Agriculture Committee on March 3rd, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I call our meeting to order.

I'd like to welcome our witnesses and thank you very much for coming today.

We're going to start right off with Ms. Christie Young from FarmStart.

You may have ten minutes, please.

Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I'm not going to read the motion, but I want to make the committee aware that there is a motion in which we are proposing that we recommend the government place a moratorium on any approval of Roundup Ready alfalfa until the government completes public research into about six different areas. This is just so that it's on the record, so that people know it's there and can give us feedback.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay.

I believe it just came in today. As of right now, it's on the bottom of the list of motions that we'll be dealing with next week.

Thank you.

Ms. Young, go ahead, please.

[Christie Young, Executive Director, FarmStart]

Thank you very much.

My name is Christie Young, and I'm the executive director of FarmStart. We are a not-for-profit that was created to support a new generation of farmers.

Over the last five years we've been developing flexible programs in Ontario that provide new farmers from all backgrounds with the resources, tools, and support necessary to not only get their businesses off the ground but to thrive.

We are developing incubator farms and offer small start-up grants. Over the last three years, we've directly helped over 40 new farmers get their businesses started.

We offer a range of training and resources for prospective, planning, start-up, and re-strategizing farmers. Within the last three years, we have had 1,500 people come through our courses and workshops.

We've also developed a FarmLINK program that helps farm seekers connect with farmland owners and retiring farmers. Our website, farmlink.net, has only been operating for two years and currently has 600 profiles. We run consistently packed “Lucky in Land” meet-and-greets for these landowners and farm-seekers and are starting a coaching program for non-traditional farm succession.

We have begun to witness a strong resurgence of interest in healthy food and farming and see increasing numbers of young people from farm and non-farm backgrounds, new immigrants, and second-career farmers who are interested in pursuing a future and a livelihood in agriculture. They are interested in building entrepreneurial, economically viable, and ecologically sustainable farm enterprises. There are many challenges facing these new entrants, and yet there are also many opportunities, and they bring skills, connections, and passion that can lead to innovation and renewal.

What I have just described to you is what we at FarmStart see happening in our aging agricultural sector, where prospective new farmers are coming from, and where they are heading. More specifically in this discussion today, I want to communicate to you the kind of agriculture and food system that they are interested in being part of.

I would like to propose that the topic for today, how to ensure the viability and success of biotechnology in agriculture, is not the question you should be starting with. Any technology should be evaluated, developed, and adopted or discarded based on the purpose it serves or the harm it can do. Before we go down the road of adopting new technologies, we must be much clearer about where we want to be headed. What do we need or want to achieve in our food system today and for successive generations?

Over the last 10,000 years we have been adopting, testing, discarding, and building upon technologies that have helped us to farm better, produce more, work less hard, and so on. Biologically based technologies and techniques have been part of this agricultural development for much of this time. What makes some of the current biotechnologies different—in particular, genetically modified organisms—is that they are actually a means that will ultimately determine the ends, as they can negate other possible options once released into the environment through contamination, interbreeding, genetic mutations, and so on. This is very clear in the GMO alfalfa debate around organic production systems and in the debate around GE salmon with wild salmon populations.

So far, looking back on the past 15 years, it seems that the use of genetic modification in agriculture is predicated on and arguably is dictating a system of chemically dependent, mono-crop, energy-intensive, and land-extensive agriculture that is largely controlled by agribusiness interests. And while production has increased, it does not seem that farm viability has.

In considering deterministic, far-reaching, and unpredictable technological means, we must take a precautionary approach to regulation and release, by investing in public sector research and peer review, trial replication, and proof of intergenerational “lack of harm” that takes into account environmental, economic, and human health impacts.

That said, what I think is more important for the discussion today is how we are deciding on what ends we hope to achieve. A means should not determine the end, and we cannot continue to let the mere existence or possibility of a specific technology dictate the kind of agriculture we will end up with. In this context, those driving the creation of and profiting from biotechnologies should not be determining this end.

