There's been some good reporting on the use of neonicotinoids, the most widely used insecticide, found on everything from flea collars for pets, to seed coating on the most widely grown crops, soybeans and corn. It replaced a class of pesticides called organphosphates which are close chemical relatives to nerve gases developed in the second world war, and therefore toxic to mammals (people). The neonicotinoids are relatively safer for us, but have a debilitating impact on the behavior of bees, and are clearly linked to the a huge jump in bee mortality around the world. Ontario has now announced it will bring in restrictions on its use, following a similar move in Europe. Commercial grain farmers are fighting back, and this week the Conference Board of Canada jumped in with it's own report, partly funded by grain farmers, and Crop Life Canada, the trade association for the large pesticide manufacturers. PEI potato growers and other farmers do use a neonicotinoid called imidacloprid as a systemic pesticide when planting. The upside is there isn't the need for insecticide spraying, and fortunately bees have little interest in potato flowers as a source of pollen, but there is growing evidence that neonicotinoids remain active for years, and even at very low levels can negatively impact bee behavior. Here are some recent stories on new developments, and a column I wrote a few months ago.
Pesticide linked to bee deaths to be restricted in Ontario
by Eric Atkins
Ontario intends to become the first province to restrict the use of a
controversial pesticide linked to bee deaths, requiring farmers and
other commercial growers to apply for permits to plant seeds treated
with neonicotinoid insecticides.
The government wants to limit the
blanket use of the seed treatment, while balancing the protection of
insect pollinators with the needs of farmers to guard their crops and
livelihoods against insects.
The provincial agriculture ministry will soon begin holding meetings
with farmers, beekeepers and pesticide makers with the goal of having a
licensing system in place by the fall, when growers order seeds for next
year.
“We are committed to working with stakeholders to develop a
system that targets the use of neonicotinoid-treated seed only to areas
or circumstances where there is demonstrated need,” said Jeff Leal,
Ontario’s Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.
“Our
intention is to work with the industry to move away from the widespread,
indiscriminate use of neonicotinoid-based pesticides,” he said.
“Ideally, we would have a structure in place for the 2015 planting season – that is what we are working toward.”
Neonicotinoids,
– neonics for short – protect seeds and plants from worms and other
crop-destroying insects, and have been blamed by several studies and
Health Canada for the widespread collapse in colonies of honey bees,
butterflies and other pollinators.
Bees are exposed to
neonicotinoids in two ways: by eating the pollen, or by ingesting or
carrying back to the hive the neonic-infused field dust kicked up by the
tractor and planter. A University of Saskatchewan biologist found the
chemicals in the province’s streams, ditches and insects, and even up
the food chain in birds. To reduce the dust, neonic suppliers such as
Bayer AG and Syngenta have begun supplying the seeds with a wax-based
lubricant, under the direction of Health Canada. But the lubricant,
combined with modified planting machines, reduces dust by only 20 per
cent.
The use of neonicotinoids has been banned temporarily in
Europe, but are unregulated in Canada and the United States. Ontario
does not have the power to ban pesticides, which are regulated by Health
Canada, but the province can control or ban their sale.
The
connection between bee deaths and the pesticides is murky. Some studies
point to parasitic mites and viruses as the more likely causes of bee
deaths, in addition to winter starvation and loss of habitat. Some say
insects do not absorb lethal doses of the insecticide through pollen,
though beekeepers and others maintain even small amounts can weaken bees
and make them susceptible to other maladies. However, beekeepers in
Western Canada have not seen their colonies collapse, even though their
hives feed on the flowers of canola, a crop that is treated with
neonicotinoids.
Most of the bee deaths have been concentrated in
Ontario, a province with the warm summers best suited to growing corn, a
grain used in biofuels and animal feed. Ontario grows more than 60 per
cent of the country’s corn, and corn is thought to be most closely
linked to the province’s bee deaths. The irregular shape and size of the
seeds, combined with the compressed-air planters, make the planting
process quite dusty.
Beekeepers in Ontario say their winter losses
have risen to as high as 50 per cent from 15 per cent before
neonicotinoids became popular, and many want the pesticide banned.
However, that view is not shared by all beekeepers in the province, nor
the Canadian Honey Council, which represents 7,000 apiarists across the
country.
Rod Scarlett, executive director of the group said he
welcomes a reduction in the use of neonicotinoids. But he doubts the
effectiveness of a licensing system because farmers and government
officials might not know at the beginning of the season where the
pesticide is or isn’t needed.
“We want to ensure farmers don’t suffer,” Mr. Scarlett said in an interview from his office near Edmonton.
Growers
of flowers, fruits and vegetables are also heavy users of the
insecticide. Neonicotinoid proponents note the chemical is not absorbed
by humans, and it is much more effective, cheaper and safer than the
older insecticides it replaced.
“Even the crop protection
companies will tell you neonics kills bees. They are designed to be an
insecticide,” Mr. Scarlett said. “The bigger question in the mind of the
Canadian Honey Council is, what’s next? How do we mitigate the risk? If
that product isn’t available for farmers to use, do they go back to
organophosphates, which are far worse for mammals and insects?”
Ontario
is home to about 3,000 of the country’s 7,000 beekeepers. Most
beekeepers know to keep their bees away from corn fields during
planting. But given the prevalence of the crop, and the high density of
Ontario’s farmland, this is often not possible, Mr. Scarlett said.
Ontario
has taken other steps to support the honey industry, providing $105 per
hive to those who lose 40 per cent of their bees, and committing
$1.2-million to research on pollinator health and farming methods.
Neonics restrictions risk killing some Ontario grain farms: Conference Board
Ontario’s plans to move away from a controversial – yet highly
popular – class of pesticides believed to be killing bees risk costing
the province’s grain farmers millions of dollars in lost acreages, a new
Conference Board of Canada report warned Thursday.
“We estimate that such a restriction [on neonicotinoids] would cause
farms to exit the market or reduce acreage, costing Ontario farmers more
than $630 million annually in lost revenue and reducing Ontario’s GDP
by nearly $440 million,” the report reads.
Neonicotinoids – or neonics – are used as a coating on corn, soybean
and canola seeds. Systemic in nature, the insecticides permeate the
entire plant, protecting it from harmful pests. The chemicals are
developed by Bayer and Syngenta.
The report comes just days after Ontario’s Agriculture Minister Jeff
Leal announced he plans to restrict the use of neonics, a move that
would see the province become the first in Canada to regulate the
insecticide.
The move has been heralded by most Ontario beekeepers, who argue the
current level of bee deaths is unsustainable. Grain farmers, along with a
handful of commercial beekeepers, though, are convinced the
restrictions will mean lower yields, with some farmers forced out of
business.
“Farm income is not evenly distributed. Some farmers are in a strong
financial position, while others break even or operate at a loss,” the
report notes.
“Depending on their financial performance, farms will likely either
reduce their production or exit the industry in response to higher
production costs, lowers crop yields, or a combination of both,” if
tougher regulations are imposed, the board warned.
A restriction, the report adds, would put Ontario farmers at a
competitive disadvantage because “no restriction on their use has been
implemented in Canada or the United States.”
The move would be particularly devastating for Ontario corn and
soybean growers who would see higher input costs in a market already
dominated by larger American growers, the report cautioned. Corn and
soybeans are the two largest grain and oilseed crops grown in Ontario,
worth some $3.5 billion in farm cash receipts in 2012.
Farmers would also be forced to purchase more expensive insecticides
should Ontario follow through on plans to restrict the chemical,” the
report reads. And, while some alternatives are available, the report
warned neonics are also “used to control some insects for which there is
no alternative.”
Instead, growers would be forced to use foliar sprays (sprayed onto
the plant’s leaves during growth), the report argues, which can be less
effective.
The eighty-page Conference Board report was funded in part by the
Grain Farmers of Ontario and CropLife Canada – two proponents of the use
of neonicotinoid pesticides.
The study was launched at the request of Grain Farmers of Ontario,
who asked the Conference Board of Canada to conduct an “independent
economic analysis of a hypothetical restriction” on neonics.
Highly controversial, neonics are at the heart of a divisive and
public debate within Canada’s farming community. Beekeepers,
environmentalists and several scientists insist the chemicals are
responsible for major bee deaths – averaging around 30 per cent per year
– losses they say are simply unsustainable.
They want the insecticides banned for a minimum of four years – a
move that would see Canada fall in step with the European Union. The EU
imposed a two-year moratorium on three neonicotinoid pesticides in 2013 –
a moratorium many expect will be extended past its 2015 deadline.
