A New Agriculture Product Presented by Norm Ward .

Environmental Goods and Services

A New Agriculture ProductPresented by Norm Ward

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EGS are the benefits arising from the ecological functions of healthy ecosystems. Such benefits accrue to all living organisms including plants, animals, not just humans

EGS is a new emerging Agriculture product

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EGS

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Ecological Goods – clean air and clean water

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Ecological Services – water storage, carbon storage, maintenance of biodiversity

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Services may also include – view scape

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A decision making framework that manages for the whole, which includes land, people, and money

Unregulated Market Place at One End ,where EGS has no Value

Partial Market Place With Government as the Only Purchaser of EGS, and partial EGS value

Full Market Place with Many Private Purchasers of EGS

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Market Place Continuum

Air sheds, watersheds, groundwater, scenic lands, and ecologically important but sensitive ecosystems are widely considered ‘‘public goods.’’ That is, in an unregulated marketplace, people who pay to ‘‘consume’ ’environmental goods and services are unable to keep those who don’t pay from enjoying the benefits of that purchase.

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Unregulated Market Place

An example of Government treating endangered species as a public good in an unregulated market place.

Government dismissed the concept of either a market place or financial compensation to landowners that provided habitat for species at risk and instead used centralized planning with punitive regulation

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Federal Species at Risk Act

A market place may be created when EGS services are demanded by society and supplied by public and private landowners.

The Alberta Land Stewardship Act passed in 2009 facilitates the creation of market based instruments associated with EGS

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Partial Market Place

Incentives to maintain ecosystems

Ecological Gifts Program provides tax credits

Tradeable Development CreditsConservation OffsetsConservation DirectivesConservation Easements in a capped market place

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Examples

Grass finished beef

Paid access for hunting activities

Viewscape – residential clusters surrounded by natural landscape

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Full Market Place

As in any market place, legislation, regulation and common law provide a framework to operate in

Property rights associated with the new EGS agriculture product must be defined and protected

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Property Rights in the Market Place

Agriculture will produce products with the highest financial value

Traditionally these products are sold into a developed market place with common law that supports ownership of the product, and thus allows agriculture products to be bought and sold with confidence

Since the market place for EGS is still developing, high EGS land continues to produces traditional agriculture products with the absence of an EGS value

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Highest Value

The market place must be allowed to align the economic and ecological signals

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Market Place

A developed and undeveloped market place

High value traditional oilseed product with low EGS

Low value traditional meat product with high EGS

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Although canola land may have a lower EGS value it offers 2 or 3 times the return on investment over a natural landscape with a high EGS value

Canola is marketed into an established market place which does not include EGS

A natural landscape may produce meat products from grazing animals and increasingly will sell EGS associated with the traditional product

The difference between the two agriculture products is directly related to land prices

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Land Values

Continued differentiation of the meat protein market now includes products that are –either perceived or real – associated with EGS

Natural/ Organic Beef Grass Finished Beef Grass finished pork Grass finished poultry

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Will that be a burger with a side order of EGS?

Functional foods provide health benefits over and above basic human nutrition

Omega-3 enriched eggs, milk, yogurt and pork are now available

These enriched foods provide basic nutrition but also help protect the heart by potentially lowering blood cholesterol.

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Functional Foods Meet EGS

Omega 3 fatty acids are formed in chloroplasts of green leaves and algae

Grasses and in particular native grass, provide a source of omega 3 fatty acids in beef.

When cattle are fed omega 3 deficient grain, they begin losing the store beneficial fat

The Canadian government permits the claim-DHA, and Omega 3 fatty acid supports the normal development of brain, eyes and nerves

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Omega 3

Some research that indicates a ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 needed for a healthy human diet should be about 4 to 1

Common oils - canola 2:1 - soybean 7:1 - corn oil 46:1 Beef - grass fed 2:1 - grain fed 4:1 to 20:1

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Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio

CFIA label claims of “contains omega 3 polyunsaturated fatty acids” must have 300 milligrams of omega 3 per 100 grams of food

Grass fed beef may be able to meet label requirements without supplementation

There is a need for a rapid omega 3 test for meat, so that meat and trim can be sorted for maximum omega 3 yield

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Market Place for Omega 3

FEB is functional ecological beef - reflects the functional aspect of omega

3 beef as a food - reflects the functional aspect of the

environment the animal was raised in FED is traditional grain finished beef

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FEB Beef and FED Beef

Functional ecological foods provide a positive outcome for the health of people and the environment

This is where people goals, land goals, and with a new market place for EGS, financial goals meet.

The market place is starting to align the economic and ecological signals

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Land People and Money

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Access Compensation for Hunting

Landowners who become outfitters and acquire tags are able to charge for guiding non resident hunters

Huge potential for landowners with outfitter and tag licences to band together to form a hunting access zone (similar to a hunting zone)

Wild game is a direct reflection of a healthy complex ecosystem producing extensive environmental goods and services

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Compensation for Access

As viewscape becomes more important municipal bylaws and provincial regional plans must be realigned to provide for clusters of residential housing with viewscape in between cluster.

This may be best handled using tradeable development credits in an open, and competitive market place

Viewscape has a market place value

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Residential Clusters- Viewscape

Modifying farming and grazing practices may yield more soil water storage

The current market place continuum for EGS puts water storage in an unregulated market and thus a public good

Soil water storage can be quantified and this may indirectly provide a measurement indicator for a new market place.

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Water Storage

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Water storage Intensive grazing vs. Continuous

At one end of the continuum we have EGS as a public good and no market place with Species at Risk

At the other end we have the beginnings of a market place for EGS, although as indirect one, with FEB cattle, access for hunting, viewscape

If we can measure EGS, such as water storage, will a market place develop

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EGS market Continuum

The market place must be allowed to align the economic and ecological signals

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Power Grazer Trailer

Self contained Two miles of turbo rope

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Power Grazer Cart

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