They may have to substitute recipe ingredients they have on hand or that are available to them. Or they may have to cut the shelves down a bit to fit the space they have available. That’s adaptive management.

Researchers at Cornell University, led by Dr. Quirine Ketterings, were among the first to pioneer the concept of adaptive management for agriculture, with the aim of developing adaptive nitrogen (N) management strategies.

The Cornell blog describes adaptive management as: “the process of refining a management strategy in response to evaluating its success. It takes into account data (measurements and observations) collected for local (often field-level) conditions, and evaluates success based on scientific principles and local experience. This iterative and interactive learning process looks for win-win opportunities, so that the grower is able to adopt practices that make sense locally for increasing profits and reducing environmental impacts at the same time.”

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Canadian pork exports in 2017 totaled 1.29 billion tonnes to a tune of $4 billion. On its own, Japan accepted $1.2 billion worth of pork products and is clamouring for more, according to council vice-chairman Rick Bergmann, speaking at the AGM.

“Only Japanese and Canadian fresh chilled pork is sold in (Japanese) Costco,” he said, referring to a trip to the country he took last month. “In Costco Canada, pork loins (generally) come from the U.S.”

The Canadian pork industry is experimenting with different kinds of chilled pork cuts to send to China, which is itself a $500 million industry, he said.

However, even as the promise of rising exports casts a glow around the industry, challenges, both old and new remain.

Red tape, the threat of a carbon tax, barn heating costs and building code regulations are just a few of the hurdles facing producers.

Farmers in the audience asked various presenters how to steer through the political minefields and public perception challenges facing their industry.

“How can we show the public we’re good at taking care of the animals?” asked one producer in the audience.

Council reps told delegates how they had launched an aggressive public marketing campaign aimed at addressing that very question, with many signs and ads going up in cities such as Winnipeg displaying the industry’s commitment to sustainable development.

As well, the council said it was making strides with improved government relationships.

Meanwhile, the porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) virus continues to be a serious issue affecting producers.

Last year, 80 farms (25 sow, 16 nursery, 39 finishers) in southern Manitoba were impacted by the disease.

As of Thursday there were just four positive cases listed in the province, according to Genelle Hamblin, the pork council’s manager of swine health programs.

Sixty-four other premises had reached a presumptive negative status, which meant they had gone 30 days without having any tests come back positive, she said.

“It came from a huge effort across the sector,” she said.

The council said it hopes to see 200,000 more finishing spaces by 2022 in Manitoba.

— Dave Sims writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Glacier FarmMedia company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting. Follow CNS Canada at @CNSCanada on Twitter.

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After an all-night session at the Manitoba Legislature, Bill 24 has passed its final reading and received royal assent.

Better known as the Red Tape Reduction and Government Efficiency Act, Bill 24 covers legislation ranging from consumer protection and labour relations, to residential tenancies and transportation of dangerous goods, but it has been proposed changes to hog production that garnered the most attention as the legislation made its towards becoming law.

“It’s good news for us of course, to be allowed to build barns without the requirement of an anaerobic digester, so it’s a step in the right direction,” said George Matheson, chairman of the Manitoba Pork Council. “It didn’t surprise me that it passed.”

The newly passed act amends The Environment Act, removing general prohibitions for the expansion of hog barns and manure storage facilities. Bill 24 also strikes the winter manure application ban from the Environment Act, although winter application would continue to be prohibited for all livestock operations in Manitoba under the Livestock Manure and Mortalities Management Regulation.

• Read more: Hog production faces opposing ideologies

While hog producers have never been banned outright from building new barns, the previous requirement that all new barns install costly anaerobic digesters effectively made new barn construction unattainable, the Pork Council has said.

Matheson said it’s possible that some new construction will begin as early as next year.

“I think that in 2018 we might see a few,” he said. “We’ve got the swine development corporation in place to assist producers with that — It’s one thing to be allowed to build barns, it’s another thing to get them built and go through the permitting process.”

He hopes to see an average of 10 new barns built each year for the next 10 years, enough to cover the current hog shortfall experienced by processors in the province.

