Laura Laing can’t imagine how her family would run their cow-calf operation without their Mount Livingstone grazing allotment.

These native grasslands, nestled among the hills and peaks, with Cabin Ridge Mountain rising above the pastures, support a large percentage of the Plateau Cattle Company herd from early June to the beginning of October.

“Year after year, it’s been our best-producing pasture,” said Laing, who values the benefits of the native grass, clean water and open spaces in this area for her family’s herd.

This third-generation ranch west of Nanton, Alta., like many others in southwestern Alberta, relies on being able to graze its cattle in the Mount Livingstone Range. This breathtaking landscape has been vital to numerous beef operations for decades, and it’s unfathomable to Laing that this place could soon be changed beyond recognition.

But this could be a devastating reality for many ranchers on the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains if a proposed open-pit coal mine is given the green light this fall. This is becoming more likely due to a recent change in a 44-year-old policy on coal mining in Alberta.

“You really have to fight to stay in this industry,” Laing said. “We try not to get overly emotional about it because that makes you quite reactive…We say to ourselves, ‘how could this even be a thing?’ It’s disastrous to the landscape.”

Laura Laing says she can’t imagine how her family would run their cow-calf operation without their Mount Livingstone grazing allotment, now threatened by a coal mine proposal. Photo: Leah Hennel / The Narwhal

On June 1, the province of Alberta quietly revoked the Coal Policy, which had previously restricted coal mining exploration and development in areas considered environmentally sensitive. Enacted in 1976, this legislation had regulated coal mining over four categories of land. While former Category 1 lands in the Rockies are to remain protected, the provincial government stated, Category 2 lands are now open for coal development. The change came without a public consultation period.

The lifting of restrictions on Category 2 lands, covering 1.4 million hectares of land in the foothills and Rockies deemed moderately to highly environmentally sensitive, including the Mount Livingstone Range, is especially troubling to those who rely on these lands to pasture cattle. Until now, open-pit mines had been prohibited on Category 2 lands, and underground mines were only allowed if surface impacts were considered acceptable for the environment.

“They opened up a huge swath of land that historically Albertans have said needs to remain in its natural state and be available to multiple users, to now be available for what we call mountaintop removal mining,” said Bobbi Lambright, secretary of the Livingstone Landowners Group.

This type of mining, often used for surface mines in the Appalachian Mountains of the southeastern U.S., requires the removal of all vegetation and top soil, then explosives are used to blast all the rock above the coal seam to expose it. Waste rock is moved into massive piles, and the blasting is known to release toxic elements from the rock into the environment.

A mountaintop removal metallurgical coal mine, owned and operated by Teck Resources in B.C.’s Elk Valley. The Grassy Mountain Coal Project near Blairmore, Alta., would also be a mountaintop removal mine. Photo: Jayce Hawkins / The Narwhal

This comes as the Grassy Mountain Coal Project, just north of Blairmore, Alta. Australia’s Benga Mining Limited moves through the application process for its plans to develop an open-pit metallurgical coal mine with a production capacity of up to 4.5 million tonnes of coal per year, with a lifespan of 25 years. The Grassy Mountain project is located on the site of a former coal mine on Category 4 lands so was not protected under the Coal Policy, even before it was rescinded. Benga has sought provincial and federal approval for this mine since 2014, and a public hearing is scheduled to start in October.

Mines like these raise numerous concerns for Laing, with the impact on water quality at the top of her list, as well as loss of native grasslands and the spread of coal dust toxins in an area of extreme winds.

“We’re not anti-development at all, but you’re not going to put a mountain back, you’re not going to put the native grasses back and you’re definitely not going to revert it back to pasture land after. That’s just not going to happen,” she said. “For the general public, if they look west when they’re driving the Cowboy Trail, that landscape’s going to change.”

The original extent of Canada’s native prairie grasslands. Between 75 and 90 per cent of the grasslands have been eradicated. Map: Alicia Carvalho / The Narwhal

Potential for widespread impact across Oldman River watershed

The lack of public knowledge about both the rescission of the Coal Policy and the Grassy Mountain project alarms Laing, who said she only learned about these when notified by the mining company, not the provincial government. “Everybody we speak to in the area or in the community or public users up in our grazing allotments have no idea that this passed,” she said. “The public awareness has been very low, and I don’t think that that’s a coincidence.”

This comes in the midst of a difficult economic situation, when the impacts of COVID-19 are the latest challenges facing beef producers already concerned about the financial viability of their operations. “As producers we continue to feel pressures from all areas,” said Laing, who foresees many negative affects on her grazing allotment due to coal development, such as “stress on the animals from equipment, drilling, personnel, wildlife relocation (and) predation.”

John Smith and Laura Laing cross the Livingstone River. Ranchers are concerned about the potential impact of a new coal mine on water quality. Open-pit coal mining can increase levels of selenium in rivers, which can be toxic to fish populations and contaminate drinking water. Photo: Leah Hennel / The Narwhal

The Livingstone Landowners Group is among those raising concerns about the provincial government’s sudden shift in coal development policy. This organization represents ranchers, residents and businesses in the Livingstone Range and Porcupine Hills who want to see sustainable development and good land stewardship.

Development in formerly protected Category 2 lands, Lambright stated, could have many negative affects on its ecosystems. “It’s been designated through multiple land use plans as an area that’s got a lot of native prairie, it’s got a lot of unique habitats that support endangered and at-risk species.”

This would affect all users of the land, she continued, who currently work in what can be seen as a symbiotic relationship. “If you’ve got a cattle rancher using the land, his cattle are in there, they’re grazing the native grass, they’re mitigating potential future fire hazards, they’re providing food for people through their cattle and the grassland also supports things like reducing our carbon footprint.”

Grazing animals like cattle are an essential component of a healthy grasslands ecosystem. Less than 25 per cent of Canada’s grasslands remain intact. Photo: Leah Hennel / The Narwhal

In addition to those benefits, other public users make their living on this area through guiding, outfitting and tourism, as well as those who enjoy the land for fishing, hiking and hunting. “There’s a lot of uses of that land today that essentially would be eliminated or irrevocably changed if this coal mining were to go ahead.”

