From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Joseph Fournier

Canada’s emissions policy rewards biofuels but punishes the people who grow our food

In the global rush to decarbonize, agriculture faces a contradictory narrative: livestock emissions are condemned as climate threats, while the same crops turned into biofuels are praised as green solutions argues senior fellow Dr. Joseph Fournier. This double standard ignores the natural carbon cycle and the fossil-fuel foundations of modern farming, penalizing food producers while rewarding biofuel makers through skewed carbon accounting and misguided policy incentives.

In the rush to decarbonize our world, agriculture finds itself caught in a bizarre contradiction.

Policymakers and environmental advocates decry methane and carbon dioxide emissions from livestock digestion, respiration and manure decay, labelling them urgent climate threats. Yet they celebrate the same corn and canola crops when diverted to ethanol and biodiesel as heroic offsets against fossil fuels.

Biofuels are good, but food is bad.

This double standard isn’t just inconsistent—it backfires. It ignores the full life cycle of the agricultural sector’s methane and carbon dioxide emissions and the historical reality that modern farming’s productivity owes its existence to hydrocarbons. It’s time to confront these hypocrisies head-on, or we risk chasing illusory credits while penalizing the very system that feeds us.

Let’s take Canada as an example.

It’s estimated that our agriculture sector emits 69 megatonnes (Mt) of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) annually, or 10 per cent of national totals. Around 35 Mt comes from livestock digestion and respiration, including methane produced during digestion and carbon dioxide released through breathing. Manure composting adds another 12 Mt through methane and nitrous oxide.

Even crop residue decomposition is counted in emissions estimates.

Animal digestion and respiration, including burping and flatulence, and the composting of their waste are treated as industrial-scale pollutants.

These aren’t fossil emissions—they’re part of the natural carbon cycle, where last year’s stover or straw returns to the atmosphere after feeding soil life. Yet under United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines adopted by Canada, they’re lumped into “agricultural sources,” making farmers look like climate offenders for doing their job.

Ironically, only 21 per cent—about 14 Mt—of the sector’s emissions come from actual fossil fuel use on the farm.

This inconsistency becomes even more apparent in the case of biofuels.

Feed the corn to cows, and its digestive gases count as a planetary liability. Turn it into ethanol, and suddenly it’s an offset.

Canada’s Clean Fuel Regulations (CFR) mandate a 15 per cent CO2e intensity drop by 2030 using biofuels. In this program, biofuel producers earn offset credits per litre, which become a major part of their revenue, alongside fuel sales.

Critics argue the CFR is essentially a second carbon tax, expected to add up to 17 cents per litre at the pump by 2030, with no consumer rebate this time.

But here’s the rub: crop residue emits carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide whether the grain goes to fuel or food.

Diverting crops to biofuels doesn’t erase these emissions: it just shifts the accounting, rewarding biofuel producers with credits while farmers and ranchers take the emissions hit.

These aren’t theoretical concerns: they’re baked into policy.

If ethanol and biodiesel truly offset emissions, why penalize the same crops when used to feed livestock?

And why penalize farmers for crop residue decomposition while ignoring the emissions from rotting leaves, trees and grass in nature?

This contradiction stems from flawed assumptions and bad math.

Fossil fuels are often blamed, while the agricultural sector’s natural carbon loop is treated like a threat. Policy seems more interested in pinning blame than in understanding how food systems actually work.

This disconnect isn’t new—it’s embedded in the history of agriculture.

Since the Industrial Revolution, mechanization and hydrocarbons have driven abundance. The seed drill and reaper slashed labour needs. Tractors replaced horses, boosting output and reducing the workforce.

Yields exploded with synthetic fertilizers produced from methane and other hydrocarbons.

For every farm worker replaced, a barrel of oil stepped in.

A single modern tractor holds the energy equivalent of 50 to 100 barrels of oil, powering ploughing, planting and harvesting that once relied on sweat and oxen.

We’ve traded human labour for hydrocarbons, feeding billions in the process.

Biofuel offsets claim to reduce this dependence. But by subsidizing crop diversion, they deepen it; more corn for ethanol means more diesel for tractors.

It’s a policy trap: vilify farmers to fund green incentives, all while ignoring the fact that oil props up the table we eat from.

Policymakers must scrap the double standards, adopt full-cycle biogenic accounting, and invest in truly regenerative technologies or lift the emissions burden off farmers entirely.