The pesticides are currently being reviewed by Health Canada’s Pest
Management Agency (PMRA) – the body responsible for regulating pesticide
used in Canada.
While their final report is not expected until sometime in 2015,
preliminary findings by the agency in September 2013 determined
contaminated dust during planting has contributed to bee deaths in
Ontario and Quebec.
As a result of their findings, the agency ordered grain farmers to
use a new seed lubricant – used to ease the flow of seeds through the
planter – during the 2014 planting season. The new lubricant is meant to
reduce the amount of dust created. Its effectiveness, though, is still
unknown.
The Senate Agriculture and Forestry committee is currently conducting
a detailed and lengthy study on bee health. Their final report is
expected in December 2014.
Meanwhile, the federal government has repeatedly insisted it will not
consider restricting the use of neonics until the PMRA report is made
public or the science becomes more “conclusive.”
Ontario farm fields are buzzing this summer – not with bees, but with
controversy. At issue is a proposed provincial ban on the sale of
neonicotinoids, a type of pesticide that protects crops but stands
accused of killing bees. Bee farmers claim it has decimated their hives,
while grain farmers call their accusations junk science. And now a Conference Board of Canada report
warns that the proposed ban would force some farmers out of business,
and cost farmers – and the province – hundreds of millions in lost
revenue.
Neonocotinoids, or neonics, have been around for two decades. Instead
of spraying them on their fields, which can affect other crops and
organisms, farmers purchase seed pre-coated with the compound, and the
product is present throughout the plant. In Canada, they are heavily
used in the west for grain crops: some 19 million acres of canola, for
example, are pollinated by bees, and 100 percent treated with
neonicotinoids.
Between 2007 and 2012 the Canadian Pest Management Regulatory Agency
reported no bee kills associated with neonics in all of western Canada.
There have been some reported issues in corn fields with corn dust
affecting bee populations. Consequently, last year the PMRA proposed not
to ban the product, but to use different seeding techniques to
eliminate the dust.
However, in Ontario, many bee growers are convinced that neonics are killing their bees. The Ontario Beekeeper Association’s website is awash in articles about the evils of neonicotinoids. At the same time, other studies suggest that fungicides are
a far greater threat to bee health. Other suspects in mass bee deaths
include harsh winters, viruses and the varroa mite, a tiny parasitic
insect which feeds on the bees “blood” and causes them to become prone
to infections.
The
bee population in Canada has actually grown, from 600,000 colonies in
2000 to 700,000 in 2012. Around the world, bee colonies are also
increasing, despite the increasing use of the products.
The Ontario law would bring the province in line with the European
Union, which voted to ban neonics because of alleged bee deaths. What
Canadians may not know is that the country that drove the European ban
on neonics, France, did so not for reasons of science, but politics.
Domestic pressure by French environmentalists had pushed that country
to ban the substance, which disadvantaged their farmers, and led France
to seek an EU ban to level the playing field. The French went so far as
to issue a press release that misrepresented the data on neonics and
bees (which did not support a ban) in their efforts. At the end of 2013,
a two-year EU ban took effect.
Recent evidence is making many Europeans rethink the ban. Research published this spring in the Journal of the Entomological Society of America
found that soybean and cotton plants grown from neonic-treated seed had
no traces of neonics in soybean flowers or cotton nectar. They did find
microscopic traces of neonics in corn at levels of 2.3 parts per
billion, levels so small that the American EPA considers them
insignificant. One of the study’s authors, Dr. Gus Lorenz, concluded
that neonics are “not being expressed in the reproductive parts of the plants.” Canadian researcher Cynthia Scott-Dupree of the University of Guelph reached similar conclusions, finding “no effects or “poor performance” in treatment colonies” of bees who feasted on neonicotinoid-treated crops.
Studies that have established negative effects have been done in the
lab, exposing bees directly to the chemical, in a manner that would not
arguably happen when they pollinate treated plants. Some researchers
claim that over time, “sublethal” exposure in the field would achieve
the same effect. This flies in the face, however, of sheer numbers: the
bee population in Canada has actually grown, from 600,000 colonies in
2000 to 700,000 colonies in 2012. Around the world, bee colonies are
also increasing, despite the increasing use of the products.
What would happen if Ontario bans neonics – and other provinces
follow suit? Farmers would turn to other pesticides, such as
organophosphates and pyrethroids, both of which have been proven toxic
to bees, and which aren’t exactly embraced by environmentalist for human
consumption, either. If the Wynne government rushes to judgement on
neonics, it risks hurting crop farmers and consumers, by lowering yields
and increasing prices. And that buzzing they hear won’t be bees, but
angry voters.
Time to Take Their Own Advice
Pesticide companies are hard to love. They
make a lot of money even when their customers don’t, and whatever the science
says there’s a gnawing feeling amongst many that pesticide use is behind
growing cancer numbers and environmental degradation.
The companies play the public relations
game as well as anyone. When family
doctors promote the idea that cosmetic use of pesticides should be banned, you
can bet that Crop Life Canada, the trade association representing developers
and distributors of pesticides, will argue that all products are approved by
Health Canada, and if used properly pose no risk.
We will hear more from Crop Life in the
months ahead as debate heats up over the use of neonicotinoids, the widely used
family of insecticides that’s been
linked to bee deaths. Neonicotinoids are facing regulatory reviews in Europe, new
label requirements in the United States, and a growing social media campaign
opposing their use here in Canada.
Crop Life should pay attention to a section
of its own website that could help us understand the risks of neonicotinoids,
and how they might be used more safely:
The
responsible use of crop protection products is undertaken within the context of
promoting Integrated Pest Management strategies, with the underlying principles
that a crop protection product should be used only when necessary – using the
right tool at the right time, in the right place and in the right way.
That’s in fact close to what Rachael
Carson, the godmother of modern environmentalism was saying in Silent Spring:
"It’s not my contention that
chemical pesticides must never be used. I do contend that we have put
poisonous and biologically potent chemicals indiscriminately into the hands
of persons largely or wholly ignorant of their potential for harm...
"
That’s not how
neonicotinoids are used. Seeds are
coatedwith the insecticide before
planting and every stalk or plant becomes a source ofthe pesticide. There are benefits to this,
farmers don’t need to regularly spray during the summer, but it’s still a far
cry from “Integrated Pest Management” called for by Crop Life: sampling to find
if insect levels are serious enough to need a pesticide and then using “only when necessary – using the right tool at the right time, in
the right place and in the right way.”
There’s a similar issue with
“round-up ready” crops, the GMO soybeans, corn, and canola varieties so widely
grown in North America. They resist glyphosphate, a relatively safe
herbicide.It’s become very convenient
for farmers to use these GMO crops and control weeds with one or two passes of
Round-up. But nature has responded (as it always does) and created super weeds
that themselves resist glyphosphate.Again
this isn’t using herbicides “when necessary, and in the right place”, but
blanketing millions of acres with one product, with the resulting “resistance”
that’s the inevitable result.The
pesticide companies then get the additional benefit of developing new
herbicides to control the superweeds, with the patents and profits that go
along with that.
No doubt the media will present the
fight over neonicotinoids as all or nothing, a ban or hell in a hand basket. Maybe
the more important question is how these products are used, that convenience
for farmers, and profits for pesticide companies has trumped common sense and
biology. Crop Life could take a leadership role in changing the nature of the
debate, and all it has to do is follow it’s own advice.
I-Politics is an on-line publication that's a good read for anyone interested in politics and government policy. It also takes a real interest in agriculture. In fact it's headline on a Saturday in early July was about little known research about Canadian's attitudes towards farming. It's an important read.
From a crisis in western rail
capacity to the major stumbling blocks in transcontinental trade
agreements, Canadian agriculture has been at the heart of some of the
past year’s most important policy debates.
Yet recently released government research reveals something farmers
have long warned of: most Canadians have no idea where their food comes
from, how its made or how important it is to their own economic
fortunes.
“Findings from this series of focus groups clearly indicate a
relatively low level of awareness, particularly among urban dwellers, of
the current state of the [agriculture] sector and its contributions to
provincial, regional and the national economy,” the report reads.
Similar findings were reported in rural centres, the report added.
While rural residents noted a higher familiarity with agriculture in
general, researchers found “they nonetheless felt they too were not as
knowledgeable of the larger national picture and outlook.”
The information was collected for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
last December via 18 focus groups held in eight communities across
Canada: Toronto, Halifax, Montreal, Calgary, Vancouver, New Liskeard,
Ont., Montmagny, Que. and Selkirk, MB.