The potential impact on water quality is an area of great concern for both human health and the ecosystem, Lambright said. The element selenium can be released into water and soil as a result of open pit coal mining, and currently there is no known solution to wholly mitigate its impact once in a body of water.

This proved disastrous in B.C.’s Elk River Valley, after five coal strip mines operated by Teck Resources discharged selenium and other toxic chemicals into the river. In 2018, the company was fined $1.4 million for this selenium release, which was found to have caused a collapse of the local cutthroat trout population and the contamination of several private and community wells.

Availability of water is another issue. The Grassy Mountain project is near the headwaters of the Oldman River, a vital watershed for southern Alberta. More than 45 per cent of the province relies on this watershed, which is already facing considerable supply pressure due to natural flow reductions.

“There’s been no new licences that are supposed to be issued for water out of that watershed, and the water is fundamental to people’s livelihoods in all of these other areas,” Lambright said. “This level of intense mining would require a lot of water, and it’s a bit unclear at the moment how that need would be met.”

The Milky Way above the Livingstone Ridge. Photo: Leah Hennel / The Narwhal

A complex economic issue

When the provincial government announced the Coal Policy’s rescission this spring, officials said this decision would create new opportunities for investment as well as certainty for the coal industry.

“Rescinding the outdated Coal Policy in favour of modern oversight will help attract new investment for an important industry and protect jobs for Albertans,” said Sonya Savage, provincial energy minister, in a press release.

Even before the rescission of the coal policy opened up the possibility of new mines in the eastern slopes, the economic benefits of coal were being lauded. Benga Mining officials stated the Grassy Mountain mine would create approximately 400 full-time jobs when at peak production. With the current economic challenges increasing Alberta’s ongoing unemployment, some locals see this project as a positive move. Blair Painter, mayor of Crowsnest Pass — a town founded on mining — has expressed his support for new coal projects in the area. “This community is in desperate need of industry,” Painter stated in a letter in 2019.

Although the Alberta Energy Regulator will now approve coal projects individually, it’s worth noting that the Grassy Mountain project, as well as mines proposed in former Category 2 lands, will not mine the lower-quality thermal coal mined in other parts of the province for power generation. This is higher-quality metallurgical coal, which is used to make steel and in demand from international markets. Several other Australian companies have shown interest in mining metallurgical coal in Alberta.

John Smith and Laura Laing during the Plateau Cattle Company’s fall round-up on their Mount Livingstone grazing allotment, with Cabin Ridge Mountain in the distance. Laing says the Alberta government’s decision to open up coal mining on economic grounds is short-sighted. Photo: Leah Hennel / The Narwhal

Laing sees the government’s economic argument as short sighted, given that it isn’t Alberta’s energy industry that will ultimately benefit. “Some of [the Australian companies] privately own some of the mineral rights up there, so there’s zero royalties back to Alberta, and for the ones that are getting royalties, it’s pennies on the dollar.”

Lambright agrees, adding that jobs may not be as secure as hoped in the long run, due to the fickle nature of the coal market and the industry’s push towards cutting costs through automation. In the case of Grassy Mountain, Benga Mining’s owner, Australia’s Hancock Prospecting, is “a world leader in automating mining,” she said. For example, the company owns an iron ore mine in northern Australia that is in the process of automating all its trucks, and the mine is monitored from a control centre in Perth, on the other side of the country.

‘Our mountains are who we are’

Laing and other beef producers in southwestern Alberta are working to understand the scope of this policy shift and make the wider community aware of its potential impact on the Eastern Slopes. To help create awareness, local ranchers are collaborating with a film company to create a short film for social media that highlights the area and its history. Laing hopes the film will help to drive home the importance of this place to so many Albertans.

“Our mountains are who we are,” she said. “It’s really about coming together as a community to say, ‘our grass is disappearing, and this is our environment and our watershed. This is really a very big deal.’ ”

Laing says Alberta was built on agriculture. “Agriculture is the beacon in this economic recovery. Where’s the support for that?” she asked. Photo: Leah Hennel / The Narwhal

Laing would like the provincial government to consider the impact on agriculture in these development decisions, especially when it touts coal projects as necessary to Alberta’s post-pandemic recovery. “The province built its backbone on agriculture,” she said. “Agriculture is the beacon in this economic recovery. Where’s the support for that?”

It’s even more dire given that the loss of cattle producers in Western Canada often results in the loss of endangered native grassland, something that greatly concerns Laing from both a stewardship and business perspective.

“We don’t have somewhere else to go, and that will greatly reduce the sustainability of our operation. Where are we going to find grassland for over 155 pair that go up there for the summer months? So where’s the support to the cattle industry or the ranching operations when we’re selling out these native grasslands?”

Read more: Meet the people saving Canada’s native grasslands

Updated at 9:45 a.m. on Oct. 20, 2020 to remove a quote that implied Alberta’s coal would be shipped to Australia.

Updated at 10:00am on Feb. 9, 2021 to reflect the fact that the Grassy Mountain coal project is located almost entirely on category 4 lands and the application was underway before the Alberta government rescinded the 1976 coal policy.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This is the fifth part of Carbon Cache, an ongoing series about nature-based climate solutions.

Paul Thoroughgood doesn’t hear the phone ring because his head is in the freezer. He’s digging out deer steaks to thaw — his daughter wants mule deer wrapped in bacon for dinner. 

I’m calling to ask him about farming and carbon, but he has to catch his breath after running up from the basement.

Thoroughgood and his family farm 2,000 acres just south of Moose Jaw, Sask., — green lentils, canola, flax, spring wheat and winter wheat — on the farm he grew up on. It’s an area of transition, straddling the “corner-to-corner farmland” Saskatchewan is known for and the province’s grasslands and hills so often left out of the flat-farmland stereotypes.

For 23 years, Thoroughgood has been practising, and advocating for, sustainable agriculture. It’s a “buzzword,” he says, noting sustainability is more of a voyage than a place, more of a practice of “continual self improvement.” 

