National Agri-Environmental Health Analysis and Reporting Program

Overview

National Agri-Environmental Health Analysis and Reporting Program (NAHARP) provides science-based agri-environmental information that can play a critical role in guiding policy and program design, and can help determine which options will be most effective.

As policies and programs are implemented, information from NAHARP will help analyze and understand the results actually achieved. The information generated will also provide a general report card that can help track the environmental performance of Canadian agriculture.

One of the goals of Growing Forward is to position Canada as the world leader in environmentally responsible production while improving air, water and soil quality and conserving biodiversity. To help ensure the agriculture industry is on the correct path to achieving this goal, and to help determine the impact policies and programs have on the environment, the Government of Canada established the National Agri-Environmental Health Analysis and Reporting Program (NAHARP).

More than ever, achieving environmental sustainability in agriculture has become a pressing and complex challenge. As agricultural production has become increasingly sophisticated and intensified, environmental pressures have become more complex. Public and consumer scrutiny of how food is grown has heightened the challenge for producers to find the balance between achieving their economic objectives and managing their land in a sustainable way. In some sectors, environmental concerns pose a direct constraint to growth, and could increasingly affect the agricultural industry's ability to serve existing international markets, and to compete for new ones.

To manage these concerns effectively, it is important to first understand the pressures and opportunities that exist in terms of environmental sustainability.

Objectives

Provides science-based agri-environmental information that can play a critical role in guiding policy and program design, and can help determine which options will be most effective.