Evidence of meeting #20 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was winter.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
Let's suggest that maybe we keep the speakers we have for Thursday, but maybe we'll look at a Wednesday night meeting on this.
Mr. Lemieux.
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Chair, how long is the Wheat Board here for on Thursday?
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
Well, there's more than the Wheat Board. There is the B.C. Grain Producers Association, and there is Grain Vision. It's a pretty full slate. It's up to the will of the committee, but I think we should stick to that.
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Whether it takes an additional meeting or.... Could we block off some time for business either at the beginning or at the end of that meeting to get this bill through committee?
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
We might look at Wednesday evening. Does anybody have a meeting then?
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
It's always hard to set up an additional meeting, just because of our schedules. That's why I'm recommending that we take some of Thursday's meeting for business. If people have had the opportunity to study the bill, and if it's not going to take long to get it through committee, then let's block off 20 minutes or half an hour at the end of our next meeting to deal with the bill. Then we don't have to get into questions about some of us being able to get to this additional meeting and others having other commitments.
It would be nice to have an intact committee look at this bill and pass it as a committee. We're all here every time.
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
Well, if we have time Thursday, then.... But I think there's a sense too that these people are coming from all across Canada to be here Thursday and that we should hear them. Then, if there's time, we can start into this bill.
Are you saying that Wednesday night is not a good time for you guys?
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
The subcommittee meeting is Wednesday night.
11:15 a.m.
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
What would happen if we blocked another hour after the meeting on Thursday, just in case we need that full hour? This would give people time to get a substitute, if members can't come. At least we would have that hour, if we can get the room, and could just do it. This would give our witnesses time to appear, because they're making preparations, and then we'd have another hour, if we need that full hour, to deal with this bill.
11:15 a.m.
Bloc
André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
As Pierre said, if we start adding too many things—We must not forget that there is the sub-committee studying listeriosis and that the subject of the committee of the whole on Thursday evening is agriculture. I will certainly be there; I will not be able to study a bill.
It is Tuesday today. Is it too late to cancel Thursday’s witnesses so that we could study Bill C-29 and have the witnesses come on Tuesday? No. I had forgotten that next week is a constituency week. At any rate, we will continue examining competitiveness until June. We could split the session into two parts: one hour for the bill—because 20 to 30 minutes is rather short—and one hour to hear witnesses.
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
I was just going to say, Chair, that if actual farmers are coming here on Thursday, just from looking at the weather we are having and that we've had, they may appreciate a deferral until after our break, because they're busy sowing their fields. We might actually do two good things here: we tackle the legislation on Thursday and we keep farmers in their fields until after the break. That might be very much appreciated.
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
I wasn't going to go to more than 15 minutes with our other business here, but I think we have a bit of an agreement: that we keep the speakers, we go an extra hour, and get right into the bill.
Is that an agreeable compromise here?
11:15 a.m.
Some hon. members
Agreed.
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
Let's move on, then. We'll do that Thursday; the clerk will deal with it. Let's get back to what we started with, the study on competitiveness.
We have the University of Saskatchewan, the University of Lethbridge, the George Morris Centre, and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers here today.
Perhaps we'll start off with Brian Fowler. You have ten minutes.
May 12th, 2009 / 11:15 a.m.
Dr. Brian Fowler Professor, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Saskatchewan
In the interest of saving time, I will stick closely to my speaking notes. First, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to address this committee. In the time I have today, I will restrict my comments to a consideration of the competitiveness of Canadian agriculture as it relates to promoting innovation and wheat-breeding programs and market development in western Canada.
By way of introduction, I'm a professor in the Department of Plant Science at the University of Saskatchewan, with a long-term interest in a Saskatchewan farm. I've been involved in the wheat industry in the Canadian Prairies for my entire life and have spent most of the last 40 years on winter wheat development or related issues.
Since 1991, my breeding program has released 12 winter wheat cultivars that have occupied as much as 95% of the winter wheat acreage in western Canada. They've been grown extensively from Minnesota to Washington, in the U.S.A.. I have coordinated the central hard red winter wheat cooperative tests for the Prairie Grain Development Committee since their inception. This involvement has provided me with a unique vantage point from which to view and compare the practical operation of the western Canadian plant-breeding and market development programs.
In 2006, I made a presentation to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, during its review of the Canada Grain Act and the Canadian Grain Commission, on the problems associated with the use of kernel visual distinguishability in the Canadian wheat quality assurance program. The KVD requirements were removed in 2008. Although the debate still rages, I believe it has been clearly established that KVD acted only as a quality assurance placebo for a stagnant marketing system that was designed to handle Canadian western red spring and amber durum wheat. KVD restrictions acted to freeze the western Canadian wheat marketplace in the 1940s and severely limited the production opportunities for quality types other than red spring and durum. The elimination of KVD requirements now allows for the evolution of a much more fluid wheat marketplace, based on eligibility declarations that provide for an immediate assessment of potential market opportunities.
The western Canadian wheat cultivar improvement and marketing system is unique in the world and has been widely criticized for suppressing rather than promoting innovation. There are two major wheat markets: Canadian western red spring and amber durum. These two classes accounted for 88.3% of western Canadian acreage, and they have an international reputation for high quality.
The Canadian Wheat Board quality control system has four key elements listed on its website that set it apart from the competitors' systems. Two of these elements actively discourage innovation. Before a variety can be registered into a milling class, it must match the functional requirements of reference varieties in all aspects of quality, and uniformity is assured through the registration system, under which strict quality requirements result in very few market varieties being introduced.