The view across the road from Thoroughgood’s farm in Saskatchewan. Photo: Sara Hylton / The Narwhal

Thoroughgood farms green lentils, canola, flax, spring wheat and winter wheat and says he’s always improving his practices to be more sustainable. Photo: Sara Hylton / The Narwhal

As conversations have shifted in recent decades, he says, so too have farming practices. 

For many years, farming has been lambasted as being a significant contributor to climate change: the industry has been accused of emitting large amounts of methane from cattle, heavy use of pesticides and fertilizers, stripping the land and trending toward increasing industrialization on ever-larger farming operations.

But in recent years the role of farming in reducing emissions — and stewarding the carbon sequestration potential of farmland and ranch land across the Prairies — has been getting more and more attention.

It’s all part of a growing trend of what are known as “nature-based climate solutions,” which a 2017 study found could provide up to one-third of the emissions reductions required under the Paris Accord. 

A 2019 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine declared that practices that involve removing and sequestering carbon dioxide from the air will have to play a significant part in mitigating global climate change. 

This, the report noted, includes practices that “enhance natural carbon sinks” — like agricultural lands.

And that carbon storage potential is entirely in the hands of farmers and ranchers.

‘If it’s green and growing, it’s sequestering carbon’

Bob Lowe can barely hear the phone either. He’s out branding 400 head of cattle near Nanton, Alta., and they’re making a lot of noise. 

Lowe, the president of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, is adamant that ranchers have long been ahead of the curve when it comes to climate change mitigation. In large part, he says it’s inherent in the very nature of ranch land. 

Bob Lowe, president of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, on his ranch near Nanton, Alta. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

Grazing plays an important role in the health of native grasslands, which historically were home to bison. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

Grasslands like those where Lowe ranches cover approximately a quarter of the earth’s land area — over three billion hectares.

In Canada, it’s thought native grasslands once covered 61 million hectares, covering much of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta. Today, less than a fifth remain intact, with some 50 million hectares having been cultivated for crops or converted to urban areas.

Some estimate the uncultivated grasslands of Western Canada may store two to three billion tonnes of carbon. Unlike forests, grasslands store carbon underground, in the deep root systems of the plants that grow there. 

“To put it in a nutshell, if it’s green and growing, it’s sequestering carbon,” Lowe says of the land ranchers use to run cattle. “When you rip it up, that carbon is released and it stores at a very, very slow rate.”

Ranchers don’t rip up the land, he says, and are thus protectors of an important carbon store. 

But even farmers of cultivated crops are adopting new techniques to retain the carbon storage potential of the land and soil.

Lowe says ranchers are ahead of the curve when it comes to climate change mitigation, in part because they’re stewards of carbon-rich grasslands. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

Tilling ‘detrimental’ to soil — and carbon storage

Ranchers may not rip up the land, but for decades, farmers of crops have churned up the soil after one crop has been harvested to make way for the next season. 

It’s an iconic image: the prairie farmer, ploughing the soil — also known as tilling — by hand, or by ox, or by tractor. 

Cultivation of this sort happened rapidly on the Canadian Prairies once colonial settlers arrived on the land. 

In 1831, just 870 hectares of grasslands were cultivated. Settlers cultivated another 113,000 hectares over the next 50 years, and by 1931 some 24 million hectares of natural grasslands had been converted to croplands.

The original extent of Canada’s native prairie grasslands. Today, less than 20 per cent of these grasslands remain intact. Map: Alicia Carvalho / The Narwhal

“Going back into the 1930s, the farming practices of the day, which included very intensive tillage, were resulting in dust storms and loss of soil,” Jim Tokarchuk, executive director of the Soil Conservation Council of Canada, tells The Narwhal.

It’s estimated that approximately 20 per cent of global grasslands have been converted to cultivated crops, making their management more important than ever, including when it comes to carbon storage.

Soil is the key carbon storage mechanism on ranch lands and farmlands. According to some estimates, soil carbon accounts for more than 80 per cent of the total carbon found in grasslands ecosystems.

Dry mix grass prairie on the Lomond Grazing Association lease in southern Alberta. The grazing reserve harbours untilled native prairie, as well as wetlands, and is a refuge for many endangered species. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

In parts of the U.S., it’s estimated cultivated soil has lost anywhere from a third to half of its carbon as a result of agricultural practices. A study published in the journal Rangeland Ecology and Management notes that between 20 and 60 per cent of soil stored in carbon was lost as Canada’s grasslands were converted to croplands.

“Tillage is detrimental to soil health,” Tokarchuk explains. “In the last 30 years now there’s been this push to reduce tillage.” 

“Tillage, or mixing up the soil, increases the degradation or the decomposition of the organic matter,” Brian McConkey of the Prairie Soils Conservation Project explains. That reduces soil carbon content. 

One of the conservation techniques that has emerged in recent decades is “zero-till.” 

“The name really does the explanation,” Tokarchuk says. Zero-till doesn’t mean an end to growing crops, but it does mean a change to how it’s done.

In essence, instead of tilling the soil every year to prepare the soil for seeding a new crop, farmers can opt instead to leave the remnants of the previous crop in place. Rather than a freshly cultivated field of exposed dirt, the ‘stubble’ of the last crop is left in the soil, along with its roots — and therefore its carbon storage potential.

Thoroughgood’s flax field, where he shows the results of a zero till farming practice. Photo: Sara Hylton / The Narwhal

Recuperation of the soil, McConkey says, means “carbon dioxide is removed out of the atmosphere.”

Indeed, zero-till has been hailed as a “significant opportunity to offset a portion of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions.”

There have been a variety of campaigns in recent years encouraging farmers to adopt no-till farming techniques, including No-Till November, encouraging male farmers to keep the stubble not only on their faces, but in their fields.

According to McConkey, 3.5 megatonnes of carbon dioxide were removed from the atmosphere and sequestered in the soil from the adoption of no-till methods throughout Canada in 2018.  

