Farmers need assistance in reducing emissions. Ottawa-Canada's soils have an incredible potential to store carbon and help mitigate climate change but the cost to farmers to adopt suitable practices looms as a barrier to progress, the Senate agriculture committee has been told. Farmers are already dealing with challenging economic conditions and the cost of expensive equipment, potential yield loss from new practices and other risks will add to their burden, said Mohamad Yaghi, Agriculture & Climate Policy Lead at the RBC Climate Action Institute. “Simply put, we cannot keep asking our farmers to bear the financial risk of this transition, especially without the support that their peers in the U.S. or the EU get,” he said. RBC is a partner in the Canadian Alliance for Net-Zero Agri-food ( CANZA) that wants to cut emissions by 50 megatons by 2030 and 150 megatons by 2050. To make changes fast and effective as possible, its Carbon Farming and the National Biodigester Network initiatives will address the largest emission sources in the agrifood supply chain. “The carbon farming initiative aims to develop a low-cost, scalable and nationally relevant measurement reporting verification system and create a carbon credit platform to help producers develop and monetize high quality carbon assets. We also want to de-risk technology for producers and test innovations to let them know what might work best in their operations.” A demonstration project in Saskatchewan will be followed by projects across the country that will assist all types of farming, he said. CANZA's partners “believe that the agriculture sector is vital to helping Canada achieve its net-zero transition objectives. One way we're doing this is by studying the role of soil health and how that can make Canada's farms more environmentally resilient and economically valuable. The biodigester initiative seeks to develop a waste-to-value network in high emission areas across Canada, he said. “By creating policy and market incentives for agriculture digestive development, the work stream will provide stable feedstocks and new economic opportunities. With the right approach, we can unlock a golden opportunity to reward producers not only from what they can produce but also from what they conserve.” Lara O'Donnell, Executive Director of the Weston Family Foundation, said now is the time to help the agricultural sector move toward improved soil health practices. Scientific research demonstrates that supporting soil health in Canada's agricultural lands offers an immediate solution to improve Canada's biodiversity and help mitigate the adverse effects of climate change. Healthy soil organic matter helps to improve water retention, supports carbon sequestration and makes agro-ecosystems more resilient and better able to recover and adapt to environmental stresses such as drought and floods. “Our research revealed that despite the importance of soil health and the opportunity that agricultural lands provide, many Canadian farms are not managed in ways that optimize soil health. For example, soil organic matter is decreasing on 82 per cent of farmlands Ontario, and growing evidence suggests this trend is less diverse planting and there is an ongoing shift away from perennial forages to annual crops.” The vast majority of producers are conservation-minded and have an acute awareness of the importance of soil health, she said. “Though many farmers want to improve soil health practices on their lands, many legitimate barriers prevent them from doing so.”