Agriculture
emissions since 2019
emissions intensity since 2019
Rising production, plateauing emissions
Agriculture Climate Action Index | 2019 = base year
CASE STUDY
Agronomists wanted
The Challenge
With floods, droughts and wildfires getting worse every year, building climate resilience is critical. According to Luke Struckman, a co-lead on Trusted Advisor Partnership’s (TAP) Canadian project, that starts, like most things on a farm, in the ground: “If your soil functions in a way that makes it more resilient to extreme weather events, you’re going to have sustained crop production.”
Farmers adopting soil health practices can also contribute to climate change mitigation. Practices like Improved Nutrient Use Efficiency can reduce nitrous oxide emissions from fertilizer use and practices like inter-cropping and cover cropping can help pull carbon from the atmosphere and store it in soils.42
Struckman said there is an opportunity when it comes to sustainable soil management practices in the training of agronomists, the crop consultants who farmers turn to for advice. Conventional production is focused on yield for good reason as farmers feed a growing global population. But approaching sustainable practices as a path to building long-term productivity is not always a top priority. This is where TAP comes in by bringing together agronomists, industry experts, corporate partners and scientific researchers.
The Idea
Ben Harris, Struckman’s co-lead, was working on TAP’s original project in North Dakota when he first heard that agronomists in Canada were accessing TAP’s resources.
Since 2022, with the backing of a few large corporate sponsors, including PepsiCo and General Mills, TAP had been offering a video-based program to American agronomists on sustainable soil, water and nutrient management. Canada offered all kinds of potential. Saskatchewan, alone, is home to 60 million acres of farmland.43 After turning its attention to Canada this year, it was no surprise that TAP’s pilot project in Saskatchewan and Manitoba was oversubscribed immediately.
The Obstacles
- Despite strong demand, the TAP team quickly discovered that this would not be a rinse-and-repeat exercise. There are several differences between North Dakota and the Canadian Prairies, including climate, growing conditions, commodity markets and soil properties. And while the team members thought they could use some of the material from the original program, they ultimately created an all-new curriculum suited for the challenges facing Saskatchewan and Manitoba farmers.
- Many farmers already work with a trusted partner, be it an independent agronomist or one who is linked to a retailer. That’s why TAP, which is aiming to train 250 agronomists across the Prairies by 2028, decided against putting restrictions on who can take the program. “TAP supplements the trusted advisor infrastructure,” said Struckman. “Regardless of what stripe of agronomist you are.”
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Since the return on investment of sustainable soil health practices is measured over several years, the program requires patient investors. The corporations that have come onboard have a handful of motivations:
- For food and beverage companies, roughly 70% of their emissions come from the farm. Improved soil health practices could help reduce emissions.44
- It improves agronomic advice and services for farmers, contributing to advanced productivity.45
- Since each agronomist is connected to multiple farms–and potentially hundreds of thousands of acres–it offers scaling potential that traditional approaches can’t match.
The Insight
Targeting only agronomists is not enough. Increasingly, the team is thinking of ways to market the program’s benefits directly to farmers. Once the program is more established in Canada, the TAP team plans to follow a similar approach to the North Dakota project, engaging important regional organizations and pooling dollars from private and public sources to directly support producers in implementing these sustainable practices—but, in all likelihood, only if a farmer’s agronomist has completed the training.
Creating a community of agronomists extends–and deepens–the program’s value. While some informal networks exist, the TAP team discovered there is demand for an organization in the Prairies that builds a sustained community of practice among agronomists on sustainable agriculture.
TAP is fostering these networks through in-person events, webcasts and, as simple as it may seem, a Slack channel. Participants can seek support from one another and search archived discussions. Ultimately, the peer network gets agronomists, divided by great distances, talking. “Even if someone in the Red River Valley may not be facing the same constraints of someone south of Regina,” said Struckman, “there is still a lot of value in them exchanging knowledge and ideas.”
Emissions intensity estimates are defined as emissions (tonnes CO2 equivalent) per square meter of floor space. Floor space data for residential and commercial buildings was sourced from Natural Resources Canada’s Com-prehensive Energy Use Database. For years where NRCan estimates were unavailable, floor space was projected using a simple linear trend informed by recent historical growth, providing an indicative estimate aligned with current patterns in building activity. Emissions intensities were calculated separately for the residential and commercial sectors and rolled up into a single measure using a weighted average determined by floor space.
The emissions decline resulting from decreased coal-powered electricity generation is taken from historical emissions factors and implied coal-based generation as reported under Table A13-1 as part of Statistical Annex 13 Electricity Intensity.
The emissions impact from the estimated increase in natural gas powered generation is based on historical conversion factors from 2019-2023 reported data under Table A13-1 as part of Statistical Annex 13 Electricity Intensity.
Total sector emissions within electricity in 2025 are the summation of the estimated decline in emissions from coal-powered electricity generation and the increase in natural gas-powered electricity generation as detailed above. These values are then compared relative to 2005 and 2019 as disclosed under Table A13-1 as part of Statistical Annex 13 Electricity Intensity.
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Despite strong demand, the TAP team quickly discovered that this would not be a rinse-and-repeat exercise