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1998 Report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
Appendix A—Agriculture and Biodiversity
In November 1997, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, produced its biodiversity action plan. The plan is also a component of the Department's sustainable development strategy. The Department should be commended for its efforts as one of the first federal departments to implement the Canadian Biodiversity Strategy.The environment provides many of the inputs required for agricultural production, such as water, energy, nutrients, soil and biodiversity resources. Agriculture in Canada depends on and interacts with biodiversity at the genetic, species and ecosystem levels; in the past, this interaction has tended to adversely affect natural biodiversity. Agricultural producers use a variety of techniques to control other species that challenge the food supply (including genetics, pesticides, herbicides, tillage and biocontrol methods). Figures 1 and 2 show that regions with a high degree of risk to natural biodiversity, as assessed by Environment Canada, are strongly related to human uses of the landscape, notably agriculture, transportation corridors and urbanization.
To grow crops for the first time, lands are cleared and transformed into farmland, a process that, over time, has fundamentally altered, and in many cases eliminated, natural landscapes and ecosystems. For example, on the prairies, where about 85 percent of Canada's agricultural land is found, it is estimated that only about 1 percent of original tall-grass prairie, 24 percent of mixed-grass prairie and 5 percent of fescue prairie remain.
Important land use changes have also occurred within the agricultural land base. In response to market pressure, agriculture has become more intensive on the most productive lands, which increases risks to biodiversity on cropland. It is important to note, however, that although the annual value of agriculture output (measured in constant dollars) has increased by about 64 percent since 1971, Statistics Canada indicates this productivity has been achieved without significantly encroaching on non-agricultural land such as wildlife habitat and other marginal lands not well suited to food production (total farmland in production has actually decreased by one percent since 1971).
Because of consumer demand and market pressures, agricultural production is limited to a small number of domesticated species of crops and animals. For example, estimates indicate that, on a global basis, three crops (wheat, rice and maize) provide about 60 percent of the calories and 56 percent of the protein that humans consume directly from plants. In addition, only a small number of animals have been domesticated and selective breeding for increased productivity and uniformity has narrowed the genetic base of domesticated animals, plants and micro-organisms that are used in agriculture and agri-food production. For example, almost all of Canada's dairy cattle are Holsteins and 80 percent of all Holsteins at major artificial insemination centres descended from just 20 sires. With reliance on a small number of genetically less diverse species, there is a greater risk of production failure from pest and disease attack.
The Department and the agriculture and agri-food sector are endeavouring to preserve genetic diversity and the parent stocks of today's high-yield crops through the collection of seeds and storage in gene banks, but this process is logistically more difficult with animals. The preservation of animal stocks requires a careful combination of the use of modern biotechnology and maintenance of parent stocks in herds or flocks of rare breeds that may have no direct commercial value.
A better understanding is now emerging of how agriculture and biodiversity can be managed for mutual benefit, and numerous initiatives are under way in both the Department and the agriculture and agri-food sector. For example, many producers delay grazing and haying practices to provide ground cover for young, vulnerable wildlife. The Department has taken advantage of this emerging awareness to produce its action plan. The following is a review of the development of the plan.
The action plan
The challenge for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada was to produce a biodiversity action plan that recognized its partnerships, was sensitive to its clientele, and balanced environmental and economic considerations. Key partners for the Department are the provinces, which constitutionally share jurisdiction over agriculture and have regulatory authority over land use.The Department's experience suggests a number of lessons of value to other departments:
- Having stakeholders work together is key. The action plan was based on a long history of both the Department and the sector working on biodiversity issues. The actual product was the result of consultations with environmentalists, producers and provincial officials as well as other federal departments, which began in 1996.
- Find motivated people to work on the plan. An interbranch committee, chaired by the Department's Environment Bureau, was responsible for producing the plan. The committee's members typically had a prior interest in biodiversity, which contributed to the committee's success.
- The plan can be produced with limited resources. We found it difficult to determine the exact resources used to develop the plan, but it likely required about five person-years annually over two years.
- Align the plan with ongoing initiatives. The action plan sets four goals: to promote sustainability, to increase awareness, to conserve and provide access to genetic resources and knowledge, and to integrate biodiversity conservation objectives into departmental policies and programs. Approximately one third of the actions outlined in the plan require new efforts by the Department. The balance are a continuation of past biodiversity-related initiatives. Many of these actions support the sector and pursue biodiversity issues at the same time - for example, Research Branch plans to explore biodiversity to identify crops with improved genetic resistance to disease, and to research alternative crops to help diversify the sector.
The way ahead
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's biodiversity action plan raises or is silent on a number of issues that, in our view, need to be addressed by either the Department or the Biodiversity Convention Office. These issues may also provide useful lessons to other departments that are developing biodiversity plans.
- There is a need for information to show time frames, expected results, performance indicators, and how many resources the Department is devoting to biodiversity. Words such as "encourage" and "promote" are used in the plan to describe what is going to take place, but little indication of the level and timing of effort or expected results is given. A lack of cost information for the plan will limit the ability to decide which action steps have not been cost-effective and which steps might deserve increased resources in the future. Without a cost estimate of the planned initiatives, the Department also runs a risk that planned initiatives may outstrip its available resources.
- More scientific information is needed to support the action steps outlined in the plan. This need comes at a time when government is enduring significant cutbacks. Due to fiscal restraint, there is no ready solution to this need; however, the continuing lack of scientific information will affect the action plan. The more complete our knowledge about agricultural biodiversity becomes, the better able the sector will be to improve the quality of soils, crops and agricultural ecosystems.
- Indicators of domesticated diversity are needed. While the Department is developing an indicator for wildlife diversity on agricultural lands, it also needs indicators of domesticated diversity. Some of the steps in the Department's action plan pertain directly to efforts to diversify domesticated plants and animals. In addition, the long-term economic security of the sector depends in part on having a range of products. The Department needs to develop indicators of diversification in the sector at all levels of biodiversity: the genetic, the species, and the agricultural ecosystem.
- There is a need to assess and integrate Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's biodiversity action plan into the plans of other departments and the Canadian Biodiversity Strategy. In the past, the Department has considered itself the voice of the sector and has been concerned that other departments might have objectives that could be detrimental to the needs of the sector. Given this strong point of view, there now needs to be a process to ensure that the Department's plans are complementary to the objectives of other federal departments and that the overall requirements of the Canadian Biodiversity Strategy are met. The Department's biodiversity plan also recognizes this need.