SWIFT CURRENT, Sask- The National Farmers Union believes that implementing Estey's recommendations on grain transportation and handling will increase greenhouse gas emissions and accelerate global warming. The NFU communicated its concerns in a letter today to Environment Minister Christine Stewart and Natural Resources Minister Ralph Goodale.

The NFU letter pointed out that Estey's recommendations to remove the grain freight rate cap and deregulate transportation would open the door for wholesale branchline abandonment. Branchline abandonment will sharply increase CO₂ emissions. Trains are three times more fuel efficient than trucks, and trains produce only 1/3 as much CO₂ per tonne-mile as trucks (Enviro. Implications of increased trucking due to branchline abandonment, Roberts, Sloane, & Associates, 1992). "If Canada is to reduce (or even stabilize) emissions of CO₂ and other greenhouse gases, we must act immediately to ensure that grain stays on the rails and off the roads," stated the letter.

NFU Saskatchewan Coord. Stewart Wells, who wrote the letter, stated: "In considering transportation-system changes, climate change is not a trivial issue. Ferocious storms in Oklahoma, Florida, and Ontario; record high temperatures over the last decade; flooded farmland in southern Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and scientific evidence of swiftly increasing CO₂ levels all point to a looming crisis. Pressure to curb CO₂ emissions is mounting. Tearing up branchlines will move us in the wrong direction and make necessary much more expensive measures to curb emissions in the future."

For farmers, there will be a direct economic cost if we fail to take advantage of least-cost CO₂ reduction strategies. The production, processing, transportation, and distribution of food-from seed to shelf-produces CO₂. If we increase CO₂ emissions in one stage, transportation, the burden of future emission reductions will fall increasingly on other stages, such as production. Terminating branchline abandonment and increasing railway utilization allows farmers and agri-food sector participants to cut emissions in a relatively painless and low-cost manner. If we do not do so, we will be forced to make deeper and more costly cuts in emissions at other stages along the seed-to-shelf chain. If CN and CP, by abandoning branchlines, force an increase in CO₂ emissions, then the need for cuts elsewhere increases; those cuts may prove very expensive; and those cuts will likely fall on the production and processing sectors. This will further increase costs to farmers riding razor-thin margins.

Canadian federal officials agreed in Kyoto, Japan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. So far, little progress has been made on reduction. Transportation is the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada. Current federal forecasts are for transportation-related emissions to rise to 26% above 1990 levels by 2010 and 42% above 1990 levels by 2020.

The NFU is a voluntary organization that works with farm families to develop and implement policies in the interests of farmers and in the public interest.

For More Information:

• Stewart Wells, Sask. Coordinator: (306) 773-6852
  
• Darrin Qualman, Exec. Sec.: (306) 652-9465