Forests Ontario / Forest Recovery Canada to plant over 31 million trees as part of Canada's 2 Billion Trees program

Oct 31, 2023

BARRIE, ON, - In an effort to minimize the devastating effects of climate change, encourage biodiversity, enhance wildlife habitat, and support green job creation, Forests Ontario / Forest Recovery Canada has signed an agreement with Natural Resources Canada's 2 Billion Trees (2BT) program to plant 31 million trees across the country by March 31, 2031.

Pictured (left to right): The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources; Member of Parliament Adam van Koeverden, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and to the Minister of Sport and Physical Activity; and Jess Kaknevicius, Chief Executive Officer, Forests Ontario. Photo: Natural Resources Canada (CNW Group/Forests Ontario)

Jess Kaknevicius, CEO of Forests Ontario, and the Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, today announced a joint commitment of over $123 million that will see 31 million trees planted across the country. The Government of Canada will cover 50 percent of project costs through the 2BT program and Forests Ontario will work with corporate partners and donors across the country to contribute to the balance of project costs.

"This is a generational opportunity for organizations and individuals across the country to show their environmental leadership," Kaknevicius says. "We have the support of the Government of Canada and now we need corporate partners and donors to stand with our planting partners, conservation authorities, Indigenous community partners, municipalities, and community groups and play a vital role in the fight against biodiversity loss and climate change."

The success of a planting project this size is possible thanks to Forests Ontario's comprehensive network of experts who collect high-quality seed, grow the seedlings with trusted nurseries, work with local planting partners, and manage survival assessments to improve climate resilience and biodiversity in our natural environments – goals that are in direct alignment with UN Sustainable Development Goals.

"Today's announcement represents a major step toward our goal of planting two billion trees to deliver cleaner air, enhance biodiversity, and advance climate action across Canada," Minister Wilkinson says. "Forests Ontario's efforts to plant more than 31 million trees across the country will benefit communities and create good jobs. Collaborative partnerships like the one between Canada and Forests Ontario are producing important results for Canadians and ensuring that the right tree is planted in the right place for the right reasons."

This announcement builds on the original 2BT program agreement between the Government of Canada and Forests Ontario from November 2022. Over the past 20 years, Forests Ontario has been responsible for planting more than 43 million trees on over 8,000 project sites across Canada – creating approximately 20,500 hectares of new forests.

"Nature is our greatest ally in fighting climate change. Planting more trees is a nature-based climate solution that helps reduce the risk of flooding and wildfires, cleans our air and water, supports biodiversity and sequesters carbon emissions," the Honourable Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, says. "It's also one of our best tools to build thriving, livable cities in Ontario and across Canada."

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Source : Newswire.ca

Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”