New Climate Programs for Canadian Farmers – with Brent Preston. Canada now has new programs aimed at helping farmers adopt practices to mitigate and adapt to climate change. The new federal climate plan released in December 2020 and Budget 2021 made major commitments for funding agriculture climate programs. But are these programs well designed and will they actually help farmers change practices? We explore this topic with Brent Preston of Farmers for Climate Solutions. They advocated for the new $200M On-Farm Climate Action Fund for cover crops, fertilizer management and rotational grazing. Others include $185M for Agriculture Climate Solutions focused on Living Labs research collaborations, $165.7M for Clean Ag Tech Program, and some part of the $631M Nature Smart Climate Solutions Fund aimed at agriculture. And the new federal-provincial funding framework for 2023-2028 is being negotiated right now. Will it also increase agri-environmental funding? Canada dramatically underfunds agri-environment efforts compared to Europe and the United States.

Links:

Canada’s Revised Climate Plan

https://www.canada.ca/en/services/environment/weather/climatechange/climate-plan.html

On-Farm Climate Action Fund

https://www.canada.ca/en/agriculture-agri-food/news/2021/08/helping-farmers-to-reduce-ghgs-and-improve-resiliency-to-climate-change.html

Nature Smart Climate Solutions Fund

https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/environmental-funding/programs/nature-smart-climate-solutions-fund.html

Emissions Reduction Plan

https://www.canada.ca/en/services/environment/weather/climatechange/climate-plan/climate-plan-overview/emissions-reduction-2030.html

Farmers for Climate Solutions

https://farmersforclimatesolutions.ca/