Ottawa-Sustainable agriculture gets lots of attention but not the tools needed to encourage producers to adopt appropriate practices, says an Alberta farmer who has put them to work on his mixed grain and beef farm.

Colby Hansen, who farms in north-central Alberta, told the Senate agriculture committee soil health study that he has continually strived to adopt and develop new ways to keep the family farm transferable to the next generation.

His approach includes “Canada’s local bio-circular economies, regenerates soils, grows more nutrient-dense food, supports communities, mitigates climate change and diverts food and organic waste from landfills.”

After more than 25 years in operation, his farm has achieved “healthier soils, crops and livestock, supplied beef and pork to our local communities, lowered our synthetic fertilizer up to 75 per cent and lowered our carbon dioxide footprint.”

Sadly, all that good work is not appreciated as “farmers still struggle to get paid fairly for our stewardship efforts.”

He called for a variety of tools to encourage farmers to increase uptake of soil health practices. They include “a regenerative agriculture committee commission to be our voice on policy grants, direction and focus of research, as well as new and emerging commodity markets. We must start approaching companies’ growing interest in purchasing our sustainably raised goods, financial incentives and loans catered to regenerative agriculture practices.”

The government should establish a carbon credit bank that will ensure farmers receive fair value for emission offsets they earn. They would also provide funds for grants and research to farmers “who demonstrate they are going above and beyond to expedite the participation of soil health and growing Canada’s biocircular economies.”

Hansen said that it took more than three years for his team to establish Alternative Root, a public-privately run municipal composting facility north of Edmonton The facility has “diverted 40,000 tonnes of organic waste destined to landfill. In turn, the 20,000 tonnes of finished compost has been applied on my lands and used as an invaluable tool in my transition to regenerative agriculture.

“To date, in our community, AltRoot has supported seventeen-plus businesses, created seven new jobs, donated to the local community and organizations while engaging heavily in research and education.”

The AltRoot model could be copied as a public-private partnership in strategically placed communities across Canada, or the world, he said. “Responsible sorting of waste streams down to responsible end use of the compost and is of utmost importance. Organic waste, communities and farms will be here for generations. It makes sense to support a model that will foster a resilient biocircular economy.”

It combines 10,000 tonnes of wood waste for our carbon source and 10,000 tonnes of food and yard waste and the mix will produce about 10,000 tons of compost per year.

This news report was prepared for National Newswatch.