“I’d say that’s a realistic goal, I hope we build more than that, but I think that’s very doable,” Matheson said.

Keystone Agricultural Producers were also pleased to hear the bill had passed its third reading.

“Clearly the government has made a commitment to taking agricultural issues seriously and dedicating the legislative time necessary to find resolutions to them,” said KAP general manager James Battershill.

The activist group Hog Watch Manitoba had opposed Bill 24, but could not be reached for comment before press time.

— With files from Allan Dawson

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While the plan includes a flat $25-a-tonne carbon tax starting sometime next year, it also says if Manitoba diesel pumps had to include five per cent biodiesel instead of the current two per cent, carbon emissions over the next five years would drop by between 360,000 to 431,000 tonnes.

• Read more: Mazier defends KAP’s approach on ‘made-in-Manitoba’ carbon tax

That would be the second- largest method of cutting emission behind the carbon tax, which is projected to reduce emissions by 1.07 million tonnes.

While the carbon tax is projected to reduce emissions by 40 per cent, adding more biodiesel would cut emissions up to 16 per cent, according to the plan.

“If we can convince the government that the biodiesel portion should be from canola, for example that’s a 1.9-million-tonne demand (based on five per cent biodiesel across Canada)…” Fossay said. “There’s a good chance we could see our (canola) prices go up.”

Someone suggested a higher biodiesel requirement could result in higher diesel prices, but Fossay noted “marked” farm fuel is exempt from the carbon tax.

In an interview later he said canola-based biofuel is cheaper to make than drilling for, extracting processing petroleum into diesel.

“We think it (canola-based biodiesel) will go a long ways to helping reduce carbon emissions that come from diesel fuel,” he said.

“By going to the B5 level (five per cent biodiesel) the carbon emissions will be reduced I believe by three to four megatonnes a year. So that goes a long ways to achieving the 80-megatonne targets that the (federal) government has… by 2022.”

The MCGA has not taken a position on Manitoba’s plan, but will discuss it at an upcoming board meeting, Fossay said.

The MCGA does favour more biodiesel, he said.

“Certainly any time we can find a new market for canola seed it’s a benefit to producers across Western Canada,” Fossay said.

KAP also supports regulations requiring more biodiesel be used, KAP president Dan Mazier said in an interview after the meeting.

“It will make a huge difference,” he said.

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Scientists there have demonstrated how to design and genetically engineer enzyme surfaces so they bind less to cornstalks and other cellulosic biomass, reducing enzyme costs in biofuels production, according to a study published in the journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering.

“The bottom line is we can cut down the cost of converting biomass into biofuels,” said Shishir P.S. Chundawat, senior author of the study and an assistant professor in the department of chemical and biochemical engineering at Rutgers University.

Typically, the enzymes tapped to help turn switchgrass, corn stover and poplar into biofuels amount to about 20 per cent of production costs, said Chundawat. Enzymes cost about 50 cents per gallon of ethanol, so recycling or using fewer enzymes would make biofuels more inexpensive.

“The challenge is breaking down cellulose (plant) material, using enzymes, into sugars that can be fermented into ethanol,” he said. “So any advances on making the enzyme processing step cheaper will make the cost of biofuel cheaper. This is a fairly intractable problem that requires you to attack it from various perspectives, so it does take time.”

Biomass contains lignin, an organic polymer that binds to and strengthens plant fibres. But lignin inactivates enzymes that bind to it, hampering efforts to reduce enzyme use and costs, according to Chundawat.

The researchers showed how specially designed enzymes can limit their binding to and inactivation by lignin.

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I am willing to bet that the grain growers among our readership just felt a small blood pressure spike at the very thought, anticipating dramatically lower crop prices.

That figure represents the portion of the U.S. corn crop converted to biofuels annually. However, the world’s oil producers and refiners have made it more than clear they’d love to see that stop.

The oil companies have attacked the mandates as wasteful, unnecessary, a subsidy by another name, and the fuels themselves as inferior energy sources that could be damaging to engines. They’ve also challenged the assertion they’re environmentally friendly.