Each meeting lasted just over two hours and was made up of eight to 11 participants with men and women over 18 years old.
Few of those polled identified the agriculture sector as a “key
economic driver.” That, despite the fact Canada’s agriculture sector
contributes $100 billion to the national economy annually and is tied to
one in eight jobs in this country, a statistic which “surprised” many
focus group members, the report said.
In fact, most participants, the report reads, “felt Canada’s
agricultural sector could be considered ‘relatively low-tech’ or not as
innovative” as the energy sector, the auto sector or the service sector.
Participants, the report argues, are stuck in the past with
“romanticized” or “idealistic” view of agriculture. An image researchers
said, more in tune with what farming used to look like “in the last
century” than with today’s modern farm.
Only a handful of those surveyed had visited a working farm.
The result is a major disconnect from an industry expected to dominate the future Canadian trade agenda.
Canada is currently the fifth largest exporter of agricultural goods,
a fact unfamiliar to most participants. While most could name wheat as a
major export, few were able to list other Canadian exports.
In fact, pollsters were routinely told Canada was a net importer of
food thanks to the wide variety of imported fruits and vegetables found
in Canadian grocery stores.
“I feel like agriculture is silent in Canada,” one participant noted.
Despite widespread government advertizing campaigns attempting to
reconnect Canadians with the farm, for everyday folks food, they said,
comes from the grocery stores.
The unfamiliarity with the farming world also means few participants
were aware of major policy debates including ones on supply management
or the pending Canada-European Trade Agreement.
While most participants had heard of marketing boards, researchers
found few were familiar with the workings of supply management with many
participants posing questions about how quotas were set.
Debate on the issue reportedly generated “mixed responses” with
participants noting the system likely benefited producers by “offering
greater income security.” However, many raised concerns about the impact
supply management had on consumer choices, restricted competition and
higher prices.
As for the European trade deal, pollsters found most participants hadn’t heard of it.
While some had heard rumblings of a “perceived negative impact on
fine cheese producers in Quebec,” along with possible gains for beef,
the report found “they had no specific knowledge of the terms of the
agreement or how it might benefit the Canadian agriculture industry.”
40 journalists protest reported plans to close down documentary team at CBC | CMG
Below is the
letter signed by 40 journalists protesting reported plans to close down
the in-house documentary team at the CBC. There’s a broad concern that
this is just the tip of the iceberg, and signals a broader intent to
privatize more and more portions of the CBC, and weaken it. The
presence of original documentary programming, independent and in-house
is at its lowest point in over 20 years on the CBC. The issue should be
increasing in-depth journalism, not cutting it even further. The
initial letter is followed by a response by Heather Conway, Executive
Vice-President, English Services. The journalists’ subsequent response
is also posted
****
Hubert Lacroix (President and CEO) Heather Conway (Executive Vice-President, English Services)
Dear Hubert and Heather,
The
undersigned journalists have become alarmed at the precipitous decline
of documentaries in the CBC-TV schedule, which has occurred not just for
financial reasons, but because of programming priorities over many
years.
Now there are plans to shut down in-house production of
feature documentaries, including the Unit which has produced “The
People’s History of Canada”, “The Canadian Experience”, “Eighth Fire” as
well as topical quick-response documentaries such as the award-winning
“Syria: Behind Rebel Lines”.
CBC Television, to be true to its core mandate, needs more long-form journalism and legacy programming –not less.
We have observed the steady erosion of long-form documentary production within the CBC in the past few years. Strands like Nature of Things and Doc Zone and fifth estate have
continued, but any documentary mini-series or Sunday night specials
outside those strands have virtually disappeared from the CBC TV
Network. In fact, the overall production of documentaries –independent
or in-house– has fallen dramatically over recent years.
We stress
that we continue to believe it is important to support and nurture and
expand independent documentary production, which has always been an
important component of series such “Life and Times”, “Witness” and “Doc
Zone”. But some productions, such as Eighth Fire, which
combined efforts of TV, radio, French and English and aboriginal CBC
staff, can only be done internally. On the immediate news fronts, it
often takes CBC News and documentary teams to produce quick-turnaround
long-form documentaries to provide context and depth to immediate
events.
The remedy, we suggest, is not to compound the
documentary deficiency of the CBC by eliminating the in-house unit, but
strengthen our commitment by embedding that unit as part of the CBC News
and Current Affairs department. There is already a considerable sharing
of staff and resources between them, on which we can build; the
documentary unit would use existing News infrastructure and facilities.
This would preserve our legacy production, and give wider opportunities
to our journalists, as well as develop our younger staff. Harmonizing
our structure with SRC, where documentaries come under the news
umbrella, would increase our ability to co-ordinate major bi-cultural
projects.
Shutting down the in-house documentary unit would be a
negative message to send to core supporters of the CBC, as well as a
dispiriting message to our journalists that the management does not
value their long-form journalism, and there will be no room for it in
the future.
Aligning the strengths of in-house documentaries and
CBC News, on the other hand, achieves efficiencies and strengthens the
brand of CBC journalism, of which we’re all proud.
Nahlah Ayed (Foreign Correspondent: London) Lynn Burgess (Producer: “Marketplace”) Tony Burman (Former Editor-in-Chief: CBC News and Current Affairs) Patrick Brown (Former Correspondent: China) Harvey Cashore (Senior Producer: CBC News) David Common (Host: “World Report”) Michael Claydon (Executive Producer: “DocZone”) Sue Dando (Executive Producer: “The Nature of Things”) Neil Docherty (Senior Producer: “the fifth estate”) Margaret Evans (European Correspondent: London) Gillian Findlay (Host: “the fifth estate”) Matt Galloway (Host: “Metro Morning”) Erica Johnson (Host: “Marketplace”) Michelle Gagnon (Producer: “The National”) Sylvene Gilchrist (Producer: “The National”) Chris Hall (National Affairs Editor: Ottawa) David Halton (Former Senior National Affairs Correspondent: Ottawa) Tom Harrington (Host: “Marketplace”) Mark Kelley (Host: ‘the fifth estate”) Neil MacDonald (Senior Correspondent: Washington) Linden MacIntyre (Host: “the fifth estate”) Peter Mansbridge (Chief Correspondent/Anchor “The National”) Duncan McCue (Correspondent: “The National”) Terence McKenna (Correspondent: “The National”) Bob Mckeown (Host: “the fifth estate) Carmen Merrifield (Producer: “The National”) Wendy Mesley (Host: “The National”) Terry Milewski (Senior Correspondent: Ottawa) Don Murray (Former Correspondent: London) Carol Off (Host: “As It Happens”) Catherine Olsen (Executive Producer/Documentaries: CBC News Network) Sasa Petricic (Middle East Correspondent: Jerusalem) Julian Sher (Senior Producer: “the fifth estate”) Alex Shprintsen (Producer: “The National”) Don Spandier (Senior Producer: “The World at Six”) David Suzuki (Host: “The Nature of Things”) Anna Maria Tremonti (Host: “The Current”) Connie Walker (Lead Reporter: CBC Aboriginal) Tamar Weinstein (Producer: “the fifth estate”)
****
Hello all,
First, thanks for taking the time to sign your names to the email; your views and thoughts are both welcomed and appreciated.
There
is, as you point out, a long and storied history of documentary
programming at the CBC, many of which were produced by some of you. I
am sure you are all equally proud that many more, who having been
trained here, have gone on to make extraordinary docs themselves.
There
does seem to be some confusion and an apparent perception we have an
intention to reduce docs on the network(s). This is especially
problematic given that I have stated publicly, as has Sally Catto, most
recently at our Upfronts and repeated at Banff last week that we are of
the view that docs is a genre we not only favour but also recognize the
resurgence they’re having creatively with audiences, especially younger
audiences.
To be fair, we have clearly signalled our support for
the form and we agree there are many journalists in News and Current
Affairs who are capable and interested in making short and long form
docs. That said, there is also a thriving independent documentary
community, many of whom were and are mentored by our own teams.
It
is true we are reviewing every area of our business to determine
whether or not there are opportunities to meet our desired programming
needs differently and more cost effectively and, as you know, we are not
the only people who can produce documentaries. Our appetite for docs
has not changed or diminished in this context but our willingness to
consider options for producing them is open. There is a real
opportunity for docs to be created by some of the talent in News and
Current Affairs as well as the option to acquire docs from talented
Canadian documentary producers.
The fact that we have documentary
capable talent in News and Current Affairs does not support the
suggestion to move the current documentary area into that division.