Dr. Joseph Fournier is a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. An accomplished scientist and former energy executive, he holds graduate training in chemical physics and has written more than 100 articles on energy, environment and climate science.

Trish Wood

Based on our Criminal Code — the answer is yes!

There is little doubt in my mind that what occurred at Universal Ostrich Farms represents a violation of our Criminal Code. This is not hyperbole for clicks — but rather a conclusion based on years as a science writer and judicial reporter.

The idea of code violations really took hold for me yesterday when I read a note posted by a follower from a Canadian veterinarian who is outraged over the cruelty and bad science that underpin this ugly chapter in our history.

But first: There are reports from the ostrich farm that there were two rounds of shooting. One at night, in the dark and another in the morning. If true, this suggests a horror. That some birds weren’t killed instantly. Did some lay dying overnight and “finished off” in daylight? Help me understand how this could even happen? Why were some of the corpses beheaded – which is an unapproved method of killing. Were some found alive after the snipers left and beheaded by CFIA staff?

It’s been reported, but not verified, that roughly 1000 rounds (bullets) were fired to kill between 300 and 350 birds. Simple math says — three shots each, give or take. But we know it wouldn’t have worked out that way. Some would have died instantly and others would have been shot repeatedly — perhaps fighting and writhing until the end. This outcome should have been predicted. We need to see the plan. What instructions were the shooters given and by whom?

This “culling” requires a criminal prosecution and I do hope that someone visits a local lawyer about how to push a Crown for charges. There will be government recordings and they should be made public. I suspect this event went badly off the rails.

Because they were firing at night, in order to prevent media from attaining the gruesome truth, it’s likely some of the marksmen missed their targets even with portable lighting and scopes. That kill shot might have been the head — which is quite small and always moving. The body is less likely an instant kill but an easier target.

We must demand both the criminal, animal cruelty investigation and a public inquiry, under oath to determine how CFIA argues this was necessary. I do hope the veterinary science schools will step up — especially Guelph which is considered one of the best in the world.

Below is the criminal code on animal cruelty.

After an international conference on Avian Flu — a Swedish vet and academic wrote a paper on acceptable killing methods. Shooting birds is listed under “Less Acceptable”. Here is the link.

CFIA’s own handbook says killing by shooting should only be used as a last resort. From a CTV story.

The manual says gunshots should be considered “as a last resort” for euthanasia, while breaking a bird’s neck is also appropriate in some situations, and is listed among methods “when dealing with larger birds such as emus and ostriches.”

It’s difficult to know what actually happened during the actual killing but accounts of the infamous 1932 Emu War in Australia suggest the birds would have been very aware they were about to die. We can understand better the bird’s experience of it by looking at that case given the similarities between these species.

The military was deployed with machine guns to cull emus that had been ruining local farm crops. History reports that the emus won the battle because they were using strategy and tactics to stay alive including posting lookouts. From Britanica, link here.

“It soon became clear that one emu in each group served as a lookout to warn the others, giving them time to escape. Meredith stated publicly that the emus could “face machine guns with the invulnerability of tanks.” Such statements made military action against the emus increasingly unpopular, with opponents arguing that such treatment of emus was inhumane.”

These are intelligent creatures with a will to live and to protect themselves.

Emus proved difficult to kill during the Emu War for a combination of reasons related to their natural resilience, speed, unpredictable behaviour, and the unsuitability of the military’s tactics and equipment.

This is another Jenga pull in our country’s downfall at the hands of robotic bureaucrats and “scientists” who long ago parked their humanity in service of groupthink and politics.

Why didn’t CFIA take advantage of offers to keep the birds alive by moving them to the United States? The same reason the Liberal government invoked violence and the Emergencies Act against peaceful protestors even though there was a deal being struck with the city and Convoy leaders wanted to talk.

It is the flex. The kind used around the world by tyrants to keep uppity citizens frightened and docile — which Canada most certainly is these days.

We are a signatory to a treaty with the animal equivalent of the WHO – called the World Organization for Animal Health, headquartered in Paris. This is to protect our poultry producers and their markets.

It is this international body that governs how CFIA behaves. And it rules with the same kind of fear mongering propaganda that the human version does. A good idea — badly executed and designed to save industry at any cost. Culling sick animals is sometimes necessary. But that’s not what happened at the ostrich farm.

Stay critical.

#truthovertribe