Proponents have responded the industry creates jobs, lowers harmful emissions and keeps a portion of the US$1 trillion spent on motor fuel annually at home rather than shipping it overseas to unfriendly regimes.

Like all political fights, both sides seem intent on presenting the facts in the most positive light possible to make their case. But making their case both sides are.

• Read more: In Trump freeze, U.S. agencies delay rules affecting farms
• Read more: Former environmental official defends biofuels
• Read more: U.S. ethanol sector pumped on Trump

It’s become enough of an issue that even former U.S. agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack, a noted biofuels proponent, recently fretted publicly about their future. In an editorial board meeting with the Des Moines Register just before Christmas, Vilsack said he’s begun to see mixed signals about the U.S. Renewable Fuels Standard, predating even the contentious U.S. election. Vilsack even went so far as to indicate he’s “concerned” about the future of the U.S. biofuels mandate.

The Trump administration’s appointments to key cabinet positions haven’t been much source of comfort. The newly elected president has nominated two fierce renewable fuel foes to key positions — former governor of Texas Rick Perry has been tapped to head up the Energy Department and Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt is slated to run the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

There’s little doubt an elimination, or even just a reduction, in the U.S. biofuel mandate would be disastrous for the grain sector. When the mandates became reality with the U.S.’s Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, the effect on grain prices globally was immediate, pronounced and extremely positive. Between 2006 and 2008 average world prices for rice rose by 217 per cent, wheat by 136 per cent, corn by 125 per cent and soybeans by 107 per cent, according to USDA data.

In the ensuing years, farmers around the world have responded to that price signal like they always do. They’ve upped their game, made investments to grow their productivity, and met that demand. In 2006, the U.S. produced 10.5 billion bushels of corn. In 2016, it produced 13.6 billion bushels, according to USDA data.

Similar, and even greater, production increases can be seen in other locations around the world. Ukraine corn yields, for example, have more than doubled in the last 15 years. They’re a relatively small producer, but that figure underlines just how much potential there has been to increase yields globally.

We’ve seen very similar results in other crops as well. The Black Sea region, once a major grain importer under the Soviet system, has become a fiercely competitive wheat exporter. Presented with the first meaningful price signal since shaking off the shackles of that moribund economic system, farmers there responded by quickly adopting technology and genetics to spike yields.

It’s too soon to say for sure that the U.S. mandate is doomed. Plenty of people support the policy, and the renewable energy industry is finding its feet in the lobbying game and inevitable propaganda war. Vilsack himself had earlier predicted there would be a lot of sabre-rattling but no concrete action, and despite his growing alarm, that may still be the case.

But it is clear that the policy is back in play and must be protected. In Canada there’s only been a few shots fired so far, but the industry will need to respond, or risk being overlooked.

There’s little anyone on this side of the border can do to influence the U.S. decision, so the best course of action is likely going to be hoping for the best while preparing for the worst.

That means playing defence, keeping a careful eye on the bottom line, and using current conditions to prepare for future challenges.

For example, interest rates remain very low, so paying off debt now might make a lot of sense. Another similar wind at the back of the sector is the lower value of the loonie. It has lost about 25 per cent of its value, protecting Canadian farmers from lower global grain prices.

What the sector shouldn’t do is blithely assume the mandates will continue forever. If recent geopolitical events have taught us anything, it should be to expect the unexpected.

[Update] The editorial originally stated ‘400 million’ bushels of corn at the opening sentence. An error in calculation required a numerical update to ‘five billion.’ We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.

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In a report called Staying the Course, Miller blasts the Ecofiscal Commission, an economics think-tank, for calling for an end to the federal and provincial biofuel mandates because they’re too costly for the environmental improvement they deliver.

“Ecofiscal’s recommendation would result in more emissions; poorer air quality; increased consumer costs; and shut down clean technology research and development being conducted by the biofuels industry,” Miller said.