What kind of food system do we, as a growing, innovative, and creative human society, want and need to survive on this finite planet? We all want sustainable agriculture that will be equally, if not more, productive in the future; healthy and safe food; and viable farmers around the world.

I have seen some of the so-called New Vision for Agriculture initiative that has been prepared for the Davos economic development forum by McKinsey & Company. This report is funded and prepared by the same corporations that promote GMOs, along with junk foods—the very ones that now proclaim their interest in solving the global food crisis with their technology and know-how. The 17 global companies that championed this initiative include Archer Daniels Midland, Monsanto, Unilever, Syngenta, Walmart, DuPont, and so on.

I would suggest strongly that their claims need to be met with a careful scrutiny of their track record, and especially their concentration of power, the increasing use of agriculture chemicals—in particular, herbicide use—and the loss of farmer sovereignty over seed.

But this handful of companies are not the only ones that have ideas about where we need to head. There are many other peer-reviewed and comprehensive sources for road maps to a sustainable and productive agricultural future that can help us decide what technologies we use.

The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development's global report is one source, with over 2000 scientists and almost every international agricultural organization in the world involved. It is supported by every country except, notably, Canada, the U.S., and Australia. This report clearly articulates the growing consensus on the need for production and distribution systems that are equitable, ecological, resilient, biodiverse, localized, and that allow sovereignty over genetic resources.

I would be happy to talk about the specific recommendations further. I will mention that one key recommendation is to build healthier, more productive, and resilient agricultural systems; that is, to start with our soils. The farmers I work with and farmers around the world understand that investing in soil structure, organic matter, and biological life is critical to the health of their crops and to their bottom line.

For example, the Rodale Institute has been running comparative farming system trials for over 27 years in the United States, comparing organic farming systems with what we now term “conventional agriculture”. The trial shows an increase of over 30% in soil organic matter and 15% in soil nitrogen under organic management over 27 years. The production or yield of the organic farming systems consistently matched conventional management in good years, but in drought years, organic corn and soybean yields exceeded those of conventional management by 28% to 75%.

In addition to the increased resilience of these farming systems, the trial demonstrates several other critical benefits. Concerning energy use, this trial showed that diversified organic agriculture, with cover crops, reduces the use of fossil fuel energy by 33% to 50% when compared with a conventional agriculture system.

For carbon sequestration, the side-by-side comparison of ecological and conventional corn and soybean production showed that organic fields consistently sequester more than 1,000 kilograms per hectare per year of carbon, which is equivalent to capturing more than 3,500 kilograms per hectare per year of carbon dioxide.

Importantly in terms of the economic viability of these farming systems, an economic analysis at the University of Maryland has shown comparable returns in organic systems even without calculating the organic price premium, which currently ranges between 35% and 240%.

There are also many examples of useful technologies. The front-mounted crimper crop roller is a roller that sits on the front of a tractor; it can improve nutrition and reduce the need for tillage. It enables farmers to flatten and kill a rye cover crop while seeding out their seeds or seedlings in one pass, without the need for GM seed varieties or herbicides.

Precision technologies such as flame-weeding have allowed organic farmers to grow very successfully to large scales. Innoculants to help nitrogen-fixing cover crops take nitrogen from the atmosphere and make it available to plants have been very significant. We need to continue to better understand the role of rhizobia bacteria that attach to roots in our crops to fix nitrogen for us and the use of biological pest control in greenhouse management.

Those are just a few examples of very useful technologies. This brings me to my recommendation for your consideration.

The federal government needs to fund appropriate research and extension. This research and extension needs to be responsive to farmers' needs and new opportunities, as well as to ensure the long-term protection of our critical resources: our soil, our air, our water, and our ecosystems.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I would like the witness to stick to the study, which is biotechnology.

You seem to be wavering into a variety of other farm policy issues that aren't relevant to the study that's before us today.