First, documentaries such as “Wild Canada” are neither news nor current
affairs but rather nature documentaries. The Nature of Things is also
not a news program. Part of the power of many documentaries is their
very strong and personal point of view approach – a posture difficult to
maintain in an environment very much subject to journalistic standards
and practices. I believe the editorial and artistic freedom of the
documentary area is better served outside of News and Current Affairs.
There
are fresh and compelling approaches to documentaries and many
documentary producers who would love an opportunity to see their work on
the public broadcaster. Some of you have talked about Vice as one
example of a contemporary approach to the form. I can tell you having
met with them, as no doubt a number of you have, that they cite the CBC
documentary tradition as inspiring their approach.
But the Vice
team is only one of many Canadian producers of docs. There are 114
Canadian independent documentary producers listed in the Canadian Media
Production Association’s guide and, at their request, I met with the
Documentary Organization of Canada as they feel there should be more
opportunities for their members to produce for the CBC. We have an
obligation to listen to that constituency as they too produce high
quality, compelling, relevant content. Many young producers say docs
are the new feature films for them and a journalistic form they find
more engaging than headline news.
We also have a documentary channel that privileges acquiring and commissioning Canadian documentaries.
So,
we are reviewing the absolute necessity of producing our own docs for
both financial and creative reasons and are open to engaging with other
points of view about how we best achieve those goals of providing great
documentary content on CBC’s schedules.
I am genuinely sorry that
the speed with which our financial challenges have to be dealt with has
short- circuited a more comprehensive consultation with you as
individuals. Regrettably, time is not on our side.
I hope I’ve
provided some further context for the thinking behind this review.
Please know that the genre and the individuals, especially Mark, have
my utmost respect and that our deliberations in the current context do
not single out the genre precipitously or on a cost only basis.
Thank you again for bringing your concerns to the fore.
Heather
****
Dear Heather,
Thank you again for your response to our original note. We have a few points we would like to make in return.
At
the core of this issue is the alarming decline in documentary
production at the CBC, and, beyond documentary, the network’s declining
commitment to in-depth programming, whether produced by us or by
independents. The stark fact is that CBC Television has dramatically
drifted from one of the core mandates of public broadcasting.
In
the past ten years, the number of original documentaries on the network
has been cut by 52 per cent, to the lowest documentary level in over 20
years. The budget of the documentary department has been cut to a
quarter of its size. Network documentary series and original
feature-length Canadian documentaries have largely disappeared from the
landscape. The problem, it seems clear to us, is not just money but
policy.
You raise the importance of being open to other voices and independent producers across the country. We agree.
Seventy five per cent of the output of the CBC Documentary Department is independent. Only 25 per cent is in-house. That means The Nature of Things and Doc Zone
are overwhelmingly produced by independent companies. In the past four
years alone, figures show these strands have commissioned documentaries
from over 60 different companies, from every region in the country.
We
are broadly comfortable with the principle that that which can be
produced by independents, in most cases, should be. But we are not
comfortable with the inverse idea that what can’t be produced by
contracting out should not get done – which is essentially the result of
the strategy we seem to be embarking on. And that comes to the core of
this disagreement:
The public broadcaster should undertake enterprises that are legacy projects of national scale and importance, like 8th Fire,
projects of record, projects that are investigative, projects that are
controversial and require the protection and infrastructure support of a
major institution. The CBC affords legal, moral and institutional
protection that is not always available to an isolated independent
company. The public broadcaster should also undertake projects that
bring depth and eyewitness to the breaking news stories of the day.
We
have a wealth of talent and experience in our News and Current Affairs
department that has virtually no access to producing in-depth
documentary journalism. Stories of global crises like Iraq and Ukraine
are precisely when we need insight, eyewitness and depth. Breaking and
quick-response documentaries are largely un-financeable through
independent production. It takes months to finance an independent
production through a maze of CMF funding, Rogers or Bell funds,
provincial tax credits, etc.
These documentaries –quick response,
legacy, risky or controversial—will become scarcer and scarcer unless
the CBC determines they WILL be done and has purpose-built units to
assure that.
Then there is the issue of associating Documentaries with News and Current Affairs, which our initial letter endorses.
First
there is the immediate practical issue that the network seems intent on
getting out of all in-house production and plant infrastructure except
for News, and so in-house Documentaries would be swept out for the sake
of symmetry and lack of plant support and facilities. In-house
documentaries can easily use CBC News facilities. Second, it is
important to give creative space to the talent and resources contained
within the News service, which adds up to an efficient use of resources.
There is no contradiction implicit in associating Documentaries with the News and Current Affairs family.
You
base your argument on what we feel is a rather narrow definition of
News and Current Affairs. You say documentaries such as “Wild Canada”
are neither news nor current affairs but rather nature documentaries,
and that The Nature of Things is not a news program, and
therefore should not reside under a News and Current Affairs Department
umbrella. In fact, science programming (Découverte) resides
within News and Current Affairs in Radio-Canada, and has for over 25
years, without creating any apparent confusion or restriction. It’s
also important to understand that The Nature of Things is far
more than nature programming; it is science, technology, environment,
ecology, medicine, and the whole spectrum of the human condition from
psychology to brain science, genetics to social sciences, all of which
also falls under current affairs.
You say that part of the power
of many documentaries lies in their strong personal point of view
approach, and we agree. But you add that this is “a posture difficult to
maintain in an environment very much subject to journalistic standards
and practice.” We should point out that it is a long-standing corporate
policy, passed by the Board, that all information programming on the
CBC, including all independent documentaries, must be governed by the
Journalistic Standards and Practices. We do not have two standards for
ethical conduct –such as chequebook journalism, hidden cameras,
entrapment, or misrepresentation– on the same network, nor should we.
Neither
has the fact that we are all governed by the same ethical standards
proved to be an impediment to editorial and artistic freedom of the
documentary form. In fact the Journalistic Standards and Practices
policy explicitly recognizes the POV genre and that documentaries often
need to be provocative, and we air them where “There is a compelling
argument, well-presented, for a single point of view that provides
insight into a controversial subject and may provoke public debate.”
The CBC has a very strong tradition of documentary programing generated by its own staff. We don’t want to lose it.
Natural and trust are some of the "nice", "hopeful" words that we use. One is being terribly abused, and the other is short supply. A recent report, and a column I wrote trying to find a little light in the deep water-irrigation tunnel.
Last year, according to Nielsen, foods labeled "natural" generated $43 billion in sales. That's more than five times the figure for foods carrying an "organic" label ($8.9 billion). A new Consumer Reports survey of 1,000 people found that two-thirds of respondents believed that a "natural" label meant that a food contained:
No artificial materials during processing
No pesticides
No artificial ingredients
No GMOs
More than half of those surveyed said that they specifically looked for a "natural" label on their foods.
There's just one problem: There are no real federal regulations around the word "natural."
According to the USDA, "natural" meat, poultry, and egg products must be "minimally processed and contain no artificial ingredients."
But the agency doesn't go on to define "artificial." Meat from
livestock fed genetically modified corn, for example, can still be
labeled "natural," as can animals raised with regular doses of
antibiotics. And the USDA has no regulations at all for labeling natural
foods that do not contain meat or eggs.
Meanwhile, the FDA just has an informal policy
that it issued in 1993, which gently recommends that manufacturers use
the term "natural" if "nothing artificial or synthetic . . . has been
included in, or has been added to, a food that would not normally be
expected to be in the food." In January 2014, the FDA "respectfully decline[d]" requests by three federal judges
asking the agency for a decision on whether GMO ingredients could be
used in foods labeled "all-natural." That decision led one of the judges
to terminate
a lawsuit against General Mills' Kix cereal, which, plaintiffs said,
carried an all-natural label despite its use of genetically modified
corn.
Even with the lack of regulation, plaintiffs can sue companies
individually for false advertising—and in recent years, consumers have
done just that. In 2013, PepsiCo. agreed to a $9 million class action settlement fund after plaintiffs complained about Naked Juice's "all natural" labeling that belied ingredients like genetically modified soy.
Attorney Stephen Gardner of the Center for Science in the Public Interest told the news site Real Clear Politics earlier this year that there have been around 50 "natural label" lawsuits in the past decade
targeting products from Kraft Foods' Crystal Light "all natural"
lemonade mix to Pepperidge Farms' Goldfish (which, plaintiffs said,
contained ingredients from genetically modified soybeans). However, said
Gardner, this list "only scratches the surfaces of the number of
companies that are making these claims."
