'Not just dirt’: U of Guelph researchers seek ways to protect soil on Canadian farms

Jun 11, 2024

There is less soil across Canada as a recent report from the Senate of Canada projects concerns about the future of food production.

However, a group of researchers at the University of Guelph are hopeful for improvement.

Kari Dunfield is one of three researchers at the Soils at Guelph project, which aims to find ways to protect the health of soil in Canada and share that information with farmers, the industry and the public.

“I think as Canadians, we’re really just lucky we have all these natural resources across Canada, and a huge amount of diversity, and of course soil,” Dunfield said.

Dunfield, along with Laura Van Eerd and Claudia Wagner-Riddle, started the project in 2019 and have conducted soil health research across the province.

By networking and collaborating, she believes the team’s approach is an effective one.

“I think we need to start at that level where everybody understands that soils are important, and not just dirt,” she said.

The team wants to work with other provinces as well, she said.

Dunfield said there needs to be a toolbox of ideas that they can talk to people about, knowing that these are things that might work. Afterwards, it’s up to individuals to decide which strategies work for them.

And since starting the project five years ago, Dunfield has learned there are a lot of people interested in protecting soil. She said it’s important to get more people involved.

“We started this a few years ago,” she said. “We’ve grown from an idea that someone had to a network of hundreds of people we’re connecting with.”

There is no one-size-fits all approach and she said their team is trying to connect with those interested in protecting soil, in addition to working with soil owners or farmers, to propose realistic solutions.

She said soil isn’t renewable and is in crisis due to erosion, pollution or loss to development. Dunfield said soil is not only important for growing food but for the economy.

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Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators