Farmscape for November 1, 2006  (Episode 2290)

The Canadian Pork Council suggests emerging regional carbon markets are creating new opportunities for Canadian pork producers to profit from the adoption of new techniques designed to reduce the impact of agriculture on the environment.

The latest draft of the Pork Greenhouse Gas Project Builder is being unveiled through a nationwide series of producer workshops over the next couple of months.

The software uses a complex set of calculations to determine greenhouse gas emissions from swine operations and reductions achievable by adopting new environmental technologies and procedures.

Canadian Pork Council environmental programs coordinator Cedric MacLeod notes carbon markets have opened up in several regions in the US and in Alberta and they're all looking for carbon offsets.

Clip-Cedric MacLeod-Canadian Pork Council 

I think there's opportunity.

It's a modest opportunity for pork producers but it's a few thousand bucks in the pocket for a moderate sized operator.

What it really comes down to is the protocols.

What kind of calculations are they holding up for producers to evaluate and quantify their emissions?

That's been our big challenge all along, having a cohesive set of calculations that encompass the ongoing production practices and industry makeup that we have here in Canada, not applying equations that work in other jurisdictions of North America or South America or anywhere.

What happens in Canada?

That's really what we've been looking for and that's why we've worked hard at developing a protocol and including all the Canadian science that we possibly could to make this protocol real and very much applicable to the Canadian industry.

MacLeod concedes, due to recent changes in federal government environmental policy it is still unclear what a Canadian carbon offset market will ultimately look like.

However he stresses, because the Pork Greenhouse Gas Project Builder was developed on an ISO 14064 platform using the most up to date Canadian science, the calculator is internationally recognizable.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council