"There's so much green noise out there," says Urvashi Rangan, who
directs the Consumer Safety Sustainability Group at Consumer Reports.
"Labels can only succeed if you get rid of the noise."
Trust in Short Supply
Trust is one of those touchy-feely concepts spoken about in
polite circles. Even so it’s important, and in very short supply when it comes
to discussing environmental issues in general, and the demand for increased use
of high capacity wells in particular.
A lack of trust means people stop listening. That’s on top
of convincing evidence that people’s beliefs are way more important than new
information or facts.We come to our
beliefs through our upbringing, education, experiences,what we learn from people we trust.
Everyone in the debate over new irrigation wells says
they’re waiting for the science, the
peer reviewed proofthat it’s OK, or
it’s not.Some say this because they
mean it. Others say it because it’s good public relations,still others because it delays the
government making a decision.Ithink most of the scientific proof we can expect is in, but that
doesn’t make getting to the proper decision any easier, and the lack of trust
is a big reason why.
Let’s state the obvious, that many in the general public
don’t trust potato farmers, and potato farmers don’t trust them.This Bermuda Triangle where thoughtful,
rational discussion and decision makinggo to die is completed by the lack of trust by both in the government’s
willingness and ability to fairly enforce regulations. “Ghiz’ Gestapo” is what
some farmers are nowcalling conservation
officers, while many, many in the general public think conservation officers
only swing into action once the fish are dead.This is really troubling.
The evidence I’ve seen including a pretty thorough
presentation by hydrogeologist Cathryn Ryan recently at UPEI is that there is
lots and lots of groundwater, and that irrigation would take just a small
single digit percentage of it.If this
were just a question of quantity, it would be a no brainer (as Stephen Harper would
say) but it’s not.That’s big picture
stuff, whereas water use and water extraction impact, is very local (see
Charlottetown).And there’s a further complication. When it comes
to potato production, it would be concentrated in a handful of watersheds that
are alreadydealing with high nitrate
levels.That’s where Dr. Ryan’s
“science” becomes important again.She had
good evidence that if these wells are placed properly relative to local
streams, and just as importantly cased for the first sixty metres or so, their
impact on stream flow and aquatic life would be greatly reduced.Water regulators need to demonstrate the
ability to find these low-impact zones, and farmers need to indicate whether
they’re prepared to live with them.
I am convinced that farmers do need the ability to irrigate,
and I think the need will only increase because of climate change. Let’s remember that it’s not just potato
growers who use irrigation.The demand
for quality at the retail/consumer level is very high, and if crops don’t get enough water at the right
time,quality can suffer, markets can be
lost. I also think used properly
irrigation can lesson the impact of nitrates, but this requires a lot of
precision and commitment from farmers to do this right. (there’s the issue of
trust again, because if there’s too much irrigation then excess nitrates will
be forced down into the aquifer.) And irrigation must not be a substitute for
good soil management, proper crop rotations, and building up of organic matter.
The lack of trust by many thatfarmers and government take these seriously
is again part of the problem.
Another bigchallenge
to trust is whether farmers would stop irrigating if told.It’s the middle of a long hot summer, there’s
been no rain for weeks, stream flow dropsby 35% or whatever figure is considered necessary to maintain aquatic
health (certainly no agreement there either), but a farmer has invested two
hundred thousand dollars in irrigating equipment, another half million in
inputs, and is facing a buyer that’s just lowered the base price and increased
quality standards. I can see the
conflict and hear the news stories that would generate.
The challenge is that trust must be earned, and that takes
time.There has to be actions and
results,not just news releases.I
think the government took a positive step making Todd Dupuis an assistant
deputy minister in environment department.The danger for Todd is that his hard earned credibility on environmental
issues will be co-opted by the government.Will he say the same things to governmentofficialsbehind closed doors that he’s said in public. I think he will. There’s
trust at work again.
I think the principles laid down by the Federation of
Agriculture are a reasonable way forward: an Environmental Impact Assessment of the
policy done by an independent third party; rigorous monitoring of current and
any future use of irrigation wells that includes local watershed groups
(something the government has not done well to date);the granting of any new permits would be done
incrementally and rigorously monitored;granting of permits would have toincludeproper nutrient management
and soil building practices. I would add one more: the need for more research on the
impact of irrigation on nitrates in groundwater in PEI soils.If that can’t be managed properly,I couldn’t support any further development of
irrigation wells.
I think the continuation of the moratorium is the right
decision for now.I’m hoping people can
take a breath and give the issue a little more thought. The issue has huge
economic, environmental,and political
implications. And it’s not going to go
away. Trust me.
There's certainly no shortage of stories about the environmental impact of agriculture, and there are bad operators out there. I continue to think that the financial squeeze from cheap imports and a brutally competitive food marketing system play a part. I also think that with the right incentives, agriculture can play a very positive role in solving environmental problems, like sequestering carbon. A couple of stories that speak to the possibilities, and the risks of pushing farmers to continually get bigger in order to survive.
KEWAUNEE,
Wis. — Bryan T. Pagel, a dairy farmer, watched as a glistening slurry
of cow manure disappeared down a culvert. If recycling the waste on his
family’s farm would help to save the world, he was happy to go along.
Out
back, machinery was breaking down the manure and capturing a byproduct
called methane, a potent greenhouse gas. A huge Caterpillar engine
roared as it burned the methane to generate electricity, keeping it out
of the atmosphere.
The $3.2 million system also reduces odors at Pagel’s Ponderosa Dairy,
one of the largest in Wisconsin, but it would not have been built
without a surprising source of funds: a California initiative that is
investing in carefully chosen projects, even ones far beyond its
borders, to reduce emissions as part of the battle against climate change.
“When they came out here and told us they were willing to send us checks, we were thrilled,” Mr. Pagel said.
California’s
program is the latest incarnation of an increasingly popular — and much
debated — mechanism that has emerged as one of the primary weapons
against global warming. From China to Norway, Kazakhstan to the
Northeastern United States, governments are requiring industries to buy
permits allowing them to emit set levels of greenhouse gases. Under
these plans, the allowable levels of pollution are steadily reduced and
the cost of permits rises, creating an economic incentive for companies
to cut emissions.
The
system encourages companies to find the least expensive ways to make
the cuts, either by adopting cleaner energy technology or by investing
in outside emission-control projects, like the Pagels’ methane digester.
Congress
rejected a national plan of this type during President Obama’s first
term, but 10 states, including most of those in the Northeast and
mid-Atlantic, have developed their own programs. And the approach is
expected to get a huge lift on Monday when Mr. Obama unveils a
long-awaited national plan requiring states to lower their power plant
emissions. One likely effect will be to encourage more states to adopt
systems like California’s.
Already,
the approach is spreading worldwide, with the number of people living
in places that have such a system nearing one billion, or 14 percent of
the world’s population, including about 80 million Americans.
“The
point now is to say, look, this can work, it can be scaled, and please
join,” said Frank A. Wolak, an economist at Stanford University.
Yet
in the decade it has been used to tackle global warming, this approach
has had a turbulent history. The world’s largest such system, in Europe,
has had severe problems, including gyrations in the prices that
polluters have to pay. Given a lack of evidence that the system can
actually solve the emissions problem, some environmental groups and
scientists have developed serious reservations.
“The
reason I don’t support what we’re doing is not that I don’t think
something needs to be done,” said Myles R. Allen, a leading British
climate scientist at Oxford University. “I just don’t think it’s
effective, and I don’t see it ever being effective.”
Drought-plagued
California, which Gov. Jerry Brown recently called the “epicenter” of
climate change, hopes to prove that capitalism can work in the fight
against global warming. The state took great care in setting up its
system, which is now being seen as a global test case.
Eighteen
months into the venture, it is still too soon to tell how well it will
work. But the state has so far managed to avoid some of the mistakes
that have plagued efforts in other parts of the world. Hundreds of
industrial facilities have been brought under the plan, prompting those
businesses to study how to use less energy, and fuel suppliers will be
pulled into it next year.
By
the end of the decade, the state is expected to collect about $5
billion a year in permit fees, with the bulk of the money being recycled
into clean-energy projects.
Worldwide,
other approaches to global warming are also being considered. A more
ambitious push could be made on renewable energy, like solar and wind.
Power companies might be ordered to capture their carbon emissions and
bury them underground. Forests could be preserved or allowed to regrow
to absorb more carbon dioxide from the air.
But
all those methods have drawbacks, and interviews by The New York Times
with more than 80 experts in nine countries revealed sharp disagreements
about which to embrace.
