Traduction de «la conservation des sols agricoles » (Français → Anglais) :

A joint EU reference framework would be of decisive importance for the sustainable use and protection of agricultural soil with a view to monitoring progress in data collection and use; it could also be used to define good soil status and lay down uniform terminology and harmonised criteria for monitoring, as well as for defining priorities and the various policy measures for achieving good soil status.

Over the coming planning period we will see a number of deliverables in this area, and I'll list a number of examples: completion and publication of a report on the health of our atmosphere—this is a companion report to one you've seen before called Health of our Soils; transfer of the Plant Gene Resources Centre to Saskatoon; registration of a high-protein soybean variety for eastern Canada with significant yield to improvement; registration of prairie spring wheat with significant improvement in protein content; development of new anaerobic digestion technology to handle manure in an environmentally sustainable manner; development ...[+++] of technologies to improve ruminant nutrition—this again has efficiency and waste reduction objectives; development of processes for extracting food or feed additives from various agricultural products; increased access to safe, reliable water supplies for rural areas; maintenance of biological diversity through sustainable management of federally controlled and private range lands; development of a prairie-wide assessment for land-based issues facing the agriculture and agrifood sector; implementation of the national soil and water conservation program; implementation of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's biodiversity strategy; determination of the environmental sustainability of the departmental policies and programs; periodic assessment and reporting of the progress in implementing the department's sustainable development strategy, which is essentially the implementation of the action plan under that strategy; and development and implementation of the department's hog environmental management strategy, HEMS.

Such programs as the national soil conservation program, the sustainable agriculture green plan program, the permanent cover program, and our new national soil and water conservation program have all focused on encouraging farm production management practices that either directly or indirectly mitigate the effects of production on greenhouse gas emissions.

The main reason that carbon levels are going up in Canadian soils, particularly in the Prairies, is that over the last 15 or 20 years there has been a revolution in our farm management practices in terms of adopting conservation tillage, minimum tillage and no-till, which is practiced by more than 30 per cent of farmers in Saskatchewan.

Europe is favoured with highly productive agricultural soil but the continent also has vast natural and semi-natural lands, in which soil plays a vital role by conserving biodiversity and supporting global environmental systems.

Regionally based groups, including producer organizations, the “clubs agro-environnementaux” in Quebec, soil conservation groups (such as the Eastern Canada Soil and Water Conservation Centre), the PFRA, and others, all have networks.