Having two major wheat classes, a limited number of varieties, strict grading standards, and regional blending ensures uniformity at export. Shipments are strong selling points in an industrial wheat market in which assembly-line milling and baking procedures are used. The requirement that new variety releases in each milling class must match the functional performance of reference varieties is added protection against change creeping into the western Canadian wheat production and marketing system.
This rigid photocopy approach to wheat quality may serve well in the major export markets, but it has acted to suppress innovation and prevent the exploration and development of niche markets that are characteristic of a mature marketplace. As a consequence, the six remaining classes only share 11.7% of the acreage, which relegates them to little more than niche market status.
The western Canadian wheat registration system is rigidly controlled by the Prairie Grain Development Committee, cooperative testing and registration procedures, and evaluation teams. There are three evaluation teams that determine which wheat cultivars farmers can grow in western Canada. The quality evaluation team is made up of representatives of the milling industry, the Canadian Wheat Board, the Canadian Grain Commission, and others. It's the Canadian Wheat Board that ultimately determines the market targets. The grain quality evaluation team only determines whether the lines under consideration match the functional requirement of reference varieties for the target wheat class. Only wheat lines that successfully pass through this registration system may be offered for sale in western Canada. This restricted view of the wheat marketplace actively discourages innovation, resulting in lost opportunities and limited competitiveness.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has recognized the limitation of the Canadian registration system. In an impact analysis statement that was published in the June 2008 Canada Gazette, they identified the following issue:
The current variety registration system lacks sufficient flexibility to address the specific needs of different crop sectors in a rapidly changing agricultural environment. In some cases, the system imposes a disproportionate regulatory burden on developers of new crop varieties and creates impediments to innovation and to the timely availability of new varieties.
I would now like to turn to a real-life example. The winter wheat experience that I have had in the last number of years is a perfect example of how innovation has been frustrated and suppressed. Southern Alberta accounted for nearly 98% of winter wheat produced in western Canada before 1975. This production was disposed of on the domestic market and in foreign aid programs, and many farmers still had their winter wheat in storage almost two years after it had been seeded at that particular time.
In 1972, the Crop Development Centre at the University of Saskatchewan initiated a program to expand the traditional winter wheat production area north and to the east in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. In the years immediately following 1977, there was essentially only one cultivar, which was tall, prone to lodging, and susceptible to rust. In 1991, the medium-tall, lodging-resistant, semi-dwarf cultivar CDC Kestrel was released. Once increased yield potential was combined with the management practices that were developed, farmers in higher moisture areas of the eastern Prairies were able to increase yield targets from 45 to 50 bushels per acre to 60 to 90 bushels per acre, and the true potential of winter wheat started to be recognized.
However, this dramatic yield increase was accompanied by decrease in grain protein concentration, which came as no surprise, as the initial assessment of potential quality classes for the extended prairie production area indicated that high protein concentration was the only genetic and/or environmental barrier to the production of winter wheat cultivars suitable for all market classes. Unfortunately for winter wheat, the Canadian Wheat Board specializes in selling into high protein concentration markets, and it made attempts on two separate occasions to have CDC Kestrel deregistered.
A number of highly adapted winter wheat cultivars that once again did not meet Canadian Wheat Board standards followed CDC Kestrel as new releases in the 1990s. In spite of their lack of favour, these cultivars were widely accepted by farmers and, according to Canadian Wheat Board surveys, accounted for more than 95% of western Canadian winter wheat acreage in 1999 and 2000. In the nine-year period from 1999 to 2007, the average commercial yield of winter wheat was 150%, 127%, and 120% of spring wheat in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta respectively.
Winter wheat production grew to 1.5 million acres planted in 2007 and is now western Canada's third-largest class, with 6.6% of the total acreage. This major winter wheat expansion was achieved primarily through the production of non-select cultivars and the development of feed and fuel markets that happened more by accident than by design.
In 2001, the Canadian Wheat Board initiated market development work on varieties of winter wheat with superior milling and baking qualities. The class was divided into select and non-select cultivars in 2004. The non-select cultivars continue to dominate production in the western prairies and domestic millers continued to purchase them and utilize them, especially when the protein concentration is above 11%.
Another change came in 2007, when the Canada western general purpose class was created to accommodate new wheat lines for use in ethanol production and specialized animal feed. However, its creation also removed the non-select cultivar option from the food market. As a result, winter wheat cultivar registration is now limited to feed/industrial use and a single low return select option that is restricted by grain quality standards that are a photocopy of the class reference cultivar.
Additional opportunities exist in food, feed, industrial, and other markets, and the innovation that created the recent winter wheat success must continue to be encouraged. I'll give you just a few examples here.
Over 60% of the wheat trade in the world each year is winter wheat. It's used to produce a large variety of food and includes many kinds and types of breads, cakes, noodles, crackers, breakfast foods, biscuits, cookies, and confectionery items. The list goes on.
Quebec-based Première Moisson is one example of the successes that can be achieved in these so-called niche markets. Their research and development efforts include a systematic search of new blends of cultivar and crop management specific quality attributes to better supply ever-expanding markets.
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
Mr. Fowler, I'm sorry to interrupt, but we have a problem with the translation.
11:25 a.m.
Bloc
11:25 a.m.
Professor, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Saskatchewan
I thought so. I'm trying to get through it in ten minutes. And I'm a university professor, so I can go fast.... You want it slower, do you?
11:25 a.m.
An hon. member
Slow down, you're moving too fast--
11:25 a.m.
Professor, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Saskatchewan
You have to give me an extra two minutes, then.