This, he notes, is equivalent to the annual greenhouse gas emissions from over a million vehicles.

Barley and flax grow on Thoroughgood’s farm outside Moose Jaw, Sask. Photo: Sara Hylton / The Narwhal

Soil conservation could sequester three gigatonnes of carbon 

While zero-till holds potential to increase carbon sequestration, there are questions about whether its climate benefits are applicable across a variety of geographic regions and soil types, with some studies suggesting the carbon storage potential may be greater in warmer and wetter climates than dry, colder ones.

Add in the challenges of collecting data on soil organic carbon and getting an accurate picture of the carbon sequestration potential can be tricky.

“Information on carbon is very noisy,” Tokarchuk says. “It’s very hard to capture consistency because soil carbon is very variable. You can take two samples 10 feet apart and get different results.” 

Nevertheless, The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine estimates that what it dubs “full adoption” of agricultural soil conservation practices could result in the removal of three gigatonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere annually.

Three gigatonnes would be substantial if it was achieved, given that the International Energy Agency estimates global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions were about 33 gigatonnes in 2018. The potential carbon dioxide removal from agricultural and soil conservation is nearly 10 per cent of that total.

Zero-till doesn’t just have carbon storage benefits. Leaving stubble behind prevents the erosion of valuable topsoil, retains important nutrients, prevents water loss and can save farmers time and money.  

Carbon sequestered on farms is largely in the soil. By not tilling, that carbon remains in the ground. Photo: Sara Hylton / The Narwhal

Thoroughgood inspects his barley, one of the crops on his 2,000-acre farm in Saskatchewan. Photo: Sara Hylton / The Narwhal

Rethinking fertilizer use can reduce greenhouse gas emissions

Farmers are working to reduce greenhouse gases lost to the atmosphere in other ways, too — and hoping their efforts will be recognized in carbon markets.

One of the significant contributors to the climate impact of farming is fertilizer. According to Statistics Canada, some 70 per cent of crop farms apply fertilizer. 

Estimates vary as to how much of it is lost as runoff, which ends up in the environment. In many cases, as with nitrogen, that would mean it ends up as a greenhouse gas. 

It has been estimated that as much as 20 per cent of nitrogen fertilizer is lost as runoff, which can end up being a significant factor in emissions.

But in recent years, farmers have been paying more attention to what’s known as nutrient management, says McKenzie Smith, director of nutrient stewardship of Fertilizer Canada. 

Fertilizer Canada advocates for what it calls the 4Rs, referring to fertilizer being applied keeping in mind the “right source, right rate, right time, right place.” This helps ensure it’s used by the crop and not lost as runoff.

“It’s about a grower who successfully looks at their whole system and manages their nutrients in a way that ensures that their crop gets those nutrients and they’re using the right amount but they’re also utilizing timing and placement and different practices or texts or different sources and technologies.”

“So by using proper nutrient management, they’re able to sustainably grow more crops and also at the same time limit against potential environmental effects.”

“We feel this has a very strong linkage to climate change and protecting our environment because although nutrients are needed for the plant, if they’re applied inappropriately and not in the best manner, they could be lost to the environment,” Smith says.

Research in Canada has estimated greenhouse gas emissions from nitrogen fertilizer use can be reduced by 15 to 25 per cent when 4R protocols are followed.

“There’s a real potential. These are not small numbers,” Smith says. “Utilizing nutrients in the right way, by following these practices on large amounts of farmland across the country, has a real positive impact.”

Smith adds that these reductions in greenhouse gas emissions have been put forward as a mechanism to be included in a national carbon credit system.

“We have a climate smart strategy, which basically takes the 4R concept and turns it into a carbon credit,” Smith says. 

“We’re working with provincial and federal governments to have that protocol be embedded in their systems so that growers doing this in the future could potentially generate carbon credits by reducing emissions.”

The federal government is currently working to develop a national carbon offset standard, with a design paper released this July. In the meantime, a Canadian Grassland Protocol has been approved for the voluntary carbon market and a Soil Enrichment Protocol is in the works. 

(Carbon credits garnered from offsetting can be sold in two types of carbon market: regulatory compliance or voluntary. On the regulated market, buyers are purchasing credits because of requirements by law to keep their carbon emissions below a certain threshold. On the voluntary market, credits are purchased voluntarily — say, to offset the emissions from a flight or a conference.)

‘There’s a whole world of carbon finance out there’

Karen Haugen-Kozyra, president of environmental consulting firm Viresco Solutions, studied carbon and nitrogen cycling at the University of Alberta back in the ’80s.

“Little did I know that carbon was going to be pretty big,” she says with a chuckle from her home in Edmonton. 

She worked on getting Alberta’s carbon credit trading system up and running in the mid-2000s. Now, through her work with Viresco, she focuses on the intersection between agriculture and carbon, helping companies, NGOs, governments, farmers and ranchers navigate the complex world of carbon credits. 

“There’s a whole world of carbon finance out there. Investors are looking for good projects to invest in,” Haugen-Kozyra says. 

There are 25 protocols (including four specific to agriculture) in Alberta’s offset system, which has been in operation since 2007.

“Protocols are just the recipes people follow to generate a carbon credit from a particular activity,” Haugen-Kozyra explains. 

“The one that’s had the most traction is the Conservation Cropping Protocol,” she says. “It rewards growers for no-till agriculture.”

“Of all the places in the world, it’s the only one that’s really happened at scale. We’ve had a lot of interest from other countries, other companies, about how we’ve been able to do this at scale. Alberta was the first to innovate on large-scale no-till projects.” 

Between 2007 and 2018, nearly 16 megatonnes of carbon offsets have been generated under the Conservation Cropping Protocol and its earlier versions, injecting more than $200 million into the agricultural sector, Haugen-Kozyra says. 

Aggregator companies work directly with farmers to bundle up offsets to sell on the marketplace. 