[Christie Young]

I'm talking about examining technology in a broader context, and biotechnology is one type of technology. I'm giving you examples of other technologies.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Yes, but this study is actually on biotechnology, not the other technologies. So if you could relate to biotechnology, I'd appreciate it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I understand.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Larry, I don't want to get into debate on this, but, from my perspective, we don't need to narrow the focus. I've raised questions at this committee many times suggesting that maybe we should be researching in other areas and putting the investment into some other technologies—some of the ones that Christie is talking about.

Is all the money going to the so-called biotech places that we're looking at? I think there are opportunities here for many industries, and I wouldn't want to narrow the focus of what we're doing to ignore those areas.

I think what Ms. Young is saying is appropriate.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

We have another point of order.

Mr. Bellavance.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

I would like to respond to Mr. Hoback's point of order. I am surprised that he interrupted a witness. We have always given our witnesses some leeway. A number of subjects might be of public interest. We are not in the habit of censoring people here. I understand that, if someone drifts completely away from our subject, we could politely call them back to order, but I believe that, from the outset, Ms. Young has in general terms been talking about the subject that we are discussing today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

I'm sorry, Alex. I didn't realize you had a point to make.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

I think Randy's point could be taken in questioning. I think we should allow Ms. Young to continue speaking and then we can bring this out in questions and discussion.

[Christie Young]

I'm speaking about research and extension and evaluating technologies.

Our research and extension need to empower farmers and provide them with techniques and tools to farm better, to be more resilient, flexible, responsive, and productive. We need educated, professional, and experienced farmers today and 30 years from now, and we need more of them if we are going to feed our growing populations. We need to ensure that our most productive farmlands around the world are in the stewardship of sustainable farmers. We need resilient agriculture that can weather the existing and increasing climate-related and pest events, as well as the ups and downs of markets, trade, and public or political preferences.

The best way to do this is not to put all of our eggs in one basket. I would caution against reliance on the biotech or any other profit-centred industry to come up with the innovative and useful technologies, when they are not necessarily connected to the public interest; nor are they necessarily connected on the ground, as the farmers are, in each different geographic region. We need more people involved, more research institutions, and extension infrastructure that engages our farmers in defining priorities and sharing their knowledge here in Canada and around the world.

Thank you for your time and all the efforts that you have taken in this study.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much.

We now have, from the National Research Council of Canada, Mr. Konecsni.

You may take ten minutes, please.

[Jerome Konecsni, Director General, Plant Biotechnology Institute, National Research Council Canada]

Thank you very much.

By way of introduction and providing a context, I'd like to give you a little bit about my background, because I think it will help you shape the information that I'm going to be presenting today.

I've been with the National Research Council for about three years. Before that I worked with Genome Prairie, which is a federally funded agency, and then I spent nine years in the private sector in a natural health products company, one of Saskatchewan's largest agri-value companies, which has grown up from regional crops. The primary marketplace for those was natural health products and organic foods. Before that I was a teacher, a farmer, and a research manager.

So I have multiple perspectives, and I think one of the things that brings to my background a unique perspective is that while I was working for a company in the private sector, at one given point in time I was developing an organic flax protein for market in the organic market and at the same time was managing a genetically engineered product that would see fish oils produced in plants.

So I've seen both sides. I've been actively involved in both sides of this, and I guess I have a firm belief that both sides can live and coexist peacefully. I think what we have to try to do is take the emotion out of the argument and look at what we are trying to achieve.

The objective and our need is to grow the world's food supply by double by 2050, by most estimates. We need to work together to do that. That is the big issue; that is the solution.

Canada is in a unique position to take a leadership role in responding to that need. Look at the kinds of things Canada can do. It was about a year ago now that we were celebrating the fact that we owned the podium at the Olympic Games. Well, I believe that feeding the world is a bigger game and a much more important game. I believe that by working together on a reasonable and rational approach to science and technology, we can own the podium in agriculture.

That's my introductory message, and it's where I come from.

So let me talk a little. I have a PowerPoint presentation, and copies will be made available to you. What I want to do is to present to you some of the tools that are considered ag biotechnology tools.