• Read more: In Trump freeze, U.S. agencies delay rules affecting farms
• Read more: Ottawa needs to get serious about encouraging renewable fuels

“Renewable fuels mandates are critical for transportation emission reductions in the near and longer term. There’s no good argument that this course needs correction. Now is the time to keep a firm grip on the tiller and continue staying the course. Canada must not abandon renewable fuel mandates, the single largest guaranteed source of transportation fuel emission reductions.”

Ecofiscal says carbon pricing will reduce emissions at a lower cost.

When compared with other policies, especially carbon pricing, biofuels are clearly not the most cost-effective approach to reducing GHG emissions, the commission says in its own report, Course Correction.

That report says low-carbon transportation policies are still likely needed to complement emerging carbon pricing policies in Canadian provinces. Biofuels have been costly for consumers and inhibited the development of emerging low-carbon technologies. Decarbonizing the transportation sector will involve many different and competing technologies and the technologies that prove the most effective and economically viable should win the day.

A pan-Canadian carbon price “is the most effective and cost-effective way to achieve Canada’s climate targets. Achieving a broad-based carbon price in Canada will shift the incentives for developing and deploying low-carbon technologies,” Ecofiscal’s report reads.

Among Ecofiscal’s commissioners are Don Drummond, a former associate deputy minister of finance, Chris Ragan, a special adviser of the Finance Department, Glen Hodgson, senior vice-president of the Conference Board of Canada and Mel Cappe, a former chief clerk of the federal Privy Council. On its advisory board is Dominic Barton, head of the global consulting firm of McKinsey & Co. and chair of the advisory committee to Finance Minister Bill Morneau.

Miller says that the economic and environmental case for Canadian biofuel policies and mandates is “quite different” from the negative assessment Ecofiscal presents.

“Biofuel mandates are key to any effective climate policy and should be increased by Canadian governments contrary to Ecofiscal’s recommendations,” he said.

“If the recommendation to phase out renewable fuel mandates was adopted by government, the policy structure shaping the biofuels industry would change profoundly, there would be serious implications to the existing industry and ongoing research into next-generation low-carbon fuels, and there would be negative environmental and economic implications.”

Miller says Ecofiscal made a serious error in concluding that ethanol was too costly an octane source for conventional gasoline. It treated ethanol as a substitute for gasoline.

“Gasoline must be blended to achieve an anti-knock performance standard referred to as octane,” he said. “Producing the required octane with a mixture of petroleum hydrocarbons while meeting pollution standards is expensive.”

As for Ecofiscal’s doubts about biofuels reducing air pollution, Miller says reviews have consistently found “adequate evidence of substantive improvements in air emissions especially at the tailpipe where in urban areas the health effects of poor air quality are most problematic.”

“The first-generation biofuels industries in Canada are now well established and viable in the absence of subsidies, but attempts to launch second-generation biofuels and other advanced fuel technologies are at a critical stage,” he said.

“The liquid transportation fuel retail supply structure is in the control of the fossil petroleum industry that has no reason to support alternative fuels. Shutting down mandatory access to the liquid transportation fuel market seems a sure way to terminate investment in research and development of renewable low-carbon fuels.”

As well, Ecofiscal objects to ongoing public funding of biofuels “while there is no mention of the substantial subsidies, both historic and ongoing, to the fossil petroleum fuel industry,” he said.

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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will delay implementation of this year’s biofuels requirements along with 29 other regulations finalized in the last weeks of Barack Obama’s presidency, according to a government notice. The U.S. Department of Agriculture will pause rules affecting livestock, groups said.

• Read more: Ottawa needs to get serious about encouraging renewable fuels

EPA and USDA representatives did not respond to requests for comment.

The freeze prompted worry in rural communities, though sources said such delays are not unheard of with a new administration. Trump won nearly two-thirds of the rural vote in November, with big agricultural states lining up for the Republican.

The more than decade-old Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) has been stymied by regulatory delays in years past and is facing uncertainty under the new administration, including a proposed EPA chief who has been a critic of the program.

The RFS, which is aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reliance on imported oil, requires that oil companies blend increasing amounts of biofuels, such as corn-based ethanol, into gasoline and diesel. Refiners that fail to do so must buy paper credits.

