under certain conditions. That response may serve a plant well in one setting while limiting its usefulness in agriculture. He wants to learn what happens when those genes are changed, and whether the result improves establishment.

Yet a discovery that works in a lab still has a long way to travel before it reaches a field. Reed argues that agricultural biotechnology faces an economic challenge as well as a scientific one. New tools can create value for farmers, he says, but developing them requires a way to support the work in an industry where margins can be thin.

His fellowship with Flagship Pioneering gave him a view across AI, agriculture-related work and human health research. It also reinforced the importance of bringing people with different expertise into the same conversation—a benefit of gatherings such as the NAPB meeting.

“You need to have a team of people with different backgrounds who are willing to work together and approach the same problem in different perspectives and different ways,” he says.

That thinking connects the different parts of Reed’s path. Latin taught him to examine details without expecting a perfect answer. Gene editing lets him test what individual genes do—and what happens when their effects combine. Working with people beyond his own field helps him ask what those findings could become.

He came to agriculture because of its reach: the possibility that work by a small group of researchers could eventually make a difference on a much larger scale. His immediate focus is smaller and more precise. He wants to understand what helps a seed get through its first days and become a healthy plant.