Environment

Reducing environmental impact

Plant science helps farmers reduce their environmental footprint by allowing them to grow more crops on less land.

Reducing agriculture’s carbon footprint

Like most industries, farming activity will always generate some greenhouse gasses, but plant science technologies are helping to minimize those emissions. Crops designed to resist certain herbicides make weed control much more efficient and using them helps farmers till their soil less often, which keeps carbon in the soil. Conservation or no-till practices also limit the number of times farmers have to pass over their fields with tractors, which reduces emissions and fuel use.

Thanks to herbicide-tolerant crops, farmers have been able to adopt these practices like conservation tillage or no-till farming saving 1.2 billion litres of fuel between 1996 and 2018. The carbon sequestration and fuel savings from no-till and conservation tillage practices saved an estimated 20 billion kgs of greenhouse gas emissions from being released into the atmosphere between 1996 and 2018, which is equivalent to removing about 13 million cars from the road for a year.

Growing more crops with less water

In the next few decades nearly half of the world could experience water scarcity. To combat this reality, new drought-tolerant crops are now using less water, more efficiently. Pesticides also play an important role by destroying weeds that compete with crops for water. The combination of herbicide-tolerant crops and pest control products helps farmers adopt conservation tillage practices, which leads to better moisture retention in soil.

Protecting soil health

In fewer than 40 years more than half the acres we currently use to grow food could become unusable due to degradation caused by drought, deforestation and unsustainable agriculture practices in some parts of the world. Thanks in part to pesticides and herbicide-tolerant crops, farmers can adopt conservation tillage practices that reduce soil erosion, minimize soil compaction, improve soil structure and increase moisture penetration and retention.

Addressing climate change

Emerging plant science technologies like crops that tolerate heat, drought, flooding and salinity are helping to mitigate the effects of climate change. When used in combination with pesticides, these new crops are improving production efficiency and easing agriculture’s impact on the environment.

Protecting Canada’s biodiversity

If Canadian farmers stopped using pesticides, herbicide-tolerant and insect-resistant crops, we would require 34 million additional acres of land to grow the same amount of food we do today (source). That’s more than the total combined area of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and P.E.I. With pesticides and plant biotechnology, farmers can produce more on the country’s current farmland without having to convert our valuable forests, wetlands, grasslands and other wildlife habitats into agricultural land.

Safeguarding our public green spaces

Public green spaces that help filter air and reduce ambient temperatures need protection from invasive weeds and diseases. Plant science offers innovative solutions to these threats, keeping our green spaces healthy and pristine.