Natural Capital Publications

Authors: Anthony Charles, Chris Burbidge, Heather Boyd and Amanda Lavers

The over-fishing that depleted many of Nova Scotia’s formerly abundant commercial fish stocks, and led to the infamous cod collapse of the 1990s, has left the province’s fishing industry vulnerable to the current economic crisis – as is being seen today in the lobster fishery. This is one of the key findings of a new report by GPIAtlantic, the Nova Scotia based non-profit research group that is developing new measures of progress for the province. The report, Fisheries and the Marine Environment in Nova Scotia: Searching for Sustainability and Resilience, highlights key ecological, socioeconomic and institutional aspects that should be monitored by government agencies and considered by decision-makers. The report updates and extends a previous 2002 report, with a new analysis of where the province’s fisheries and marine ecosystems are heading, based on nine “headline indicators”. Among the highlights is a new indicator showing that we are “fishing down the marine food web”, relying more and more on species low in the food chain. On the human side, a key indicator of resilience and overall health in the fishery, the age profile of fishers, shows a worrying trend; the average age of fishers has been increasing considerably over time, indicating that young people are finding it hard to enter the industry. Other indicators in the report include the size and abundance of fish stocks, the state of marine “species at risk”, the extent of shellfish closures along our coasts, the fishery Gross Domestic Product, and fishery employment. The report draws on all these indicators to lay out areas in which action is needed to ensure sustainable prosperity along our coasts into the future.

This 338-page report—the last (and possibly most important) of six volumes in the GPI Soils and Agriculture Accounts developed over more than a decade—examines the contribution of agriculture to rural community viability in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island from an economic, social, environmental, and community perspective.

The study looks at trends in wages paid by farms, ratios of wages to farm expenses and receipts, jobs in agriculture, age of farmers and potential for farm renewal, food imports vs purchase of local food, percentage of consumer food dollar going back to farmers, and the wide range of economic, social, and environmental contributions made by farms to rural communities in the two provinces. It suggests new indicators required to track progress towards a healthy farm and food sector in the Maritimes.

The report also examines the economic and social implications for rural communities in the two provinces if farms falter and if farming ceases to be viable. And it looks at the growth of farmers’ markets and other new forms of farmer-consumer relations developing outside the normal retail sector. The report is so comprehensive and far-reaching in its scope that it has the potential to become a blueprint for the future of agriculture in the region.

• Are farmers in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island earning enough to stay in business?
• If not, how will the loss of farms affect jobs and income in rural communities?
• Do the prices farmers get for farm products cover their costs of production?
• And how do those prices compare to the cost of food in grocery stores?
• What, in short, is the future of farming in the Maritimes? — Is farming still a viable institution in the region, and can it survive?

• Net farm income
• Expense to income ratio
• Farm debt
• Total debt to net farm income ratio
• Solvency ratio (total liabilities or debt divided by total assets or capital value of farms)
• Return on investment

Sharp increases in global fuel and food prices, much higher transportation costs, and warnings of major commodity price fluctuations have increased insecurity about our food supply and forced many jurisdictions to look at reducing dependence on imported food supplies. Does Nova Scotia have sufficient fertile, good quality farm land to feed itself? That’s one of the provocative questions examined in this report on the province’s land capacity, which is the third section of Part 2 (Resource Capacity and Land Use) of the GPI Soils and Agriculture Accounts.

Part 1 of the GPI Soils and Agriculture Accounts is the Economic Viability of Farming, and Part 3 (to be released in August, 2008) is on Human and Social Capital in Agriculture. The previous two sections of Part 2 (Resource Capacity and Land Use) are: Soil Quality and Productivity and The Value of Agricultural Biodiversity. Summaries of those reports can be accessed here.

This new study also examines long and short-term trends in the province’s farm land and estimates the total real estate and productive values of that farm land in dollar terms. It also assesses the quality of Nova Scotia’s farm land, including its susceptibility to water erosion and compaction. The new report is particularly timely in view of public debates in the Annapolis Valley about whether prime farm land should be conserved for growing food. Compensating farmers for loss of development rights is an issue that is addressed in the report.

Authors: Linda Pannozzo and Ronald Colman

The report assesses whether progress towards sustainability has been made since the release of the 2001 GPI Forest Accounts for Nova Scotia in the following key areas: 1) forest age class distribution and restoration of older forests; 2) forest-dependent flora and fauna species at risk; 3) protected areas as percentage of total provincial land mass; 4) harvest methods; 5) value added per cubic metre of wood harvested; and 6) jobs created per unit of biomass harvested. The report is accompanied by a list of recommendations that flow from the evidence indicating how forest sustainability can be improved.

The GPI forest update is part of a major effort currently under way to update results from nearly 12 years of developmental work to create a Genuine Progress Index for Nova Scotia. That completed GPI will summarize key headline indicators in 20 social, economic, and environmental areas, and is intended to provide the province with a practical tool to measure its progress towards genuinely sustainable prosperity.