I pass too.
Evidence of meeting #50 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was agriculture.
Evidence of meeting #50 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was agriculture.
2:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
I have three questions myself. Throughout the discussion, I believe we're talking about the APF and looking at the future—not just at the problems we're facing today and the business risk management design, but looking at the future. There were some comments made during the presentations and through questions and answers that I want to throw back at you.
You talked about more value-added. A number of you mentioned that we have to have that. I think one term was “distinct value to the buyer” in making the nutraceuticals and some of the new product lines out there that are going to be grain-based or livestock-based products. What about distinct value to the producer, making sure the trickle-down is there?
The second question I had was on the next generation of farmers. We talk about trying to maintain the family farm operation. I'm a farmer, my dad was, and my granddad was, and it goes on and on, back even into Europe. The question becomes this: it's easy for our kids to leave and to enter into new professions, but what about urban kids? It seems to be extremely difficult for them to come out and join the agricultural culture and society that we have. How do we make this work, so that you may not necessarily have had to grow up on a farm to actually own it and operate it in the future?
The final comment I had, which actually goes back to a comment Mr. Jacobson made, is that during the first round of talks on APF, five or six years ago, SAF felt that the whole process had been predetermined, that you were just a participant listening to what was going to happen and did not necessarily have any input.
I ask this of all of you who participated in the first and second rounds of talks on APF 2: do you feel this is the case today, or do you think, based upon the comments that have been coming back from provincial and federal ministers, that they are listening?
I ask for comment back on those three areas.
Mr. Jacobson.
2:45 p.m.
President, Alberta Soft Wheat Producers Commission
Since I raised the topic, I guess I get the first kick at the cat here.
On farmers' participation and the feeling about what the process is, I don't know how many people I've talked to about when we went through the APF 2 process. Everybody was wondering, is this really going to help? Is it really going to help; are they listening?
Then the provincial Government of Alberta called a group of us all together, and we went through this process again. It was basically a mini-APF thing too. We got a report back from the government.
When you have the provincial government and the federal government doing the negotiating on that, and you have the federal bureaucrats designing the program, and you leave the other segment that's really affected out of that process.... We don't even have any idea of any input into the programs. Basically the whole process over the years has been, “Come to us, say what you need, and go back.” The provincial governments decide exactly what to do.
Yes, I think a lot of producers feel the same thing might happen in this process again. Then when you do such things as cancel a national safety net group that was actually an adviser to the government and say you want to come out to talk to each of the individual groups, well, to us.... I've talked to enough people who say, “If I have ten different groups, I'm going to get ten different opinions, so I can do what I want.” If you can get those ten groups together and come to a consensus on a lot of things, that will help and will increase the producers' confidence that maybe the government is listening.
2:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Essentially what we're trying to do here is reconcile this between what's been happening through the consultations and the discussions we're hearing about from the government standpoint, and trying to collect our own information now to see whether or not everything reconciles at the end of the day.
2:50 p.m.
President, Alberta Soft Wheat Producers Commission
Basically I think we have a “wait and see” attitude. But we are skeptical—that would be a good word—and we'll see what comes out of it.
2:50 p.m.
As an Individual
I was part of some of the initial discussions and research, and definitely what was discussed by industry and what came out were two entirely different things. I've expressed this before and I think it's a fair statement. But it doesn't mean we can't start again under your chairmanship and carry forward.
You asked a question about value-added and distinct value to producers. That's a very good question, because in the beef industry, primary producers used to have 25% of the beef dollar about 15 years ago; they now have under 8%, and a fed cattle producer only has 16.8% of the whole beef dollar. What we've seen is a fundamental shift away from the primary producer, from the processor—which is even tighter, which is even a smaller margin—and have seen the majority of the value of the food dollar end up in retail. If we really did want to talk about this seriously, James, we would have to look at how we're handling—we don't have a real wholesale industry anymore—the retail end of things.
As to the next generation of farmers and urban participants, again I go back to some of my key points, where I talked about education—I can't drive this home enough—the sharing of information, this getting engaged. I like to see urban kids involved in agriculture: they don't come with any baggage. They look at it in a new way and from a consumer's perspective, and at the end of the day, they're who we're here to serve.
Those are just some brief comments.