I know that in previous meetings you had presentations from plant breeders and scientists who talked about biotechnology as a tool kit. One of the messages you heard is that biotechnology does not equal genetic engineering; it is one option for using biotechnology, but it is not synonymous with biotechnology. I believe that many of these tools that I'll talk a little bit about can be applied to improving the productivity of organic production systems. So it's not an either/or, and I think we need to look for synergies and ways to work together to address the bigger issue.

But let me just talk a little bit about some of the benefits of ag biotech.

The first slide states—and I won't go through all of this, because you have it, but let me just feature some of the major points—that 90% of the farmers around the world who have benefited from biotechnology are small, resource-poor farmers from developing countries.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

On a point of order, I don't have that.

Do we have the slide?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

We do, but it has not been translated, so it cannot be handed out, Mr. Shipley. It will be translated.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Okay. This is just so you know that when you're talking, we don't actually have—

[Jerome Konecsni]

We'll make sure you get a copy; I think that's being worked on.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you.

[Jerome Konecsni]

We have eliminated 10 million metric tonnes in greenhouse gas emissions through fuel savings, and we have saved $1.8 million in diesel fuel from reduced tillage and plowing.

Here's another fact that talks a little bit about the balance and who the winners are in biotechnology: $44 million represents the increase in net income for farmers who are involved in using biotechnology solutions.

Those are some of the facts about the benefits that have been generated in 13 years of what they call “GM technology”. But let's talk about the bigger picture--namely, what are the challenges we're facing internationally?

Today 10% of the available land on the planet is arable--permanent crop land. We have to produce much more food for a growing population with a minimal amount and reduce our environmental footprint. An update from FAO suggests that we will need to increase by 70% our food supply by 2050. Other estimates and studies have indicated a doubling of our current food supply. From this, 20% is expected to come from unused land. Developing countries will increase their import of cereals by 157% by 2030, and oilseed contribution to world calorie consumption will increase by 125% by 2030.

This is the context in which we're operating, and these are the challenges we face as a globe. I say that these challenges represent a huge opportunity for Canada because of our agricultural infrastructure, our land capacity, and our excellent farmers here in Canada.

Let me talk a little bit about the National Research Council. The National Research Council's role in Canadian agriculture has been a unique one, and our focus has been on technology. We do not have plant breeders, but we've supported the work of plant breeders. Perhaps one of our biggest contributions to the Canadian economy was as a co-developer of canola, which over the last two to three years has been estimated as a $14 billion to $16 billion industry in Canada. We've played a significant role in that. Almost every variety of canola that was GM has utilized some of our technology over the last 15 years. That was a major contribution to canola.

GM technology is not the only approach we're taking. We're looking at working with the pulse industry and developing genomics resources for them. They are non-GM. Their marketplace does not accept GM, and their approach is non-GM, so we're using and applying our technologies to help improve the productivity, improve the yield, and improve the healthiness of their products without a GM approach. We're doing the same thing in wheat and we're doing the same thing in flax.

The National Research Council itself, at the Plant Biotechnology Institute where I work, has two major programs. One is crop improvement and the other is value-added products from agriculture and from plants.

In the crop genomics, it involves crop production improvement. Again, the priorities, the type of technology, and the approaches are driven by market needs and requirements. In canola there are GM approaches that we're taking, and we're also pursuing non-GM approaches in canola. In wheat and flax and pulses, as I said earlier, it's a non-GM approach.

On the other side of our enterprise, where we're working on value-added products from plants, one of the areas we're looking at is co-products from flax. There are many interesting components of flax. I mentioned earlier some work I had done on isolating flax protein, which has an incredible property and value every bit as good as soy protein.

We also have been involved in developing products that have been used in malaria vaccines and other types of product that would be used for vaccine adjuvants that are produced from plants, with non-GM approaches to those as well.

That gives you a little bit of context in terms of what we do. All of those programs are supported by a number of technologies and capabilities that NRC has invested in and developed over the last 15 to 20 years.

