Farmers for Climate Solutions, a new group formed to start looking at ways they can do something about the climate while improving their farm business. They own up to the fact that agriculture is a significant cause of global warming. They also insist farming can help solve the problem. “Canada can’t get to net-zero without farmers pitching in,” says Gillian Flies. She co-owns The New Farm in Creemore, Ontario, and represents Canadian Organic Growers on the new climate action group and says “Too many of the Canadian Agricultural Partnership grants require the farmers to pay 50%, which is often not an option.”
On the positive side, agriculture expert Darrin Qualman also believes that farmers can protect both the climate and their family farms by moving away from high-petrol inputs. By cutting back on inputs, they will dramatically cut down their costs and keep more of the money that people spend on food. At present, farmers keep only five cents of every dollar of food sales. They need to adopt a more-from-less approach – higher margins on less volume.