Cultivating Change: Perspectives on Sustainable Farming from the Canadian Prairies

When producers in southern Manitoba till their fields in early April, the spring sun burning off the winter chill, they’ve got a lot on their minds. Soil conditions and fertility, equipment preparation and pest management are all pressing concerns. But do sustainable farming practices make that list?

The chances, we’ve found, are low.

Adopting sustainable farming practices presents multiple challenges for the folks who grow our food. Yet, these practices have the potential to meaningfully reduce emissions.

“There’s a huge opportunity to mitigate climate change and improve production by changing some of our current methods,” explains Les Fuller, Nature United’s Agriculture Strategy Director. This is particularly true for the Prairies, Canada’s most agriculturally productive area.

A 2021 study conducted by Nature United and 16 research partners found that sustainable practices such as nutrient management, diversified crop rotations, and avoided grassland conversion can reduce emissions by 37.4 Mt CO2e annually, which is the equivalent of taking more than eight million gas-powered cars off the road.

So, why aren’t these practices being implemented on farms across the Canadian Prairies? That’s exactly what we set out to determine for a 2024 report on what’s stopping the agricultural industry from adopting sustainable practices. We discovered several barriers, but also the many ways we can all work together on solutions.

What is sustainable agriculture?

While there’s no universal definition of sustainable agriculture, it’s generally seen as a farming philosophy that aims to produce nutritious food in ways that treat people fairly and leave the Earth in better condition for generations to come. Practices vary by region, crop and geography, and they generally focus on reducing dependence upon costly energy-intensive inputs and relying more on natural ecological processes to enhance long-term land productivity. These methods focus on enhancing soil health, utilizing biological nitrogen fixation to support nitrogen fertility, adopting rotational grazing and increasing the diversity of cropping systems to better manage pests and diseases. 

The climate potential of agriculture

By 2030, Natural Climate Solutions (NCS), including sustainable agriculture in Canada, could remove up to 78 megatonnes of CO2 per year, which would be a significant contribution to the Paris Agreement.  

For example, cover crops like legumes help store more carbon in the soil, increase its organic nitrogen content, and reduce the need for nitrogen fertilizer. They also improve the soil's ability to hold moisture.

Sustainable agriculture can be used over millions of hectares of farmland with crops such as wheat, canola, barley, corn and soybean. 

But, more producers need to adopt these methods to impact climate change meaningfully. Here’s what’s getting in the way, and what needs to be done to remove the roadblocks.

There’s no simple answer as to why sustainable agricultural techniques haven’t been more widely embraced in Canada. Several interconnected hurdles create complicated challenges for producers, which result in maintaining the status quo, rather than adopting new practices. However, our recent report identified these key barriers. 

1. Economic gains take time

When producers consider changing their farming practices, they need to consider “economic feasibility, return on investment and profitability,” Fuller says. While sustainable agriculture has been shown to improve profit margins by as much as 30 per cent, producers won’t see those gains until the fifth or sixth year of practice. They often can’t wait that long for those economic results. Then there are the upfront costs, such as equipment, labour and availability of crop insurance, all of which can be significant. If producers are going to adopt regenerative farming methods, they understandably need to see how their investment will pay off.

2. There are challenges out in the fields

Producers aren’t always familiar with the science behind how and why sustainable farming practices work, which leads to apprehension. “Producers need evidence-based, regionally relevant information to adopt these practices, and in some cases, that information is still lacking,” says Gurbir Singh Dhillon, Nature United’s Prairies Agriculture Program Manager. Other hurdles include labour and harvest-timing incompatibilities, lack of equipment needed for certain practices, lack of technical know-how and support, and environmental factors, such as inconsistent rain, weed issues or short growing seasons.

3. Change can be challenging for farming communities

Fuller says there’s a stigma associated with changing how farming has always been done, which makes many producers less likely to try newer methods. “Rural communities are very tight-knit, and producers know what other producers are doing in their area,” he says. “To try something absolutely new might seem a little bit off-the-wall, and there’s a social barrier in the community that [producers] have to manage.” 

Moving away from conventional farming methods requires a paradigm shift, and producers just don’t have access to Prairie-specific information, community mentors and peer support to persuade them. Distrust in policymakers also plays a role. 

Fuller says that identifying these barriers is key to growing toward a future of sustainable farming practices in Canada, particularly in the Prairies. As government incentives, global initiatives and corporate interest increase awareness of sustainable agriculture, organizations such as Nature United need to work with public and private sectors to understand the roadblocks producers face, answer questions and demonstrate evidence of the benefits of these practices. 

“We’re working on a strategy to move from the current, highly energy-intensive agriculture production system to something more environmentally aligned,” Fuller says. “We’re thinking about how to work with the various partners interested in sustainable agriculture to address these limitations strategically.” 

What are our next steps? Now that we know what’s preventing producers from adopting regenerative agriculture methods, we’re better equipped to collaborate with producers, government and corporate organizations to remove the barriers and find solutions. Here’s the plan.

1. Change government policy

We aim to use the producer perspectives we’ve gathered to inform supportive government policy. “Existing policy maintains the status quo, which makes it harder for producers to adopt new methods,” Fuller says. With these barriers identified, we can encourage development of policies that can mitigate them.

2. Break down barriers

With the roadblocks now identified, government and corporate stakeholders within the agriculture supply chain must invest in breaking them down. “We at Nature United can go to our various corporate and government partners and say, ‘This is what producers have been telling us. How can we develop programs and incentive packages that will deal with the questions they have?’” Fuller says.

“For now, Prairie producers are at the forefront of the push toward sustainable agriculture. This is an important move, as more than 80 per cent of Canada’s farmland is in the Prairies,” Fuller says.

Sustainable agriculture has the opportunity to impact climate change significantly, but we all must work together to ensure more producers are able to adopt these Natural Climate Solutions. Now that we understand their barriers, we can work together to support producers with the resources they need to move toward a more sustainable future.