Farmers will need lots of support to reduce GHG emissions.Ottawa—Producing more food with fewer greenhouse gas emissions is the clear challenge facing Canada's agrifood system, says a thought-provoking report on achieving that goal.Produced by RBC Economics and Thought Leadership, the Boston Consulting Group and the Arrell Food Institute at the University of Guelph, the report, called the Next Green Revolution, contains a wide array of ideas for harvesting Canada's food potential while helping reduce the impact of climate change.“A national effort, tailored to regional contexts and focused on the key pillars of technology, finance, skills and public policy, will be essential to increasing our production while also cutting emissions,” says the report.While food production is not the key cause of climate change, agriculture with the right investments can become “a made-in-Canada, farmed-in-Canada solution for the world.”The way forward is “using breakthrough technologies as well as some well-established practices, attracting and training a new generation of farm and food innovators and investing in farmers to develop new economic incentives that reward what they produce as well as what they preserve.”The report says Canada should boldly declare “to the world that Canadian agriculture can help everyone move more quickly to a world that has solved the climate crisis.”The way to reduce emissions lies with key technologies and approaches that include carbon capture, utilization and storage, feed additives, anaerobic digesters, and precision technology, the report said.By engaging technological and management solutions and mobilizing finance and policy to support farmers, “Canada can cut up to 40 per cent of potential 2050 emissions.”At the same time, Canada must increase its food production by a quarter “just to maintain our contribution as the world's population swells. We need to grow more for humanity, with less impact on the planet. This can be Canada's moonshot for 2030 and beyond, if we can harness the imagination and enterprise of Canadians in every sector and geography.”A Canadian standard for measuring the impact of emissions-cutting activities could provide a vital tool for both compensating farmers and empowering policymakers and financial institutions to support emission-reduction activities, the report said.Canada's agricultural sector is at a turning point as global food demand is set to soar as the population rises to 9.7 billion in 2050—a 26 per cent jump. At the same time, climate change is disrupting the supply chains and agricultural productivity of many major producers. And geopolitical upheaval from Russia's invasion of Ukraine has destabilized the world's food systems.Canada is a top supplier of key crops like wheat and canola and a global leader in the export of beef. “But our successes have come at a cost. Every acre of food we grow, and every animal we raise, add to an emissions footprint that is already too big—and that we've committed to shrinking. Farming significantly more acres in the same way will only worsen the problem, since disturbing the soil adds more carbon to the atmosphere.”Canada needs to embrace technologies that cut emissions from fertilizer, livestock digestion and manure while also adopting farming techniques that help store carbon in soil. By leaning into its strengths, Canada can also become a leader in the development of the technologies and plant science that will power the next green revolution in agriculture.To make it happen, Canada will need to harness cross-sectoral partnerships, research and innovation, policy development and private investment. It must also expand the ports and railways that farm products to market.“Canada has marshalled such an all-of-country approach to support our farmers in the past, mobilizing not just technological advances, but immigration, infrastructure and trade policies, with powerful effect.”The report is available at https://thoughtleadership.rbc.com/the-next-green-revolution-how-canada-can-produce-more-food-and-fewer-emissions/