Throughout this past winter the SSCA and other like-minded conservation groups embarked upon a campaign to have prairie soils recognized as a legitimate carbon bank. We wanted to convince our policy makers and political leaders that prairie soils, when farmed under a reduced or no-till system with an intense and diverse crop rotation have the potential to sequester huge quantities of carbon. It appears that our efforts have been successful. John Bennett, SSCA Director and myself attended a soil carbon conference in Calgary on May 21-22, 1998. It was very apparent that our Federal and Provincial Governments and other North American Policy makers and scientists are convinced of the value and potential of prairie soils role in assisting Canada and the United States in meeting their commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. Our objective was to convince them that farmers have an important role in making soil carbon sequestration work. Representing the Canadian Government, Michael Presly acknowledged the letters that had been sent to Ottawa as a result of our efforts. American Policy maker Craig Cox, although firmly on side, felt somewhat pessimistic about having soils readily accepted by the international community in upcoming negotiations in Bonn and Rio de Janeiro. He did however, feel that if we maintain our efforts eventually we would succeed. Both of these gentlemen stressed the need for us to reach our international counterparts with our message. They thought that this would go a long way towards assisting them with their efforts at the negotiating table. We must work with other conservation groups and the Soil Conservation Council of Canada to come up with a strategy to accomplish this.
At the Calgary Conference, the delegates were divided into four working groups to deal with specific issues. The task of the groups was to come up with ways and means of achieving specific goals. The group I attended discussed Carbon Credit Trading. We focused on the question "How can we insure that the existing and potential carbon bank will continue to grow so that a viable carbon trading system can exist?" It was interesting indeed to observe the response from our neighbors south of the border. The American policy makers initial response was that if you want farmers to implement a particular practice, simply pay them to do it and they will. This approach, although it may be successful if lucrative enough, didn't seem to me like it would be very sturdy over the long term especially if and when the "pay them to do it" program ended. "A carbon bank built on a foundation of sand" if you will. I put forward the idea that if you want a reliable and growing carbon bank, one that would sustain a carbon market over the long term, you must have farmers that are committed for all the right reasons to the farming practices necessary for carbon sequestration. The best way to achieve this is to have a program that would be information based and would assist farmers with the management complexities of no-till farming. To provide a forum for farmers to be exposed to the latest in production technology and opportunities for farmers to be an audience to and network with the research community and each other. Producers who adopt no-till farming expose themselves to higher levels of risk with this management system. Programs must be designed to help farmers manage risk and increase their chances for success. A successful no-till farmer will be a dedicated no-till farmer. If this sounds a lot like what the SSCA does now, it was intended to. I needed only to point to the Ag Census numbers indicating the large uptake of no-till farming in Saskatchewan to make my case. I tried to stress that scarce program dollars would be best spent in this manner. The rate of adoption of no-till farming may be a little slower this way than with cash incentives, but in the long term it will result in a stable, reliable carbon bank built up by dedicated farmers.
By the end of the second day when our working group reported our results, two ideas which received high priority were direct technical assistance for farmers and enhanced education for farmers. The farmers crucial role in this whole soil carbon sequestration scenario was much better understood by the scientists and policy makers by the end of the workshop. We were successful.