Keystone Agricultural Producers thinks farmers should be excluded, to a degree, from the province's upcoming carbon pricing system.

The farm lobby group voted Thursday, at its Fall Advisory Council Meeting in Portage la Prairie, to lobby the Government of Manitoba to exempt all direct emissions from agricultural production from a Made-in-Manitoba carbon pricing system.

“Right now, at this point in time, we need fertilizer and fuel to produce food – it’s that simple,” said KAP president Dan Mazier. “However, we want to be part of the solution and move to new production methods and technologies that will reduce or eliminate our carbon footprint – but we can’t do it alone.”

KAP says that farmers will inevitably pay for the carbon price added to inputs they purchase.

The resolution will also see the group lobby the government to use money collected from the carbon pricing system to help farmers reduce carbon emissions.

High farmland property taxes was also another hot topic debated at the meeting. KAP passed a resolution asking the Government of Manitoba to move to a model of education funding that removes school taxes from farmland and farm buildings, and which instead relies upon personal and corporate income taxes as well as school taxes applied to residential property.