Experts
say that limiting the effects of the human-induced warming will almost
certainly cost trillions of dollars over generations and require an
unprecedented level of cooperation across states and nations — if it can
be done at all.
“How
do we deal, as a global civilization, with a problem that is decades in
the making and is caused by everything we do?” asked Peter Miller, a
senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council in San
Francisco. “It’s the challenge of our time, and there is no road map.”
Drought, Rain and Fire
The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body of scientists and
other experts appointed by the United Nations, found last year that
total emissions of carbon into the atmosphere must be kept below one
trillion tons if global warming is to be held to tolerable levels. More
than half that amount has been emitted since the beginning of the
industrial era, and at the rate emissions are going up, the limit will
be reached in 30 years or less.
Already, the effects are being felt far and wide. A recent report, the National Climate Assessment,
found that every corner of the United States was being hit hard, with
more droughts in some regions, more torrential rains in others,
worsening forest fires, melting land ice, and the deaths of millions of
acres of trees from heat-loving insects.
This month, the global stakes were made clear yet again when researchers reported
that ice sheets in the western section of Antarctica had begun an
irreversible breakup that could ultimately raise the level of the sea by
10 feet or more.
“Climate
change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly
into the present,” the National Climate Assessment said.
Some
environmental groups have contended that the best way to combat climate
change would be for governments to impose tight regulations on
businesses that produce greenhouse gases.
Economists
have argued, instead, that governments should put a price on emissions.
The simplest way to do that would be a tax — the same sort of sin tax
applied to liquor and cigarettes, albeit on a vastly larger scale.
In
the 1960s, economists in Canada and the United States developed an
alternative concept: a market in pollution rights, which they believed
would allow companies to decide for themselves how to limit their
emissions at the lowest cost.
That
approach got its first major tryout in 1990 when the administration of
George Bush embraced it to battle acid rain, persuading reluctant
congressional Democrats to go along. It reduced emissions of sulfur
dioxide far more cheaply than expected, and it was seen as a triumph of
conservative thinking about the environment.
The strategy, called cap and trade,
is now being applied to greenhouse gases. Governments impose a limit,
or cap, on the amount of the gases that can be spewed into the
atmosphere by polluters like power plants and refiners. It then issues
permits, often called carbon allowances, equal to the level of the cap,
with each permit representing a ton of emissions.
The
government requires industries to acquire enough permits to equal their
emissions. Companies that need permits buy them, either from the
government or on a commodity market, with the value set by supply and
demand. Over time, the government reduces the cap and the number of
permits, driving up their value.
The
system is intended to ensure that polluters reduce their emissions, but
do it in a way that makes the most financial sense. A company might
spend money to upgrade to more efficient equipment, for instance, if
that is less expensive than buying permits at the market price at that
time. The sale of permits also creates a flow of funds to reduce
emissions in economic sectors not covered by the permit system, such as
farming or forestry.
Over
the past decade, carbon allowances have become the world’s newest
commodity. Thousands of people — in small offices in San Francisco, on
trading floors in Houston, at power stations all over Europe — now buy
and sell the permits every day. They are not all representing polluters;
some are simply speculators placing bets on what will happen to carbon
prices over time. Thomson Reuters Point Carbon,
a research firm, expects permits representing more than nine billion
tons of emissions to trade hands this year, with a transaction value of
nearly $90 billion.
Yet
a few of these government-created markets have been seriously flawed,
and some experts argue that time is being wasted on an effort that
could, ultimately, fall short.
Problems in Europe
While
the United States has been embroiled in a political argument over the
past decade about whether climate change is even real, the European
Union has largely embraced the science and moved forward. The European
Emissions Trading System, which went into operation in 2005, has proved
that a market in pollution permits can be made to work across barriers
of language and national interest. Yet the European Union has also come
to be seen as a case study in what can go wrong if such a system is not
set up carefully.
Early
on, instead of scrutinizing data on emissions, European regulators
trusted companies to tell them how much greenhouse gas they were
emitting. Since those numbers would be used in setting the initial
emissions cap, the companies had an obvious incentive to exaggerate.
When it finally became clear in 2006 that they had done so, and
emissions were actually lower than traders had been led to believe,
permits suddenly became less valuable and their price crashed in a
matter of hours.
Then,
just as Europe was tightening its rules, the global financial crisis
hit in 2008 and 2009. “You produced less electricity, less steel, less
toilet paper — less of everything that was included in the system,” said
Stig Schjolset, chief carbon markets analyst with Thomson Reuters Point
Carbon in Oslo.
The
European Union had put no mechanism in place to respond to these
changing economic conditions, so governments kept cranking out carbon
permits even as the decline in output meant that fewer were needed.
Carbon prices tanked yet again.
Recently
the European Union adopted changes that have firmed up prices somewhat.
But at just over $7 per ton of carbon dioxide, they are still far below
their peak, and below the $30 level that many analysts believe is
needed to spur investment in cleaner energy sources.
Moreover,
the Europeans have yet to agree on long-term emission targets that
would drive up carbon prices and reward investors in clean energy,
though proposals are under discussion. “Through the 2020s, there is no
clear signal about how the cap will tighten,” said Adrian Gault, chief
economist with Britain’s national Committee on Climate Change, which advises the government on the problem.
Europe’s
broader goals have by no means been a complete failure. The European
Union set a target of lowering emissions 20 percent by 2020, and that
appears likely to be met — but several studies suggest that is less a
result of the carbon market than of economic weakness, as well as
subsidies for renewable power. Many experts in Europe fear that later,
more ambitious goals will prove unattainable if companies have too
little incentive to invest in clean technology. The experts believe
emissions throughout the developed world need to fall 80 percent or more
by 2050.
“Even
if we’re fine to meet the emissions target for 2020, it will be very
challenging to meet Europe’s long-term targets,” Mr. Schjolset said.
“For that, you need a higher carbon price now.”
California as Pioneer
Mary Nichols cut her teeth as a young lawyer by successfully suing the California state government for violating the federal Clean Air Act.
She has long since become an insider, running the most powerful state
environmental agency in the country, California’s Air Resources Board.
Ms.
Nichols — chosen by a Republican governor and kept on by the Democrat
who succeeded him — said that when her agency set out to create a carbon
market, her European counterparts were candid in advising the state how
not to repeat their mistakes. “It was an act of great generosity on
their part,” she said.
California’s
Global Warming Solutions Act, signed in 2006 by Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger, set a goal of lowering California’s greenhouse gases in
2020 to the 1990 level, a cut of 28 percent from the level they had been
expected to reach in 2020 without the law.
Even after it was signed, the law was the subject of political and legal battles, with oil
companies and other polluters fighting to overturn it. When voters were
asked whether they wanted the state to tackle global warming in 2010,
they voted 62 percent to 38 percent to move forward with the law, which
requires more efficient cars, more renewable power on the state’s
electric grid and many other steps. A centerpiece was a provision
capping emissions from big polluters, including power generators and
gasoline refiners, and setting up a permit-trading system.
California
spent several years developing regulations, then began its
cap-and-trade system in 2013. The project is taking hold gradually.
California adopted rules shielding companies vulnerable to out-of-state
competition, as well as residential electricity customers, from the full
impact of the costs. In the early days, it is giving away many of the
required carbon permits for free to ease companies into the system.
Nonetheless,
at just over $11 a ton, the carbon price in California is now the
highest in any cap-and-trade market, 60 percent above the price in
Europe.
In
setting up the market, California took measures to prevent the wild
price gyrations seen in Europe. The state spent years getting accurate
emissions data, for instance. And it established de facto floor and
ceiling prices for its permits. The price so far has been highly
predictable, trading in a range from $11 to $14 a ton.
As
part of its plan, the state decided to allow emission-lowering projects
in sectors not covered by the cap-and-trade system, such as forestry
and farming. These “offset projects,” which can be located anywhere in
the United States, are subject to strict auditing. The projects create
credits that can be sold in the California market.
New
companies have sprung up to serve as middlemen, helping farmers, forest
owners and others set up eligible offset projects. One of those
companies, TerraPass of San Francisco, matched the Pagel dairy farm in Wisconsin with California’s money.
John
T. Pagel, the owner, said that he had thought for several years about
installing a system to reduce odors and capture methane emissions from
the manure of thousands of cows. But he could not figure out how to make
the economics work. “It’s the right thing to do, but it has to support
itself, too,” Mr. Pagel said.
Then
he met a TerraPass representative at an agricultural fair several years
ago and learned he could receive payments totaling tens of thousands of
dollars a year.
