A Climate-Smart Agriculture Plan with Mohamad Yaghi

Climate change challenges Canadian agriculture in so many ways. How can Canada help farmers adapt? The report, “A New Ag Deal: A 9-Point Plan for Climate-Smart Agriculture”, lays out ideas to help farmers adapt and reduce the impacts of climate change on their farms while growing food production to feed the world. Mohamad Yaghi, Agriculture & Climate Policy Lead at the Royal Bank’s (RBC) Climate Action Institute tells us about their plan in this episode.

The Royal Bank has been active reporting about agriculture and climate as part of its Thought Leadership initiative, working with the Arrell Food Institute here at the University of Guelph on several of these. Mohamad and his team spoke with more than 500 farmers and food producers, to gain a better understanding of what practical policies could make a difference helping farmers adapt. We talked about a number of these ideas.

The world’s top food producing countries are making sustainable agriculture a strategic priority, building formidable climate-smart food supply chains backed by sizeable funding and bold policy measures. The sector risks falling behind if Canadian governments don’t match their competitors in supporting producers with the funding and policy tools to grow more food with fewer emissions. The agriculture sectors in the U.S., EU, Australia, and China get roughly three times the climate funding that Canada provides to its industry.

We talk about carbon markets and how to build markets that are fair and that farmers can benefit from, for soil carbon, methane, and other emissions. Encouraging innovative farmers who drive the initial charge to new farming practices is another important focus that farmers often say is neglected. Canada’s dwindling knowledge sharing network or extension system for getting new research knowledge into the hand of farmers needs a major boost.

We also discuss the newly launched Canadian Alliance for Net Zero Agrifood (CANZA) and what the Alliance plans to do in coming years. RBC is a partner in this new Alliance, along with the Arrell Food Institute.

More information:

A New Ag Deal: A 9-Point Plan for Climate-Smart Agriculture

https://thoughtleadership.rbc.com/a-new-ag-deal-a-9-point-plan-for-climate-smart-agriculture/

The Next Green Revolution: How Canada can produce more food and fewer emissions

https://thoughtleadership.rbc.com/the-next-green-revolution-how-canada-can-produce-more-food-and-fewer-emissions/

The Canadian Alliance for Net Zero Agrifood

https://canza.ca/

Arrell Food Institute

https://arrellfoodinstitute.ca/