Canadian Agriculture and Climate Change: A Case of Agricultural Exceptionalism?

This paper examines the climate change policy instruments and governance modes of the government of Canada as they pertain to agriculture with the objective of both assessing and explaining the extent to which they display evidence of the influence of agricultural exceptionalism. Consistent with general usage of the concept, the core principle of agricultural exceptionalism is the understanding that agriculture warrants differential treatment by governments, the reasons for which include agriculture’s contributions to broader national goals. Typical policy instruments associated with agricultural exceptionalism historically included state expenditure and regulatory instruments to shield the sector from the full impact of market forces. In the case of climate change, the policy instruments (informational, regulatory, expenditure) most germane to the question of agricultural exceptionalism are those with respect to climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation. While climate adaptation measures (aimed at reducing vulnerability to climate change effects) can be expected to yield benefits to those farmers who adopt them, the same is not necessarily true of climate mitigation measures (aimed at reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, GHGs). Insofar as they entail costs without necessarily additional benefits for farmers, climate change mitigation measures are arguably a better test of agricultural exceptionalism than are climate adaptation measures. The latter is especially the case given the Canadian government’s nation-wide GHG emission reduction targets and its mandatory carbon pricing policy. Accordingly, the exemption of agricultural production GHG emissions from mandatory climate mitigation measures, and/or a voluntary GHG emission target for agriculture can provide a prima facie case in support of agricultural exceptionalism. In addition to documenting the array of climate change mitigation and adaptation policy instruments deployed – and not deployed – by the Canadian government to date, the paper also examines recorded rationales for their selection. The latter effort focuses on the extent to which discourses consistent with agricultural exceptionalism are used to justify the selection (or non-selection) of policy instruments and targets. It entails content analyses of published statements by state officials and representatives of the farm community (including before parliamentary committees). In seeking explanations for the extent to which understandings of agricultural exceptionalism underwrite Canadian climate policies for the agricultural sector, the paper also examines the collaborative governance mode that characterizes the interactions between the Canadian government and the farm community in the construction of a sustainable agricultural strategy. Under investigation is the extent to which it has served as an effective forum for the farm community to define the imperative of economic sustainability--"you can't be green if you're in the red" – and to delimit legitimate climate and environmental policy instruments to those that also yield economic payoffs.