On
a tour of his farm near Kewaunee, Mr. Pagel proudly showed off the
gear. A 20-cylinder Caterpillar engine, powered by methane from cow
manure, throbbed in a large building behind his barns. As it turned a
generator, it was pumping enough renewable power into the local electric
grid to supply about 1,200 homes.
“I love that thing!” Mr. Pagel said.
One
of his sons, Bryan, described meticulous oversight from California,
including instruments that send a stream of data back to TerraPass
headquarters to verify that the system is working properly. Otherwise,
said Peter Freed, a former TerraPass employee who helped set up the
deal, the state might disallow the carbon credits. “The California
system doesn’t have a real tolerance for error,” he said.
Still,
it will not be clear for years how successful the state’s carbon market
has been in lowering emissions, or in spurring investment in clean
energy. In the meantime, the Obama administration must decide how hard
to push other states toward copying California’s program.
“What’s
good for California, and what others will ultimately look to, is
success,” said Richard Corey, chief executive of the Air Resources
Board. “The ultimate test of success is going to be: Did it work?”
Questioning Cap and Trade
Some
environmental groups and academics have never reconciled themselves to
the idea of a market in pollution rights, and Europe’s problems have
heightened their doubts. So far, they point out, global emissions are
still rising.
“I
would throw the markets out and start over with something different,”
said Doreen Stabinsky, a professor of global environmental politics at
the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Me. “I think we can’t be
sidetracked by playing around with a market, because this objective is
so important, so pressing and so difficult.”
Economists
and analysts who support cap and trade say they are confident the
problems can be worked out, and they believe California is in the
process of proving it. The key issue now, they say, is whether
governments that adopt these systems will tighten the emissions caps,
driving up carbon prices — and do it soon enough to make a real dent in
global warming.
A
second carbon market operating in the United States shows that the
gradual lowering of emissions targets can have an impact. That system,
known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative,
started with far more modest goals than California’s, covering a
smaller segment of the economy, and for much of its history carbon
prices were below $2 a ton.
But
the system has worked smoothly for several years, generating $1.7
billion that nine state governments in the Northeast have used largely
to support clean-energy projects. Those investments, as well as
utilities’ switch to cleaner natural gas, have sharply reduced carbon
emissions in the region.
Recently,
the nine states decided to cut their emissions cap by 45 percent and to
let carbon prices rise. They have nearly doubled, to $4 a ton, and the
revisions are expected to spur still more clean-energy investment.
Some
experts believe that in the long run, carbon markets will make a
substantial contribution only if they can be tied together across
political boundaries. That would allow polluters to search the world for
the cheapest ways of cutting emissions.
To a limited extent, such networking has already begun. Europe has allowed billions to flow abroad
to developing countries, underwriting projects that have, for example,
helped poor families switch to more efficient coal-burning stoves.
California and Quebec have tied their markets together, and trading
between them began early this year.
The
world’s biggest carbon polluter, China, has begun experimenting with
markets in seven cities and provinces, with a view toward forming a
national carbon market this decade. Both California and Europe are
tentatively speaking to the Chinese about future linkages.
As
such developments take hold, the once unthinkable has begun to seem
plausible, if by no means inevitable: a linked global carbon price high
enough to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy.
“We
might be witnessing the birth of a new system, without quite realizing
it,” said Glen P. Peters, a climate researcher at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research
in Oslo. “When you think of all these bottom-up initiatives around the
world, maybe we are living through the transformation right now.”
Experts
who support cap and trade contend that a market mechanism can reach
more deeply into the economy than any other approach, changing the
behavior even of people and companies that might not necessarily care
about global warming.
The Wisconsin dairymen perhaps serve as an example of that.
Even
as the methane-powered generator roared on his property, John T. Pagel
said he was not convinced that the climatic changes happening in the
United States were a result of human emissions. He suspects they might
be part of a natural cycle. But with Californians dangling cash in
exchange for his willingness to cut emissions, he jumped at the chance
to build his digester.
“We
are doing exactly what they asked us to do to get paid to reduce
carbon,” Mr. Pagel said. “If somebody else believes in it enough to put
up the money, that’s all I need to know.”
Reporting was contributed by
Mark Scott from London, Keith Bradsher and Chris Buckley from Hong
Kong, and Felicity Barringer from San Francisco.
As the Climate Changes, So Does the Language
Climate change has created its own vocabulary of concepts and
institutions. Here are a few of the terms that often come up in
discussions of the problem and its proposed solutions. Carbon market: A financial market where government-issued permits that regulate greenhouse-gas emissions are traded as a commodity. Cap and trade: A government-created system to
restrict emissions by imposing a limit, or cap, on the amount of
pollution that can be spewed into the atmosphere by certain industries.
The government issues permits or carbon allowances to industries for the
amount of greenhouse gases they are allowed to emit, then gradually
reduces the cap and the number of permits, providing a financial
incentive for those companies to pollute less. Companies that need fewer
permits can trade with those that need more permits on a financial
commodities market, with the price driven by supply and demand. The
higher the price of the permits, the greater the incentive to reduce
emissions. Greenhouse gas: A type of pollutant that scientists
say contributes to global warming. The primary pollutant is carbon
dioxide, but there is also methane, nitrous oxide and many refrigerants. Carbon allowances: Government-issued permits to industries that allow them to pollute up to a certain limit. Carbon offsets: Projects that lower carbon emissions
in nonregulated industries, such as forestry or farming. These projects
produce “offset credits” that can be traded on the carbon market and
used by polluters to comply with emissions limits. Governments usually
set limits on how many of these types of credits polluters can use. Carbon price: The cost to industries or companies
for each ton of greenhouse gas that is emitted in a given period. The
cost can be established directly by the government, in the form of a tax
or a set price for permits, or indirectly through carbon markets, where
permits are traded freely and supply and demand sets the price. Carbon pricing: A system that requires polluters to pay for their carbon emissions. Pollution rights: Permission given by a government
to an industry or company to pollute up to a certain controlled level.
Such a system leaves it up to the company or industry to figure out the
best way to stay within the limit. Emissions Trading System: A financial market created
by the European Union to trade the carbon allowances issued to
industries to control carbon emissions. The system has been in effect
since 2005 and covers about 11,000 power plants, industrial facilities
and airlines in 31 countries. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: A body of
scientists and other experts appointed by the United Nations to
periodically assess and issue reports about the status and impact of
climate change on the planet. National Climate Assessment: A report issued
periodically by the federal government and prepared by a panel of
scientists and other experts, including representatives of fossil-fuel
companies, to assess the status and impact of climate change on the
United States. Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative: A cap-and-trade
system limiting emissions in nine states in the Northeast and
mid-Atlantic regions. The system has raised $1.7 billion for the
governments, which have mostly put the money back into clean-energy
projects.
As Dairy Farms Grow Bigger, New Concerns About Pollution
by elizabeth grossmanThe slogan on
Wisconsin’s license plate — “America’s Dairyland” — celebrates the
state’s number one agricultural activity and iconic status as a milk and
cheese producer. What it doesn’t reveal is how dramatically the dairy
industry in Wisconsin and in other parts of the United States has been
changing, or the environmental concerns those changes pose.
While milk carton imagery pictures bucolic, small farms, more than 50
percent of U.S. milk is now produced by just 3 percent of the country’s
dairies — those with more than 1,000 cows, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The very largest U.S. dairies now have
15,000 or more cows.
With this increased concentration of milking cows comes a corresponding
concentration of manure production. And what happens to this manure is
at the heart of the pollution issues surrounding the dairy industry.
In Wisconsin, several dairy operations are now facing opposition to
plans to expand their herds. Porous karst soils in the parts of
Wisconsin where a significant portion of dairy expansion is occurring
present some unique environmental issues. Run-off from dairy farms and
other agricultural activities has seeped into aquifers and elevated
levels of nitrogen, in some instances to unsafe concentrations; in one
recent case, the Wisconsin Department of Justice levied a $65,000 fine against a dairy operation for contaminating groundwater.
Neighbors of Kinnard Farms dairy, located in the Kewaunee County town of Lincoln — an area of karst soils — are now in court
challenging the state’s approval of a permit that would allow the dairy
to expand its herd from 4,000 to more than 6,000 milking cows. About 50
percent of the town’s private wells currently have water that exceeds
bacteria or nitrate safety standards. Residents opposing the DNR permit
contend that it lacks sufficient information about how the dairy will
manage the tens of millions of gallons of liquid manure its cows will
produce.
