ON-FARM THOUGHTS: Drought and Methane: Working with the Elephants in our Rooms.

by Larry Wegner, MFGA Board Alumni

Larry Wegner farms with wife Rosemary, sons Herbert and Max on a regenerative agriculture-focused livestock operation near Virden, Manitoba. As a former MFGA Chair, past MFGA Regenerative Agriculture Conference chair and constant MFGA ambassador, Larry was inducted into the 2023 MFGA Wall of Fame.

It must be time for Manitoba Ag Days; indeed, like every year it seems, the weather is cold. But what a great gathering of the agriculture industry every year in Brandon. I would like to wish a Happy New Year to all who take the time to read my always-percolating thoughts and my own personal views of our forage and associated industries. I’d like to thank Manitoba Forage and Grassland Association for giving me a platform to share my thoughts and encourage everyone with any feedback to reach out to me. I’d love to hear from you.

As we look forward, drought is once again facing us head on. For many of us, 2023 was dry. Most annual crops were average or a little better than average yield. Forages were lower than average. I can recall that when I first started thinking and planning around the rationale behind my first blog, it was to make producers think about planning to deal with drought. And here we are again.

What have you done to drought proof your farm?

What can you do to deal with a drought again this year?

While we all know that you cannot lose a crop in January now is the time to plan. It will cost you nothing but time and effort to write down a plan. What will you use as a guide to feel confident with enough moisture?

Do you need a foot of snow by April 15, or 50mm of water equivalent?

What is your calendar’s date line for the absolute final date to change your plans?

What is your plan B if you do not get enough moisture by that magical day?

Only you and your family know these answers and it helps to get input from family and friends to help make an informed decision. What have you done since the extremely dry year of 2021 to drought-proof your operation? According to our farm records on our family farm in Lenore, MB, we are going into the seventh year of below normal moisture; we had six weeks of above normal spring moisture in 2022 but by fall that year we were below normal average moisture again. This drought covers Western Canada and the northern States. The USA has been dealing with several years of drought at various levels across a wide swath of the Great Plains and elsewhere. What are your plans going forward? Remember to write your plans down (if you do not write it down it is only a dream) and share it with family and people you work with.

What is your plan C and furthermore, and just in case, do you have a plan D?

From a 2023 market glance, annual crop producers had a year of tightening margins and 2024 looks about the same. The fall lamb market reminded us that we are a small part of a global market where a drought and forced marketing from Australia impacts us in Canada. In the last year we have seen the biggest increase in North America beef prices and the largest correction (for unclear reasons) at the end of the year. It has been a wild ride; we can only hang on for 2024 and see where this party takes us.

From the cattle on feed numbers, we can see that there is minimal heifer retention happening, yet many producers are dealing with cumulative drought impacts and are still trying to rebuild equity in their herds before they start rebuilding. There is talk about high interest rates that are negative to the producers – in respect of those of us in the game back then, hold our beers and we will tell you about the interest rates from 1978 to 1982. Those high interest rates were hard on those who were financing anything, but many also set themselves up locked in term savings accounts. I recall in 1981, a person could lock in term deposit for five years with compounding interest and at the end of the term, it would be equal to what you put in. What is the interest rate on saving, these days? l bet not near the bank’s interest rate. And certainly not anything like the 1981 scenario. When I look back, I see a co-relationship between the rise of interest rates and the decline in land value. Farmers could not finance land at those rates, but the rates also scared away investors, as by rule, they tend to go to where they can get the best returns on investment.

In my own personal view, agriculture has a dark cloud on the horizon. Governments are supposed to have a science-based policy, but each year, it seems we are dealing with less-science based and more popular opinion-based specifically targeted policies and programs. Are we using science or responding to public opinions as our foundational approach? One example is reducing nitrogen used in crop production. Over the last 18 months this topic has been hotly debated and then, everything went quiet. My thought is that we will be dealing with it again in 2024. I have written in past blogs my thoughts on reducing nitrogen usage, to me it is a not a short-term proposal but a long term one that cannot and should not start till the soil health improves.

