One farmer's uphill battle to provide cheaper, more environmentally friendly alternative to fertilizer

As the agriculture industry faces soaring costs for fertilizers and climate-related pressure to reduce the use of such products, some farmers are looking at different ways to feed their crops.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine caused prices to spike amid a global shortage of fertilizer this past spring, which put many farmers in a tough spot: pay sky-high prices for traditional fertilizers or consider different options.

Some resorted to the conventional method of spreading manure on fields (which caused a shortage of animal poop in some parts of North America), while others considered switching to a variety of substitutes to provide nutrients to their crops.

One of those alternatives is a technology designed by Gary Lewis, a Southern Alberta farmer who is growing mustard, wheat and yellow peas on his 1,600-hectares of land this summer. To grow those crops, he isn't using traditional fertilizer. In fact, he hasn't used any for the last 20 years.

Instead, he relies on the technology he's developed called Bio-Agtive, which collects exhaust from his tractors and injects the material back into the ground as a carbon-based biofertilizer.

Lewis says interest in Bio-Agtive jumped this year, likely driven by dollars and cents. With the drought last year, some farmers struggled to pay their bills, then, he said, when fertilizer prices spiked this spring, many family farms again felt the financial squeeze.

"If there's no need to change, you won't change," he said, noting that he hopes research being conducted into the effectiveness of Bio-Agtive will spur more people to adopt the technology. 

The fourth-generation farmer and father of five says he's come close to financial ruin in years when his crops and soil have failed.

A few decades ago he began to question the amount of fertilizer he was using and became intrigued with the idea of taking the carbon exhaust from the tractor's diesel engine and feeding it into the soil.

Lewis, who is also an auto mechanic, started tinkering in his workshop. His wife, Barb, said he became obsessed with plant science.

"He was reading science books all about plant nutrition," she said. "Then I would see him make plants in egg cartons, putting seeds and dropping emissions from the exhaust of vehicles and watch them grow."

After plenty of trial and error, Lewis built his own carbon capture and sequestration unit. Hoses connect his tractor's diesel exhaust to a system that cools the gases. The filtered carbon water is spread along with the seeds or piped through his irrigation system. He says he saw almost immediate improvements in his crops and soil.

"C02 is the building blocks of life. It made sense that I could take the emissions from that tractor and put it through the air delivery system with the seed and just try it. Why not? This is experimenting," he said.

The spike in fuel and fertilizer costs are the main reason why this year's crop is considered the most expensive in Canadian history.