U.S. farm consolidation is nothing new, but recent changes in the dairy
industry are transforming the business in ways that are increasingly
worrisome to regulators, residents, and environmental groups.
Wisconsin embodies this consolidation trend.
State Department of Natural Resources (DNR) figures show the number of
Wisconsin dairy farms with more than 500 cows grew by about 150 percent
in the past decade. At the same time, the overall number of dairy farms
dropped by about a third,
just as they have nationwide. The number of U.S. dairy operations with
2,000 or more cows has grown faster than those of any other size as milk
production has increased about 20 percent. According to the EPA,
a 2,000-cow dairy generates more than 240,000 pounds of manure daily or
nearly 90 million pounds a year. The USDA estimates that the manure
from 200 milking cows produces as much nitrogen as sewage from a community of 5,000 to 10,000 people.
This year and last, Wisconsin has fined several dairy operations for manure spills and manure runoff. According to an analysis by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,
in 2013 a record number of manure spills — more than 1 million gallons
worth — were recorded in Wisconsin. The newspaper reported that from
2007 to 2013, the state experienced an average of 15 manure spills
annually from dairy farms. Roughly a third of those spills came from
large Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs.
“Wisconsin,” says Clean Wisconsin staff attorney Elizabeth Wheeler, “has a nitrate problem.”
Wisconsin is hardly alone in grappling with this problem. Similar
pollution issues — primarily from spills related to manure storage —
have been cropping up across the country. Some recent cases include:
In February, in Michigan’s Allegan County, a stormwater system failure at a dairy with a 1-million-gallon manure lagoon spilled manure into nearby waterways, creating a visible plume five miles long.
In Yakima, Washington, the Community Association for Restoration of
the Environment and the Center for Food Safety allege in an ongoing
lawsuit now in federal court that manure spreading by five large dairies has caused nitrate and other contamination of groundwater
and violates the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).
The plaintiffs contend that the way the manure is being applied is the
equivalent of dumping solid waste, an activity covered by RCRA that has
not previously been applied to manure spreading. The dairies filed a
motion this month to dismiss the charges.
In Canton, Minnesota, a wall on an above-ground manure storage tank
broke last April, spilling roughly 1 million gallons of manure.
In one of the larger cases of manure pollution in recent years, an estimated 15 million gallons of manure, water, and other matter
spilled in 2010 into a slough that drains into the Snohomish River in
Washington state, when a berm on a dairy farm’s manure lagoon failed.
Erin Fitzgerald, senior vice president for sustainability at the Innovation Center for US Dairy,
a trade group, says a dairy’s size does not determine how well its
environmental impacts are managed. William Matthews, Oregon Department
of Agriculture CAFO program manager, concurs. “There are stellar
operators of all sizes,” he says.
Fitzgerald’s organization stresses the need for nutrient and water
quality management plans tailored for each operation, and says dairy is
“one of the most regulated and inspected industries in agriculture.”
She also touts the industry’s voluntary commitment to “best practices”
and improving its environmental footprint, including its 2008 commitment
to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent.
Milking cows, explains the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),
produce more manure than beef cattle and the Holsteins that dominate the
U.S. dairy industry produce almost twice as much manure as Jerseys.
Cows that give more milk per cow also produce more manure and per-cow milk production has almost doubled since the 1970s.
Historically, dairies dealt with manure by applying it to fields as
fertilizer, as many do today. But as dairy herds have grown, a single
farm often has more manure than it can use at any one time. Excess is
typically stored in lagoons. “When it comes to the environmental impacts
of concentrated dairy operations, it all comes down to manure
management,” says Kendra Kimbirauskas, board director of Friends of Family Farmers.
Questions about manure management have prompted opposition to a number
of Wisconsin dairy operations’ plans for large or expanded herds. One of
these farms is Burr Oak Heifers,
located in Wisconsin’s Central Sands region, an area known for its
porous souls. Burr Oak Heifers is seeking a Wisconsin DNR permit to
house 3,100 cows, which are expected to produce an estimated 3.32
million gallons of liquid manure and 45,900 tons of solid manure
annually. In 2013, the farm, operating under a different business name, was fined
$65,000 by the state for contaminating groundwater, including private
well water. The permit now up for approval would grant the farm an
exception to Wisconsin’s groundwater nitrate concentration limit of 10
parts per million (ppm) and permit its nitrate discharge at 28 ppm.
Clean Wisconsin’s Wheeler calls the proposed nitrate discharge exemption
“unprecedented.” The DNR explains that the exemption is based on
background levels of nitrate present in groundwater coming onto the site
from other sources, and that the permit will require groundwater
monitoring and a “nutrient management plan” designed to control manure
storage and how and when manure is spread on fields. The goal of such
plans include preventing application of more nutrients than a farm’s
soil can absorb and making sure it’s applied when it won’t easily run
off, as in winter when the ground is frozen.
Wheeler notes that dairies have typically spread manure on their own
fields to fertilize forage and other crops or contracted with other
farms to do so. On small farms, the ratio of cows to pasture land
generally allows for a sustainable nitrogen balance. But the majority of
U.S. dairy herds are confined to barns throughout their entire lives
and shuttle between stalls and milking parlors in enclosed corrals and
corridors and eat silage and grain grown elsewhere. “We’ve kind of taken
Mother Nature out of the picture,” says John Haarsma, manager of Rickreall Dairy, an Oregon operation with 3,500 cows.
In excess, manure’s nutrients — largely nitrogen and phosphorus — can
create problems. Too much in surface water can create algae blooms that
result in hypoxic or oxygen-deprived dead zones According to the EPA,
excess nutrients from agriculture, including chemical fertilizers and
dairy manure, are a major source of water pollution across the US.
In Wisconsin, explains DNR hydrogeologist Bill Phelps, about 10 percent
of all private wells exceed the state’s nitrate water quality standard.
In areas of high agricultural activity where fertilizer use is high,
this percentage rises to about 30 percent, said Phelps.
Manure also contains pathogens that may include E.coli and other fecal
coliforms. In addition, manure often contains pharmaceuticals —
antibacterials and hormones — given to many dairy cows to fight disease
and promote growth. Some of Kewaunee County’s wells have tested
positively for estrogenic, endocrine disrupting compounds. The source
has not been pinpointed, but numerous studies suggest that CAFOs,
through their use of pesticides and hormones, are asource of some estrogenic compounds that enter U.S. drinking water.
In New York, now the country’s third-largest milk producing state, dairy
expansion has also become an environmental issue. An ongoing lawsuit is
challenging a 2013 regulation change that would increase the size of
dairies allowed to operate without a nutrient management plan from 199
to 299 cows. Environmental advocates say the New York Department of
Environmental Conservation failed to consider environmental impacts. “It
was made for economic reasons,” to support the state’s booming Greek
yogurt industry, says Rivekeeper staff attorney Michael Dulong.
Lack of measures to prevent catastrophic manure spills is among the reasons Environmental Advocates of New York
policy director Katherine Nadeau gives for her organization’s
opposition to this regulation change. She cites a 2005 incident in which
3 million gallons of manure spilled from a New York dairy into a nearby
river, killing thousands of fish.
One day this winter, I visited one of the dwindling number of smaller U.S. dairies —Double J Jerseys,
a 200-cow dairy operation in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. As I arrived
cows munched clover in the barnyard, near the Bansens’ front door. Jon
Bansen, a third-generation dairy farmer who produces milk for the
Organic Valley co-op, said that the ratio of cows to pasture on smaller
farms leads to a sustainable nitrogen balance. The steady rise of
large-scale dairy operations, he said, has been “fueled by cheap fuel
and cheap feed,” adding, “More is not always better."
The
bee population in Canada has actually grown, from 600,000 colonies in
2000 to 700,000 in 2012. Around the world, bee colonies are also
increasing, despite the increasing use of the products.
The Ontario law would bring the province in line with the European
Union, which voted to ban neonics because of alleged bee deaths. What
Canadians may not know is that the country that drove the European ban
on neonics, France, did so not for reasons of science, but politics.
Domestic pressure by French environmentalists had pushed that country
to ban the substance, which disadvantaged their farmers, and led France
to seek an EU ban to level the playing field. The French went so far as
to issue a press release that misrepresented the data on neonics and
bees (which did not support a ban) in their efforts. At the end of 2013,
a two-year EU ban took effect.
From a crisis in western rail
capacity to the major stumbling blocks in transcontinental trade
agreements, Canadian agriculture has been at the heart of some of the
past year’s most important policy debates.