Agriculture Committee on May 11th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

We're just pretty close to out of time.

Both panels today have been excellent, and I mean that sincerely.

One thing that we heard this morning from Jonathan Stockall, and Nathan alluded to the same point, was that there is a lot of optimism out there. That's key. That doesn't take away from the fact that there are some obstacles out there, but to hear especially somebody your age say that really registers with me. Obviously, all of you have a love for agriculture and that's key, and I do honestly believe that we do have a future. It doesn't mean that we don't have some things to change.

Was it you, Corey, who talked about the picture of the cattle? The guy wanted to stay away from that picture. I shook my head when you said that, because I think it's the wrong way to go at it. We should be educating people, but yes, that's where steaks come from. I mean, hello: it's reality. Becky talked about it this morning, about the chocolate milk from brown cows. I'll tell you, growing up on a farm, we had cousins from Toronto who would come up, and they honestly believed that too. And that was more than 30 years ago. I can't believe it's still there. I don't know whether it's us as farmers who haven't done a good enough job to educate our urban cousins or government, or whatever it is, but collectively I think we can improve on that.

Nathan, you also talked about not relying on government programs. We heard that same comment more than once. One that stuck out came from a guy in Saskatchewan. He basically said the same thing: not only do we not want to farm the mailbox, we shouldn't be. He made a comment--further to what Mark said--about what people perceive as problems in AgriStability, that they say, well, if one commodity is good and the other one's bad, then it writes it off.

This guy out in Saskatchewan--this really stuck with me--said, well, it's our obligation as farmers; if we're going to be diverse, we don't put all our eggs in one basket and we stay good. You don't farm something just because you know you're going to get a government cheque out of it. It's the wrong attitude.

I think, hearing from you, you agree with that. It's the same type of thing. We have a responsibility as farmers to try to stay away from the public purse if we can, but it isn't always possible. I thought that was really important.

The other thing you talked about was exports, and basically, exports are overproduction in your own country. Coming up through the beef industry all my life, I fully support exports. We're a huge country with a small population and huge land base, and we can export. We can feed a lot of the world. But there's one thing about protecting our domestic food supply.... You know, it's like grandma and apple pie: nobody has a problem with that. But I think most of us--I know I do--have a problem with subsidizing exports.

This is my question in all this. How do we separate the fact that while we, as governments and a society, support the farmer for domestic consumption...but stay away from subsidizing overproduction?

It's not an easy answer; I've wrestled with it a lot myself.

Are there any comments on that?

[Nathan Phinney]

I don't know so much about the subsidizing part of it, but your exports are manipulated by what cattle are owned by Americans up here. Mark said something about legislation, that abbatoirs couldn't own cattle any more than a week or whatever it may be.

If something like that was in play, then that, I believe, would force them to leave the cattle in Canadians' hands to feed the cattle and not own them themselves. Then, yes, if there's overproduction, export it all, if you have that much. But as it is now, I think when you look at the numbers--I have here how many millions of pounds are exported--I'll bet it would be safe to say that 70% of the export is American-owned. That's them just shipping it down below the border as boxed beef.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Just on the packing plants--you were referring to their owning cattle and what have you--that's always been an issue for me. I have a private member's bill right now that would basically not allow it. At this point, it's not illegal for a packing plant, such as Cargill or Maple Leaf Foods, to own hogs or whatever. It's not illegal for them to do that. My private member's bill would prohibit any company from doing that. It's for publicly traded companies, not corporate farms. There are lots of family farms that are corporate. But it would keep any publicly traded company from accessing the regular farm programs, such as AgriStability and AgriInvest, that all of you would access.

If you go online, you can find it. I'd appreciate any comments on it, whether they're negative or positive, because it's a start.

[Corey MacQuarrie]

Mr. Chair, there was mention of beef and pork possibly going under supply management or some type of system. I think a big answer to our problems is managing our supply. When we get caught in overproducing, just like a lot of commodity markets, it drives the bottom out of the market. It's a vicious cycle, and it seems never-ending. As producers and as government, we need to do a better job of managing the country's supply of exports.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

That's a good comment.

On that, we're going to end this. We're out of time.

I found both of the sessions today very valuable, as did everybody.

Thank you to all of you for coming here today. I know what it's like to take time out of your busy schedule. Thanks again.

I understand the media is here.

They wanted to take some pictures, Malcolm, of you in your chair and what have you.

Thanks to everybody here. We had a great turnout today in the “gallery”, as I call it. It shows there's an interest in agriculture here.

It has been great to be in New Brunswick. Thanks for hosting us.

The meeting is adjourned.