“Farmers are doing what they’re doing best — growing their crops, raising their animals,” Haugen-Kozyra says. “They don’t have time to be able to meet the market requirements. Plus, as an individual farm, it’s not viable. Buyers in the marketplace are looking for a minimum of 10,000 megatonnes. To bring a package to the marketplace takes a number of farms.”

Thoroughgood with his son Nolan, who wasn’t interested in farming even a year ago, but now hopes to move back home to help. Photo: Sara Hylton / The Narwhal

Carbon offset revenues from no-till methods aren’t a panacea for Alberta farmers, however. Haugen-Kozyra says the carbon yield calculated by the protocol averages about 0.08 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per acre using no-till methods, depending on the region. At today’s ceiling price of $30/tonne, that means a farmer might make $1.80 to $2.10/acre after negotiating with an aggregator and paying a 15 per cent commission. 

“We always say offsets are kind of like Air Miles. You might have been going to fly anyway …  It’s not a windfall.” 

Carbon credits can also be earned for following 4R protocols for fertilizer as well as for using advanced feeding techniques to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fed cattle. Two projects to reduce emissions in cattle were just certified in Alberta.

“It’s the first beef carbon in the world,” Haugen-Kozyra says. “People like beef carbon. It’s kinda sexy.” 

Advanced feeding techniques can reduce the amount of methane cows belch into the atmosphere. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

When cows digest food, they create what’s known as enteric methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Viresco recently wrapped up a study using a feed additive called 3-NOP in 12,000 head of cattle, which reduced methane emissions by between 17 and 70 per cent, depending on the exact diet. 

“It’s like Beano for cattle,” Haugen-Kozyra says.

Haugen-Kozyra has been working on carbon offset protocols since 2001, when she was employed in Alberta’s agriculture ministry and Paul Martin was prime minister. During the ensuing Harper years, federal interest waned. Now, with the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change mandating a price on carbon nation-wide, the file is moving again. 

“I’m not getting any younger. I’d really like to see some stuff take off in a big way in this country,” Haugen-Kozyra says. “We need everyone to roll up their sleeves.”

Will early adopters be left out?

While Thoroughgood is excited about the potential for carbon markets, he is concerned that the program still has some kinks.

“We’ve been very frustrated trying to engage on getting zero-till farmers some credit for the carbon we sequester, or have sequestered,” he tells me.

Thoroughgood has been working with Ducks Unlimited as an agrologist for 23 years. Photo: Sara Hylton / The Narwhal

He’s concerned that those in the agriculture industry that are already sequestering carbon, either deliberately or as a side effect of their operations, are not going to be rewarded.

“Ranchers who have all this carbon sequestered, because they ranch, probably are not likely going to get a reward,” he says.

“We’re not rewarding the early adopters, which is, you know, what often happens, but I think that this has driven a wedge in the discussion around how agriculture can be more productively engaged in Canada’s climate adaptation and mitigation strategy.”

Indeed, farmers in Saskatchewan, where there hasn’t been a carbon market to date, have been missing out on earning carbon credits thus far. And given the way carbon markets work, it’s tricky to earn credit for something you’re already doing, because a key hallmark of a carbon credit is it must be additional — in other words, it wouldn’t have happened otherwise. 

‘We were more efficient and we made more money’

Both Thoroughgood and Lowe acknowledge there has been tension between some farmers and those pushing for discussions about climate solutions.

“Too often we see conservation and agriculture as being at odds,” Thoroughgood  says. “And too often there hasn’t been a discussion about what it is we disagree on.” As it turns out, he says, the disagreements don’t amount to as much as one may have thought.

A combine is makes its way through Thoroughgood’s barley crop in Saskatchewan. Photo: Sara Hylton / The Narwhal

Thoroughgood has also been working with Ducks Unlimited for 23 years, as a regional agrologist. In recent years, the idea of farming practices going hand in hand with climate change mitigation has become more prevalent. And that, Thoroughgood says, is only natural. 

“A lot [of new farming practices] have been adopted because they’re financially sound,” he says. “We didn’t adopt that because it reduced our greenhouse gas emissions … we were more efficient and we made more money.”

“As a farmer, I’m not sure that I do anything with climate as my first motivator,” Thoroughgood says, though it is important to him that new farming technologies and practices have a climate benefit. 

But farmers have to be pragmatic, and economics do matter. Thoroughgood says that means benefits to the climate aren’t always the first priority. “It’s an ancillary benefit, not the primary.”

It’s an ancillary benefit — with big potential impacts on carbon storage.

— With files from Zoë Yunker and Emma Gilchrist

The Carbon Cache series is funded by Metcalf Foundation. As per The Narwhal’s editorial independence policy, the foundation has no editorial input into the articles.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This is the third part of Carbon Cache, an ongoing series about nature-based climate solutions.

It’s home to bears, elk, coyotes and birds, as well as people. It sequesters millions of tonnes of carbon. It’s taken millennia to become so biodiverse. It’s one of the most endangered ecosystems on the planet.

It’s not the rainforest. It’s the grasslands.

“In the prairie around here, it doesn’t look like much,” said Kansie Fox from Kainai Nation / The Blood Tribe, part of the Blackfoot Confederacy. 

“You go out there, it just looks like grass.”

Kansie Fox in her backyard in Lethbridge, Alta. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

But if you spend more time in the grasslands, you begin to see the life that exists, she said. Hundreds of plant species and more than 60 species at risk in Canada depend on grasslands. People also depend on the land. Kainai Nation citizens harvest medicine plants, hunt and hold ceremonies. Ranchers’ livelihoods depend on rich soil and healthy plants.

In the face of climate change, grasslands also have a major role to play in sequestering carbon, storing as much as 180 tonnes of carbon per hectare, equivalent to the annual emissions of 39 cars. (A hectare is slightly smaller than a Canadian football field.)

Some estimate the uncultivated grasslands of Western Canada may store two to three billion tonnes of carbon. 

The original extent of Canada’s native prairie grasslands. Between 75 and 90 per cent of the grasslands have been eradicated. Map: Alicia Carvalho / The Narwhal

And more attention is being paid to that carbon after a study published in 2017 found nature-based climate solutions could provide up to one-third of emissions reductions needed under the Paris Accord, which intends to keep global temperature increases below 2 C. 