Our relationship with Agriculture Canada is a close one, and it's growing closer year by year. We have major collaborations in many areas of Canada. In Saskatoon there's a very close working relationship between Agriculture Canada and the NRC.

Of course, you were in Prince Edward Island, and you saw the facility, which is an NRC-Ag Canada facility. That's another good example of how the two federal labs and organizations are working on their strengths.

As the science director from Ag Canada in Saskatoon said, Ag Canada is linked to producers, NRC is linked to industry and technology, and together they cover the value chain. We find that this relationship and this partnership is only growing.

Let me talk a little about some of the specific technologies. In the presentation you'll see that we give a technical definition of some of these technologies, but more important, we talk about how that technology can be used. For example, one of the core technologies is genomics and DNA sequencing. Those are the basic building blocks of every plant and every biological organism. Generating genetic resources--understanding all of the genes and the roles they play--is an incredible part of building better plants and better crops, whether it's yield improvement, drought resistance, or nutrient efficiency. This data is the building block for that.

We have what we call next-generation sequencing capability at NRC, which has developed resources for over 30 different crops that are grown in Canada.

Molecular markers are very interesting tools that build on this genomics capability. Just to give you a quick idea, what we do is identify genes or gene sequences that are associated with a specific trait in a plant. When the plant breeder is trying to identify a particular plant with a specific trait, whether it's drought tolerance or increased yield, he can identify that plant through DNA earlier on without having to grow the whole plant out. As a result, you can reduce your product development time by 30% to 50%.

For those of you who've been involved in business, reducing product development time by 30% to 50% is huge in terms of cost, time to market, and all those other factors related to a viable business and a viable crop. We are working with the pulse industry, the wheat industry, the canola industry, and the flax industry to develop these markers so that breeders can accelerate their time for developing new varieties.

There are a lot of non-GM technologies out there. I'll just quickly refer to them. One is called TILLING mutagenesis, which is a process used to generate mutations that can then be selected for unique traits that would otherwise take an infinite amount of time to find in nature.

There's also an interesting technology called plant phenomics, or phenotyping. The value of any crop is in the actual phenotype. It means that the physical product at the end has the properties or the qualities you're looking for. There's an interesting technology Australia has embraced. They've developed a $50 million facility to help breeders evaluate their traits.

The last comment I'll make, then, is on the opportunities in wheat. If you talk to farmers across Canada, you'll know that wheat is really under a lot of pressure. It's the weak link in the crop rotation. The profitability of wheat has been challenged over the last number of years. So one area we are focusing on with our partners is developing and improving the profitability, the yield, and the quality of wheat varieties across Canada.

We're working with Ag Canada, the universities, and the producer groups in variety development across Canada. In terms of Canada's competitiveness in wheat, of the five top exporters of wheat, Canada's productivity gains are the lowest. We have had a less than 1% productivity gain per year over a 50-year period. France is first at over 2%. Canada is 0.87%. Australia is fourth, at 0.92%, and that is in spite of 10 years of severe drought in Australia. So Canada's competitiveness is being challenged in wheat.

We're working hard with our partners to turn that around and make wheat a profitable crop in a farmer's rotation. Our objective is to provide a variety of products so that farmers have a choice of many varieties in their rotation that will all be profitable. Developing one crop and having only one profitable crop in your rotation is not a sustainable venture. We see what's happening. Because canola is the one crop farmers have been making money from, what they've been doing is overgrowing canola, and we're starting to see some issues with disease in canola. We have to turn that around by giving farmers other options to choose in their rotation that are just as profitable as canola.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay, thank you.

[Jerome Konecsni]

That summarizes my comment.

Again, my last plea is let's work together. There's a bigger picture out there in agriculture. There's a huge opportunity for Canada. We need to work together, and we need to work in a reasonable fashion, using solid information and scientific facts.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much.

From the Science Media Centre of Canada, we have Ms. Penny Park and Ms. Suzanne Corbeil.

You have 10 minutes, please.