2:50 p.m.
Treasurer, Alberta Soft Wheat Producers Commission
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We definitely need the farmers to be at the decision-making level, as Lynn talks about, because we've been left out too long.
I can't give you an answer to the question, but I want to give you an example.There are two men standing in a field in a sparsely populated area in southern Alberta. One is an agriculture producer. The other one is a heavy-duty mechanic in the oil industry. The heavy-duty mechanic gets a raise of $8 an hour on January 1. The farmer gets a raise if fertilizer goes up $120 per tonne from last fall. There is a disastrous imbalance.
Thank you.
2:50 p.m.
Vice-President, Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association
The capital costs are just too high to get the rural population involved in agriculture, and the returns are too low. No bank would ever look at anybody trying to start from scratch in agriculture. The returns would have to increase before that could ever happen.
I guess the whole thing with all the safety net programs...and we just saw it here today. I talk about production insurance and NISA, and then the cattlemen say, well, that's not good for cattle, and the hog guys say it's not good for hogs. I just don't know. There isn't going to be a one-size-fits-all program to make everybody happy. So do you go that way or do you go to a percentage of revenue so it's equal cost to everybody, or do you have separate programs? It's a tough one.
2:50 p.m.
Chair, Alberta Grain and Oil Seeds Crisis Advocacy Trust
Mr. Chairman, I always make a habit of not commenting on something I don't fully understand. I wasn't involved in the initial part of APF, but I have been involved and understand what went on. I can't answer your question honestly, from my judgment, on whether or not it's been done right or wrong.
With respect to rural population, I don't know about anybody else's farm, but we have a large operating line of credit, and we don't get it unless it's well secured and they can get twice as much back out of it as they ever gave us. So if you're going to get young people involved in agriculture today without someone with deep pockets behind them, it just plainly isn't going to happen.
By the way, I might make a comment to you that Farm Credit Corporation does a wonderful job. They communicate well and they could probably communicate even better and make it easier for young farmers. But to get people from an urban setting, unless they have deep pockets, I just don't think it will happen.
2:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Essentially we've become big business. If you look at big businesses that are proprietorships, those will stay in the family, but you don't enter. You always have to enter on a small scale and work your way up, right?
2:55 p.m.
Chair, Alberta Grain and Oil Seeds Crisis Advocacy Trust
We look at my farm as a business. My son-in-law is Dean Hubbard, and he's a very smart guy and we work well together. It's a good solid name, right?
It's not a way of life. You can't have a bunch of sentiments about it. It's a business. If it's not going to succeed, we're going to make widgets or do something different. But we love agriculture and would like to stay there. We've lost our shirt the last couple of years and we're hoping to recover some, but it's a business and it's tough out there.
2:55 p.m.
Vice-President, Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association
Just speaking as a young farmer, what I've noticed from my age group is that it is a family farm, because the only way you can farm is if your dad gave it to you. I listen to conference calls over the web and video, and if I can't make it, I take my iPod and download it and listen to it on the combine or the tractor. It is big business, and that's the way our generation is looking at it. Unless we can look at it that way and make a good return, you are going to see fewer and fewer of us around, for sure.
2:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
I want to thank all of you for your presentations today. It was a very good meeting here in Alberta, as we had yesterday in B.C. We are getting a lot of work done in a short period of time, and it will help us develop our own report to the House of Commons on the APF and the future of our programs.
2:55 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
There is one thing.
To Lynn, this committee should hear from the safety nets advisory committee, but who should we hear from as a couple of people to represent it?
2:55 p.m.
President, Alberta Soft Wheat Producers Commission
Bob Friesen of the CFA would be a good representative to speak to that. Grain Growers of Canada were on it. How about the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, CCA? All those groups work together, and they have to work by consensus. Those of us in the farm community say those people have the time to do it, and our organization does not have time to look at that type of thing. We don't have the expertise or the money to do it.
2:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
My suggestion is that we can do it when we get back to Ottawa, since most of those organizations have offices in Ottawa. We've already heard from most of the national commodity organizations in Ottawa specifically on business risk management. We'll invite them to the broader discussion on APF at a later date. At that time, we can also tie it into the farm safety net advisory board.
With that, we'll say goodbye to Olds.
We're adjourned.