“If you’re serious about greenhouse gas reductions, you have to make considerations for nature-based solutions,” said Bryan Gilvesy, CEO of ALUS Canada, a charity that works with farmers to restore habitat on their land. The charity helps farmers enhance the “ecosystem services” the land provides, such as clean air, clean water, carbon sequestration, flood mitigation and wildlife habitat.

“You get so much leverage out of nature-based solutions, whereby you sink carbon using nature, you create habitat for at-risk species, you create resilience because you manage floods better, you filter water because of the extensive root systems these plants have — you get a whole broad suite of benefits,” he said.

Dry mix grass prairie on the Lomond Grazing Association lease in southern Alberta. The grazing reserve harbours untilled native prairie, as well as wetlands, and is a refuge for many endangered species. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

The problem is, when grasslands are cultivated they lose up to half of their stored carbon and stop offering these ecosystem benefits. 

Over the past 150 years, between 75 and 90 per cent of Canada’s grasslands have been eradicated for agriculture and other development including roads, towns and industry. 

Much like old-growth forests, these grasslands can’t be replaced because they developed slowly over thousands of years. 

“One inch of topsoil takes about 500 to 1,000 years of building. That same one inch can be lost in a generation of mismanagement,” said Mickenzie Plemel-Stronks, cattle industry liaison for Ducks Unlimited Canada. 

And a lot of life and carbon sequestration happens far beneath the surface of the grasslands and is still a mystery to humans. 

“We don’t fully understand all of the components that are essential for the soil ecosystem. We can’t repair it if we don’t know what existed before it was broken,” she said.

After decades of destruction, people like Fox and Plemel-Stronks are taking things into their own hands to preserve the native grasslands that are left and bring the damaged land back from the brink. 

Mickenzie Plemel-Stronks is the cattle industry liaison for Ducks Unlimited Canada. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

Plemel-Stronks says one inch of topsoil takes about 500 to 1,000 years of building. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

Plemel-Stronks on the Lomond Grazing Association lease in southern Alberta. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

‘They’ve kind of been forgotten’

Plemel-Stronks said two hectares of grasslands can be home to more than 100 plant species, in addition to endangered species like the black-footed ferret and swift fox. 

Grasslands are also turning out to be one of the most resilient ecosystems to climate change.

The secret of the tremendous carbon storage potential of grasslands is in its roots, which extend for metres below the ground.  

“Most of the carbon in a grassland is actually underground,” said Silke Nebel, vice-president of conservation and science at Birds Canada. “This is important because when a fire comes, the carbon in a forest goes up in flames. But when a fire goes across a grassland, most of the carbon is still there.” 

Plemel-Stronks added that grasslands are “great flood mitigators,” absorbing rain and slowing runoff velocity.

Despite their many ecological benefits, for many years government policy has encouraged cultivating grasslands instead of preserving them. 

The 1872 Dominion Lands Act was meant to encourage settlement in the prairies and gave farmers 160 acres (65 hectares) for free as long as they agreed to cultivate at least a quarter of the land — and as long as they were over 21 years old and a man.

“That was the start of it all,” Plemel-Stronks said. “The act forced the conversion of a large area of land.”

Carolyn Callaghan, a senior conservation biologist at the Canadian Wildlife Federation, told The Narwhal that Canada has a poor inventory of its grasslands because there hasn’t been enough focus on them. 

“They’ve kind of been forgotten about,” Callaghan said. “But it’s the most threatened ecosystem terrestrially in Canada.”

Mickenzie Plemel-Stronks walks on a trail of in the prairie grass in southern Alberta. She notes that grasslands are “great flood mitigators.” Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

Otskaapistsisskitsi, or prairie aster, flowers grow among brome grass and leafy spurge (yellow). Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

Yarrow, or Achillea millefolium, in southern Alberta. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

‘We’re going to lose these plants’

As a result of the Dominion Lands Act and the encouraged cultivation of land, the majority of grasslands are privately owned and there continues to be little government protection. According to Nature Canada, only one per cent of the remaining 137,000 square kilometres of grasslands in Alberta and Saskatchewan are protected. This leaves a lot of the conservation work up to private landowners.

Api’soomaahka, or William Singer, is one of those people making the choice to convert his cultivated land back to native grasslands. 

Blood Tribe Land Management is working with Singer to protect traditional plants like sage, sweetgrass, mint and turnips, which are threatened by development and invasive species like leafy spurge. 

Singer was a child when his father decided to cultivate their land. Ten years ago, he began working to turn the land back to its former state.

“I’m not here to make money off the land. I’m here to heal it,” he said.

Api’soomaahka, William Singer, with his dog Zorro on the Kainai Blood Tribe reserve near Stand Off, Alta. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

Singer shows a seedling of Idaho fescue amid introduced species of plants on land he is working to restore to native grassland on the Kainai Blood Tribe reserve. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

Singer shows a goldenrod plant on the Kainai Blood Tribe reserve. Goldenrod is a native plant but its Blackfoot name has been lost to colonization. Singer is seeking a name with Elders from his community. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

When he began, Singer said it was all dirt and weeds. He’s been tackling invasive species, trying to grow native species and doing prescribed burns while avoiding pesticides and herbicides. It takes time to reclaim cultivated land, and leafy spurge is a tenacious enemy. Its roots can grow nine metres deep, and its seeds can remain dormant underground for eight years.

“You can’t get rid of it. All you can do is control it,” Singer said.

Leafy spurge is harming native medicine plants like sage and sweetgrass, which Singer has watched disappear. 

“A lot of the plants we rely on are seriously in decline right now,” he said.

Leafy spurge, an invasive plant, grows in the prairie that Singer is working to restore. He uses controlled burns, goats and hand weeding to remove the yellow-flowered plant, but its roots can extend nine metres deep. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

Ninaika’ksimii, or Louisiana sagewort, grows in Singer’s yard. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

If things continue the same way, “eventually, we’re going to lose these plants,” he warned.