Some in the oil industry were heartened by the news. The oil industry has lobbied heavily for changes or a repeal of the policy.

“While the regulatory freeze implemented by President Trump does not change the statutory compliance of the RFS, it does provide an opportunity to take a closer look at this fundamentally flawed policy,” said Chet Thompson, president of the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, which represents companies including oil refiners.

Prices of the paper credits used by fuel companies to prove they are meeting the requirements dropped sharply after the news, falling to the lowest levels since November 2015.

The Renewable Fuels Association, which represents biofuels producers, said it did not expect the procedural delay to lead to any significant changes to the requirements. The delayed fuel rules will be implemented on March 21, according to a federal register notice.

About a third of the 13.6 billion bushels of corn produced in the United States in 2015 was used to make fuel ethanol, according to the National Corn Growers Association.

At the USDA, “they put a regulatory freeze on everything that is in the pipeline,” said Dave Warner, spokesman for the National Pork Producers Council.

The agency has put on hold new rules it had formerly said would help protect meat producers from mistreatment by packing companies and processors, he said. The pork council opposes the measures, saying they are not necessary.

The freeze is also affecting new rules that would for the first time mandate specific space requirements for hens laying organic eggs, Warner said.

The U.S. Cattlemen’s Association said the delay in implementing USDA rules involving meat packers was worrisome. The group, which represents cattle producers, had supported the measures as needed to prevent anti-competitive buying practices.

It was not immediately clear when or if the USDA rules would be implemented.

“We are certainly on edge right now and hope that with further review the Trump administration will see the value in those rules,” said Lia Biondo, the association’s policy and outreach co-ordinator.

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That’s according to Warren Mabee, public policy professor at Queen’s University, speaking at the Renewable Fuels Canada Forum, held recently in Ottawa.

Sticking with the existing provincial standards means every province goes its own way, which doesn’t encourage the creation of a national industry, Mabee said. The standard has to be more than regulations to generate research and development, new fuel refineries and consumer demand for biofuels. Biofuels have demonstrated they can reduce carbon emissions when blended into petroleum fuels.

“We need to connect the dots to get a meaningful policy,” he added. “We need a comprehensive strategy to bring more biofuels to market. That includes a paradigm shift in technology.”

The federal government should steadily ratchet up its renewable fuel goals to encourage Canadians to get with the program, while remembering it takes 15 years to bring a new processing technology to full production, he pointed out.

He also said that a national carbon tax has to be significantly greater than the current $10 a tonne to convince motorists to look for alternatives.

“We have to have alternatives to offer them and not just the pain of higher gas prices,” he said. “In urban areas, better public transit provides commuters with an option.”

Governments could push the transportation sector to aggressively reduce its 30 megatonnes of annual carbon emissions, he said.

David Bressler, executive director of the Biorefining Conversions Network, said that with gasoline prices restrained by global oversupply of petroleum in recent years, the impact of a carbon tax won’t have much influence on consumers. Federal officials need to look “… at where the prices and taxes could be in five years.”

“We need a long-term policy to allow renewable fuels to compete,” he said.

Even with years of biofuel production, there still is no major biorefinery in North America and a lot of companies have entered and departed the biofuel industry during that time. The industry needs to be stable. To be successful, a biorefinery will have to generate a wide variety of products.

A major challenge for biorefineries is “putting together a stable supply of agriculture feedstock. It has to be a system that makes money for them and the suppliers.”

He said the oilsands in Alberta and Saskatchewan required years of development and government subsidy before they became an economic force and the same backing should be available to biofuels so they can become profitable and sustainable.

“We need a policy incentive for biofuels that matches what the petroleum sector has received over the years,” Bressler said.

Sandy Marshall, executive director of Bioindustrial Innovation Canada, said revenue from the carbon tax could be used to support the creation of technology needed for biofuel development and carbon sequestration. He also urged government to give agriculture credit for the efforts the sector has made to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and increase its carbon storage in the ground.