Most recently, the sought target for change via policy is methane. With a lifespan of 7 to 12 years, methane has a significantly shorter life span in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, which can persist for hundreds of years or more. In cattle, methane occurs as a byproduct of rumination and naturally occurs in the digestion of forages. When we think about the high number of animals on the grasslands before the settlement of the land, there are now far fewer ruminating animals in North America than three hundred years ago, with bison herds roaming and existing on vast grasslands and all the digestion processes associated with that diet. Like bison, cattle are front-gut ruminators burping to relieve themselves of the gas, while horses are hind-gut ruminators causing gas to be released out the back end of the horse. There is work being done around the world to look at additives to feed and/or bolus (food that has been chewed and mixed in the mouth with saliva) to lower the amount of methane produced. In New Zealand they are looking into a vaccine to give to the livestock to reduce methane.

Environment and Climate Change Canada published a draft fourth protocol under Canada’s Greenhouse Gas Offset Credit System. This new draft protocol, Reducing Enteric Methane Emissions from Beef Cattle (REME protocol), will incentivize farmers to implement changes that would reduce enteric methane emissions from their beef cattle operations with an opportunity to generate offset credits that they can sell. The Government of Canada is seeking input from stakeholders on the draft REME protocol. Interested parties are invited to submit comments via email at: creditscompensatoires-offsets@ec.gc.ca by February 6, 2024. The final protocol is expected to be published in the summer of 2024, when farmers can begin registering their projects in Canada’s Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Offset Credit System. https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/news/2023/12/government-of-canada-announces-new-economic-incentive-to-reduce-methane-emissions-from-beef-cattle.html

I have read the document and background regarding the Carbon Market and Methane Reduction. For me, it raises more questions than answers. The good thing is we each can comment and participate in providing feedback to the federal government. In my own response, I will be bringing these questions forward:

*Why is it written for doing monitoring of feedyards where the diet is high in starch?

*Why does it have money set aside for research on genetic work to breed lower producing methane producing cattle, when we know that single trait selection will produce undesirable progeny?

*Will the price per Carbon Credit be the same as the price we pay on the Carbon Tax? ($65/tonne)

*Who will be verifying the Credit Program?

* Who will be paying for the said program?

*How do we as producers select our low methane producing breeding stock?

*Will our National and Provincial lobby groups have enough push-back and input to bring up a debate on these policies?

*Once these policies are enforced, will there be extra expense for producers if our competition in the world market does not have the same systems?

* Canadian Livestock inventory numbers from 2003 before BSE to 2023 is a full 40% reduction of number of cows in Manitoba.

*Will the feed additives adjust the taste and quality of the beef we produce for our local and international customers?

As a group, the Canadian ag producers are some of the most environmentally friendly in the world. Can we do better? Yes, let us work together on common goals, stop using the stick method and promote the commonsense solution approach. The carrot always works better than the stick with farmers. Embrace no-till and late season cover crops, where the land is worked up and not left bare for a season. Look at the innovation and leadership provided by early adopters right here in Manitoba and the Prairies on their own dime and time and help share their successes and fallbacks with fellow producers and policymakers alike.

We might be wise to accept the fact that in this current paradigm, a portion of ag producers will not change and will fight for their right not to change. These farms may see greater change via succession and sales as the new generation of ag producers step up to take over. Let us all work together to deal with more greenhouse gas water vapor and stress the value of not breaking the water cycle. I think that we can do it together.

My family and I are trying to do our part, are you? What can we all do better?

In my mind, a full season growing forages on the ground fully supported by a much-needed ecological goods and services incentivized system to ensure farmers take advantage of proven science-based practices that continue to provide carbon, biodiversity, and water benefits to society via our healthy soils will do more for our environment and, actually, our entire world than rapidly accelerated plans seemingly founded on popular opinion. As I see it, we need to work and learn together with what we know and need to know rather than what some want to see.