Singer is working with Fox and others from the land management department to grow native plants in garden beds and preserve seeds to eventually fight back leafy spurge.

He has high hopes the combined efforts of preserving native plants and doing prescribed burns will revitalize the land and benefit wildlife and his community.

“They’ll be able to collect whatever plants and herbs they need out here,” he said. 

Singer and his dog Zorro on the Kainai Blood Tribe reserve. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

Singer is working with the Blood Tribe land management department to grow native plants in garden beds and preserve seeds to fight back against invasive species. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

Fox said balancing the desire to reclaim native grasslands with financial needs can be tricky. Many tribal members rely on income from leasing their land to farmers. 

“We don’t want to prevent anyone from getting money they need just for living,” she said.

While government incentives exist for crop farmers, historically there has been little compensation for those retaining grasslands. But that’s changing, with a bevy of projects looking at the potential for carbon markets to play a role in saving Canada’s grasslands with the help of landowners. 

“The biggest thing we can do is reduce the risk of conversion to more intensive agriculture,” Callaghan said. “That means we need to support our ranchers who are on the land making a living.” 

Kansie Fox said many tribal members rely on income from leasing their land to farmers. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

Grazing is part of the solution

Mark Boyce, a professor of ecology at the University of Alberta, had his aha moment about the carbon storage potential of grasslands in 2010, after organizing the International Congress for Conservation Biology conference in Edmonton. Each attendee paid a carbon levy of $27 to offset emissions, which tallied about $50,000. Boyce was responsible for investing the money on behalf of the Society for Conservation Biology, which organized the conference. 

“The worst thing you could do in Alberta would be to invest in forest lands because they burn every few years,” Boyce said, noting that the Rocky Mountain forests and boreal are well known for having extensive fires. 

Instead, the society ended up buying the 90-hectare Wildrose Ranch, south of Lethbridge, Alta., in partnership with the Alberta Conservation Association, Alberta Fish and Game Association and Ducks Unlimited.

“It had been severely abused,” Boyce said. “It was grazed to a nubben and there were patches of bare ground and it was just a mess. So we took cattle off it and within a few years we’d sequestered three metric tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year. And the rebound in terms of vegetation and grasses was a real eye-opener. It was amazingly effective.”

Cattle near Black Diamond, Alta. Grazing is actually necessary for healthy grasslands, which were once home to large herds of bison. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

Next, Boyce and his colleagues started studying alternative grazing methods. One approach called “adaptive multi-paddock grazing” involves taking a large plot of land, chopping it up into smaller pastures and moving cattle from one pasture to the next every few days, giving each pasture a chance to reap the benefits of just the right amount of grazing.

“If there’s too much grazing, things go to pot,” Boyce told The Narwhal. “You overgraze and it exposes the soil and you lose carbon. Light grazing might not make much difference. But with intermediate grazing, you have hoof action that disturbs the soil, which increases water infiltration and creates the seed bed for plants.”

Four years ago, Boyce’s team got a grant from the federal Agricultural Greenhouse Gases Program for a project working with 60 ranches across grasslands in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba to study the impact of different cattle grazing systems on soil carbon. 

“If you have rich black soil, that black is largely carbon,” Boyce said.

Now the question is quantifying that. “You can’t find two ranchers or two farmers who do everything the same,” Boyce says with a chuckle. “I grew up on a farm and you wouldn’t tell my grandad how to manage his crops.”

Still, the goal of the five-year project is to make recommendations to ranchers on how they can best manage grazing and provide alternatives on how to finance a new approach. 

Dry mix grass prairie on the Lomond Grazing Association lease in southern Alberta. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

Bison a keystone species in grasslands

Historically, bison have been the keystone species for the grasslands, meaning they define the ecosystem and it would be drastically altered without them. 

Fox said the Blood Tribe plans to reintroduce grazing bison onto the reserve in the next year.

As the tribe works to reseed and fight invasive plants in the grasslands, she pictures one day creating a larger corridor for bison that have been nearly eradicated by decades of change on the landscape. 

“The way grasslands evolved changed the evolution of bison, and the way bison evolved changed the evolution of grasslands,” said Ben Campbell, who owns Grazed Right, a ranch in Black Diamond, Alta. 

Birds have evolved to nest in the shorter, grazed grass. Even bison and dung beetles have a relationship, with dung beetles fertilizing the soil. Bison spread seeds on their hooves as they migrate.

“If you remove them, the ecosystem becomes sick,” Campbell said. Grazing cattle have filled the role bison played before they were nearly eradicated from the grasslands, creating the conditions native species need to flourish and continue to store carbon. By keeping the grass alive, Campbell said “cattle keep carbon in the ground.” 

Ben Campbell, owner of Grazed Right, a ranch in Black Diamond, Alta. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

Campbell says “cattle help keep carbon in the ground” in grasslands. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

Campbell with his son William, 3, on the family ranch. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

Campbell’s son Sam, 5, on his family’s Grazed Right ranch. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

Campbell likens being a ranch manager to being an “ecosystems manager” and says if cattle are managed properly, they can help that ecosystem. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

Campbell has more than 270 grazing cattle on his ranch. He likened running a ranch to being an “ecosystem manager” and said having thriving cattle and grass encourages other wildlife.

“We have tons of gophers. Rather than poison them, we let coyotes and badgers live here. We had three coyote dens last summer,” he said. “We just let them be.”

Cattle have gotten a bad rap as methane emitters and land guzzlers, but Campbell said it’s more complicated than that. Cattle aren’t all good or all bad — if they are managed well, he said they can be good for the land and “participate in nature.”

To save the grasslands, Campbell said it should be illegal to plow native grassland — an opinion he said is not popular since it would mean “government telling people what to do with their property.” Still, he said, the ecosystem is too endangered. 

“Not one acre of native grassland has ever been restored,” he said. “You can get it near, but not the same as it was.”

Callaghan echoed that. “Once the sod is busted, it’s never quite the same grassland,” she said.

