Saskatchewan farmers calling on province to step away from net-zero commitments

Farmer are thinking about more than their crops this harvest. They’re talking about the upcoming Saskatchewan election and how provincial and federal policies may impact their economic future.

“What’s going on, a lot of conversation about net zero and the agreements that I think we are hastily getting involved with,” farmer Brad Hanmer told CTV News.

“I think we need to take pause and have a deep conversation around what outcomes a net zero 2050 agreement would be not only for agriculture but the energy sector as well as the mining sector.”

The Hanmers estimate that the carbon tax alone will impact their farm by $1.2 million dollars annually by 2030.

Higher electrical costs are just one of many factors.

“Well certainly through what the customers have paid through SaskPower and SaskEnergy bills alone based on the fuel sources that they use, so coal and natural gas, it’s I’d say over a billion dollars that customers have paid,” Minister in Charge of SaskPower Dustin Duncan explained.

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Earlier this year, the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) overwhelmingly passed a resolution suggesting that carbon dioxide isn’t a pollutant and is calling on the province to step away from its net zero commitments.

“It’s just wrong. They’re telling us that carbon dioxide is a pollutant. It’s a plant food,” Last Mountain Councillor Ron Hanmer told CTV News.

“You only have to look at the way God made the earth. Plants absorb carbon dioxide, they give off oxygen. That’s the way it is.”

The National Farmers Union disagrees with the SARM resolution. Darrin Qualman serves as the director of climate crisis policy for the union.

“CO2 has a whole range of effects on crop growth. It’s true that if plants have elevated levels of CO2 they might grow a little better but that’s just a very, very small effect,” he explained.

“The main effect CO2 is having in Saskatchewan and around the world is to increase temperatures and therefore increase drought and drying.”

Climate policy is an issue that these farmers expect will be debated further in the fall election campaign.