The biofuel industry needs stability to attract investment, he added. If the industry is to grow to what it should be in 30 years, “there will be companies in it that don’t exist now,” he said. The important step for them is to keep their costs down and accept there will be some technological dead ends.

“Investors need confidence to invest in a company they expect will have marketable products,” Marshall said.

In addition to financial support, the best assistance governments can give the industry “is not to burden emerging technologies with complex requirements. Let them get out of the starting gate.”

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The Rural Municipality of Oakview council last month turned down an application for a 6,000-space feeder/finish operation near Rivers even though a technical review committee report said it met the necessary requirements.

Council gave no official reason for the rejection. Reeve Brent Fortune declined to comment.

But some local residents see the application as an attempt by the province and the industry to ram an unpopular project down their throats.

“This is an attempt to force an industry on an increasingly unwilling public,” said Jon Crowson, a retired farmer who spoke against the proposed operation at a public conditional use hearing in Oak River December 19.

Others at the meeting also voiced their opposition. Council rejected the proposal the following day.

The application by local farmer Wim Verbruggen was the first under a new government protocol to allow construction of new and expanded hog barns in Manitoba. Several more are in the pipeline.

The new procedure is supposed to make it easier to build new barns after the former NDP government enacted restrictions in 2011 which virtually shut down hog barn construction throughout the province.

The question now is how Manitoba’s hog industry will expand if municipal councils reject even modest efforts to ease building restrictions.

The events in Oakview municipality bring back memories of 15 to 20 years ago, when local residents repeatedly packed community halls to oppose hog barn applications because of environmental concerns, especially odour.

Such protests have decreased lately because of the government’s restrictions, plus a prolonged economic slump in the hog industry when few barns were being built anyway.

But some worry about a return to those days, now that the industry is recovering and new applications are coming forward.

“We’re back to the 1990s, if this is going to carry on, where municipal councillors are dealing with issues that we thought, and everybody agreed, they weren’t going to get involved in,” said Andrew Dickson, Manitoba Pork Council general manager.

Dickson was referring to changes in 2006 to the Planning Act limiting restrictions rural municipalities could put on hog operations. The reason for the changes was that the province felt RMs were straying into areas outside their jurisdiction.

But Crowson said those changes took authority away from local officials, put it in the hands of government, and public resentment has been simmering ever since.

“The province in its infinite wisdom has essentially gutted any opportunity for municipal input in this process through the (changes to) the Planning Act,” he said. “I would suggest to you that this pretty much makes a mockery of the so-called conditional use process.”

The technical review committee report gave Verbruggen’s application a passing grade, saying it met all of the setback, odour control, manure disposal and other requirements.

But Crowson and others claimed the report was flawed because it failed to consider that a proposed earthen manure storage lagoon was situated right over a surface watercourse.

That put the proposal in direct violation of provincial environmental law, Crowson argued.

“I don’t see how council can continue to give further consideration to this proposal, given clear non-compliance with the Environment Act,” he told the conditional use hearing.

Council had three options: to accept the proposal as it was, to reject it, or to accept it with additional measures, including shelterbelts and lagoon covers. It voted against the application by a vote of 5-0 with one abstention.

Dickson said he was disappointed that Verbruggen’s application met all the necessary standards but was turned down anyway.

It now remains to be seen what happens to other applications pending under the new protocol.

That includes a proposed $9-million swine genetics facility in the RM of Woodlands by the Dutch company Topigs Norsvin. Local residents have voiced strong opposition to the plan, saying it is just another hog barn by a different name.

Dickson said he hoped the Oakview experience won’t put a damper on other applications.

“We hope there are going to be municipalities that understand economic development is good and the hog industry is a real potential driver of economic development in their communities.”

Up to now, the previous NDP government had made it nearly impossible to build new and expanded hog operations. Under the Save Lake Winnipeg Act adopted in 2011, new barns would require prohibitively expensive anaerobic digesters for manure treatment.

Manitoba Pork and the province last year reached an agreement allowing new barns under certain conditions. That included having two lagoons for manure storage as equivalent to an anaerobic digester.

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