A road through the untilled native prairie grass of the Lomond Grazing Association lease in southern Alberta. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

Putting a price on carbon in the grasslands

In October 2019, the carbon offset registry Climate Action Reserve adopted the Canada Grassland Protocol. The protocol outlines the process for quantifying greenhouse gas reductions on grasslands. There are two types of carbon markets — compliance-based markets, which serve large greenhouse gas emitters required by law to offset emissions, and voluntary markets, which allow buyers to purchase credits voluntarily. The Canada Grassland Protocol was designed for the voluntary market.

To be considered under the protocol, the land must have been in continuous grassland cover for at least 10 years, and landowners can earn credits for up to 30 years.

The Canadian Forage and Grasslands Association, which supported the creation of the protocol, is now evaluating the protocol by working with about 50 private land owners through a four-year pilot program funded by Shell Canada.

“It’s been really encouraging. We’ve gotten a lot of calls from people saying ‘I’d like to put my ground in the pot,’ ” said Cedric MacLeod, executive director of the Canadian Forage and Grasslands Association.

“Ranching is a pretty tough way to make a living,” MacLeod said, noting many ranchers are now looking at how to put a value on the ecological goods and services being provided by intact grasslands. “And carbon is part of that.”

How much can a rancher expect to make from carbon credits? That depends on a lot of factors, from the price of carbon to the amount of carbon in the soil in any given area. With a $30/tonne price on carbon, ranchers in Alberta and Saskatchewan can expect to make between $7.50 and $30 per acre, MacLeod said. (The federal price on carbon is scheduled to rise to $50/tonne by 2022.)

Property owners have to follow certain guidelines, such as avoiding excessive livestock grazing and generally need to sign a conservation easement that guarantees the grassland will stay intact for a set period of time. Boyce, the University of Alberta professor, said an average ranch on the Prairies is about 2,000 acres (800 hectares), which means a typical rancher could earn between $15,000 and $60,000 a year by managing their land according to the protocol. 

“It helps the balance sheet so it makes it more worthwhile to go that way instead of plowing it up and planting canola,” Boyce said.

MacLeod is a rancher himself and said one of his key jobs is to temper expectations.

“If you think you’re going to fund your ranch on carbon, you’ve got to stop thinking that way,” he said. “This is the gravy on your french fries. Ketchup is free. You usually pay a little bit for gravy.”

Wildflowers and native plants grow in the ditch next to a field of canola on the Kainai Blood Tribe reserve. Oftentimes, it makes more financial sense for a landowner to plant a cash crop like canola than to maintain the native grasslands. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

While there have been no carbon offsets verified in Canada yet, Boyce said carbon offsetting is already happening in the grasslands of Montana and California.  

For Tom Harrison, executive director of the South of the Divide Conservation Action Program, the big question about carbon markets is how much landowners will actually benefit. 

“I’m skeptical because I’m not sure what the benefits to the producer are going to be. I’m worried that there’s going to be too many groups in between that are going to gather up the profit,” he said.

Harrison, a rancher who lives about 30 minutes north of Regina, said many landowners are interested in the potential to sell carbon offsets. 

“They’re curious, right? What does it mean? What are the terms? What is it going to look like for a producer to do this? Everybody’s going to have to make their own decision,” he said. “I know lots of guys that won’t put an easement on their property. That seems to be a big sticking point with this.”

Those who are willing to put easements on their properties usually fall into one of two categories, Harrison said.

“They either have a strong conservation ethic or they’re financially strapped and they’re looking for some quick money,” he said, as he bumped down a rough road in his truck. 

MacLeod said the easement component is critical for “permanence,” a key factor in carbon offset markets.

“We can’t see it. We can’t feel it. We can’t put it in a bottle. We can’t measure it like a tree. These are modelling-based processes,” he said, emphasizing the buyers of the offsets need assurance they are credible.

But he acknowledges that not everyone likes the idea of putting an easement on their property.

“ I get it. It ties you up,” MacLeod said. “You’ve really got to be clear on what your long-term goal for that piece of ground is. But a lot of these grasslands … they won’t be anything other than grasslands, so these families are securing their legacy.”

Dry mix grass prairie in southern Alberta. Canada has lost nearly 60 per cent of its grassland birds since 1970. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

Nebel of Birds Canada said “the devil is in the details, but in theory this is a way you can generate income.”

Birds Canada started taking a closer look at the emerging avenue of carbon markets for grasslands conservation after the release of the 2019 State of Canada’s Birds report.

“It showed grasslands birds are really tanking,” Nebel said. “They’re disappearing fast.” 

Indeed, the report found that Canada has lost nearly 60 per cent of its grassland birds since 1970.

“The main driver of grassland birds disappearing is that grasslands are being plowed,” Nebel said. “It’s way more profitable for a rancher to get rid of the grass and plant a cash crop.”

The new protocol for carbon credits from Canadian grasslands is exciting because it creates a market force to retain those disappearing grasslands, Nebel said. 

“If the price on carbon increases, which depends on where the federal government is going on this, then this could become a driving force in the protection of prairie grasslands,” she said.

Birds Canada is developing a list of financial incentives for grassland owners, which it will distribute to farmers and ranchers to raise awareness.

The Food Water Wellness Foundation, an Alberta non-profit, has also launched a project to measure carbon in agricultural producers’ soils in hopes of demonstrating carbon sequestration, so producers can sell that sequestered carbon on the carbon offset market.

The project entails taking core samples from 60 different points on a farm or ranch, sending those samples to a lab and then creating a carbon distribution map, which will also tally the total amount of carbon soil on the property. After the farmer or rancher has implemented regenerative practices to build soil carbon, the soil will be re-tested.

“We’re hoping our research can form a way to quantify the carbon on any individual piece of land,” said Kimberly Cornish, executive director of the foundation.

“Because it hasn’t been assigned a true value, that’s why it’s not being protected.”

— With files from Emma Gilchrist

The Carbon Cache series is funded by Metcalf Foundation. As per The Narwhal’s editorial independence policy, the foundation has no editorial input into the articles.

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