PRESS RELEASE

GPI report shows cattle, sheep, goats key to saving millions on NS farms

COLE HARBOUR, NS, SEPTEMBER 5, 2002 — Changes in Nova Scotia’s farming practices – including an increase in livestock - could create millions of dollars in gains for the province and improve soil, according to an extensive independent report released today.

The 200-page, two-part report by GPI Atlantic, a Nova Scotia-based non-profit research group, shows that across the province, soil is eroding six times faster than it can replenish itself. The report also shows we are losing soil organic matter, and growing more soil-degrading crops than before, leading to a decline in soil quality. These conditions cost over $11.5 million yearly in lost income on farms.

One of the report’s major recommendations is to integrate ruminant livestock operations – cattle, goats and sheep – into crop-growing regions. The animals’ processed manure, a cost-effective, safe, and efficient means of improving soil quality, would then be available to crop-farmers. The animals also create a demand for pastures and hay - crops that help build the soil.

"The bottom line is that crop yields will increase, while fertilizer and fuel bills will decrease," says report author Jennifer Scott, who has been doing agricultural research for the past 12 years. "Ultimately, the health and economic state of Nova Scotia farms matters because it affects our health, our food and our future."

The report is part of GPI Atlantic’s work to establish an index of sustainable development and wellbeing - the Genuine Progress Index or GPI - for Nova Scotia as a pilot project for Canada. This will provide a measure of progress that reflects social, economic, and environmental reality more accurately than traditional measures of economic growth like Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The GDP only counts what we extract and harvest from our natural resources (like timber, fish, and crops), while the GPI also values the natural wealth that remains (forests, fish stocks, and soils), and on which future harvests depend.

Under our current system of accounting, methods of agriculture that degrade the soil are profitable in the short-term. However, that short-term profit may translate into long-term costs, says the report. Soil erosion, heavily-compacted soil, and nutrient-depleted soil all cost farmers money to repair, threatening the future of Nova Scotia farms and potentially reducing food quality.

Unlike GDP, the GPI also counts the value of services provided by natural resources that are traditionally regarded as "free," and thus often taken for granted until they disappear. For example, the report shows that the fertilizer value from manure and crop remnants in NS is worth an estimated $17.5 million per year. Soils also act as a carbon sink. When they get compacted (by tractors for example), they emit more nitrous oxides, a potent greenhouse gas, causing up to $2 million in climate change damages. In addition, the report shows that healthy, carbon-rich soils are better at resisting drought.

The report also calculates the dollar value of free services some insects and worms provide to farms. A female ladybug will eat at least 2,400 aphids before she dies. Altogether, ladybugs supply provincial pest-control services worth $13.8 million yearly. Pollinators like honey bees provide a service worth $2.7 million yearly for Nova Scotia’s lowbush blueberry crop alone. And each year, earthworms in Nova Scotia produce a huge quantity of rich castings essential to soil quality that would cost a staggering $6.2 billion to replace on the commercial market.

In other words, these organisms provide services that are invaluable and literally irreplaceable. Unfortunately, as the GPI report documents, increases in farm pesticide use both in Nova Scotia and across Canada threaten many of these beneficial insects, worms, and bugs, on which soil quality and future food security depend.

Compared with the rest of Canada, Nova Scotia is in a good position to bolster soil quality. Eighty per cent of provincial farm land in rotation grows soil-building crops such as hay, compared with only 30 per cent nationally. Thirty-three per cent of NS farmed land receives manure applications, compared with only 7.5 per cent nationally. And since 1981, there has been a 31 per cent decrease in bare soil days in the province, the second sharpest decrease in the country - a trend that will help stop soil erosion if it continues.

Still, there is a lot of work to be done to maintain and improve Nova Scotia’s farm land. Since 1981, there has been a drop in land used to grow soil-building crops. Over the past decade, the area of land used to grow potentially soil-degrading crops such as potatoes and corn has increased 30 per cent. And since 1971, numbers of livestock on crop-growing farms have dwindled.

"Across Canada and in Nova Scotia, we are depleting and degrading our natural wealth - in this case soil - and therefore threatening future food security," says GPI Atlantic director Ronald Colman. "That loss is invisible in our standard economic accounts. This report evaluates how we’re doing in Nova Scotia, and points to practical and concrete solutions that can improve soil quality and increase our natural wealth."

Backgrounder: The Genuine Progress Index (GPI)

GPI stands for Genuine Progress Index, a new measure of wellbeing and sustainable development that counts social, economic and environmental realities more accurately than the Gross Domestic Product or GDP, which governments traditionally use to measure economic progress.

GDP – the old measure – represents the total of all goods and services produced in a given country, province, or region. Originally designed to track strategic production in wartime, it remains a familiar tool for gauging economic activity. Because it is so simple and familiar, the GDP tends to be used as a broad measure of social progress and wellbeing, tasks for which it is not just ill-suited but misleading.

The GDP makes no distinction between a dollar spent on a Lennie Gallant CD or a dollar spent repairing a window smashed by vandals. It includes a variety of expenditures defending against, or mopping up after, events that could hardly be considered marks of progress or wellbeing -- things like crime, pollution, and disease.

The Exxon Valdez contributed more to the GDP of Alaska by spilling its cargo than it would have by delivering it safely to port. Millions were spent on lawyers, court workers, environmental technicians, and ship repair. But this hardly represented progress or enhanced wellbeing.

One of the GDP’s most glaring problem is its failure to place any value on natural resources, except while they are being harvested and sold. It portrays natural resource depletion as economic growth and a sign of progress and well being. That’s like a factory owner selling off his machinery and counting the income as profit. Reliance on the GDP helps explain why the fishing industry appeared to be booming, with record catches, right up to the eve of the Atlantic groundfish collapse.

By contrast, the GPI treats natural resources as capital assets, subject to depletion if not harvested sustainably. For example, the GPI considers not only the ability of forests to provide timber for human consumption, but also their ability to protect against soil erosion, to store carbon and forestall climate change, to protect watersheds and wildlife habitat, and to provide recreation. In calculating the value of farm soils, the GPI includes the hidden value of livestock manure and of beneficial insects, earthworms, and bugs that enrich the soil and prey on pests, and it counts soil erosion and declines in soil quality as costs. The GDP only counts crop yields, even if the farm practices used to produce those crops degrade the soil.

GPI Atlantic is a leader in efforts to create new measures of wellbeing. Its natural resource accounts, which include the Soils and Agriculture Accounts, represent the first attempt in attempt in any North American jurisdiction to overcome glaring shortcomings in the way the GDP accounts for natural resource depletion.