Evidence of meeting #53 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was biotechnology.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Thank you very much.
Now I'll move to Ms. Bonsant for five minutes.
12:25 p.m.
Bloc
France Bonsant Bloc Compton—Stanstead, QC
It is always interesting to see the owner of an organic farm sitting next to someone who sells biotechnology. The farmer always talks about emotions. It really is an emotional issue when the organic farmer, like our witness—and we are very familiar with this because organic farming is becoming more and more popular—is losing income because the farm next door, which is not organic, contaminates their fields. In many cases, as I have said before, organic farmers lose their entire farms, because they lose their organic certification.
The emotion is real. It is not just about moratoria for financial issues. Livelihoods are affected. It is a very emotional issue.
Ms. Young, your organization talks about setting up more and more organic farms. The opposition is not to biotechnology, provided that it is used intelligently, as you say, but with everything going on, what do you fear the most? You tell people wanting to start up an organic farm to be careful of certain things, you ask them if they are sure about their plans, if an average income will come in, and so on. What are you most worried about in your approach for new organic farms?
12:30 p.m.
Executive Director, FarmStart
The farms we work with aren't necessarily certified organic, but we promote ecological farming practices. We primarily focus on soil health, and we believe the foundation of any farm lies within its soil structure and its health, and you will always have better, healthier crops. You will always be able to weather drought and any kind of drought or flooding or any kind of climate event that we're going to be seeing happen much more easily. Time and time again this has been proven, when you have soil matter and you have a healthy soil structure and you also have a vibrant, living soil structure full of bacteria that do lots of work for us. That's the first thing we talk about.
We also talk about minimizing reliance on fossil fuels and off-farm inputs, because those are things you don't have control over in terms of prices. So when you're trying to build a farm that's going to be viable, if you are at the mercy of oil prices or the price of chemicals that you're going to be applying to your land, then you are at the mercy of forces that are outside your control. And if you want to have control over what you're going to get back and you want to control your operating costs, it's better to minimize your reliance on off-farm inputs and energy sources that aren't renewable.
Those are the primary foundations of any farm business, and that's how our farmers are looking at building their production systems. And then on the other side is the way they communicate what they do to their consumers.
12:30 p.m.
Bloc
France Bonsant Bloc Compton—Stanstead, QC
Have you noticed young people of your generation moving increasingly towards organic products, because otherwise they don't know what they are eating? My next question is for Ms. Park, on another matter: have you done any surveys on mandatory labelling?
Ms. Young, are more and more young people inclined to respect nature, because you don't fool with Mother Nature? At some point, she will come back to haunt you somehow. So we need to live with her, not change her.
Do you see more and more of the generation inclined to respect the land and to eat organic products?
12:30 p.m.
Executive Director, FarmStart
Absolutely, at least the farmers we work with are. They're not just young people. They're second-career farmers. They're new Canadians. They are approaching agriculture in a way that makes sense to them. They want to be part of an agriculture that's human-scaled and that they can understand; they can't necessarily control it but they can work within a system they understand.
There is a difference between farmers who are trying to work with the ecosystem as it stands, and understand how they can farm better within that, versus farmers who are trying to control it. I think it's much scarier to live a life where you think you're going to control it and then something massive happens and you lose everything.
Our farmers are diversified. They're integrating the different products of their farm. They understand the relationship between the stuff that comes out of their animals and what goes into their soils. They also understand that's what the people they're producing for want. They are connected to their consumers. I think that's part of the driver: they want to live in a community where they produce good food, and they want to feel good about what they're doing.
12:30 p.m.
Bloc
France Bonsant Bloc Compton—Stanstead, QC
Ms. Park, have you conducted a study on mandatory labelling that would include the GMOs in foods, or have people talked to you about it?
12:30 p.m.
Founding Chair and Champion, Science Media Centre of Canada
If I may, I could respond briefly. At our centre, we currently do not have the mandate to conduct surveys or studies on our own. We are looking for research studies or surveys that have already been done and that shed light on the issue. That does not mean that experts who are part of our group of researchers might not have access to data like that and be able to share it.
Bear in mind that the Science Media Centre of Canada has only been around for four months. We have minimal funding. So for the time being, we are simply looking for existing research and we want to promote it among journalists.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Sorry, you're out of time. You were well over, but that's okay. I was waiting for the answer.
We'll now move to Mr. Shipley for five minutes.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Just to follow up on a question my colleague asked about what biotechnology is, when we took on this study.... I think what was exemplified here today illustrates the problem we have in terms of people understanding--the general public. We have a panel here of people who are in the know. I look to a journalist, Madam Park, and you struggled to find what the answer is.
What we're finding so far, quite honestly, is that at every meeting we come to there is this almost Frankenstuff about anything outside of organics, that it's all bad. I find that very unfortunate, because I'm feeling and finding that we need to have this balanced approach of hearing both sides. I have great organic farmers. I have great--and doing well--conventional farmers. We've not even talked yet about livestock. We're going to focus on crops today.
With that, I have a question, first of all, for Madam Park. I have to tell you, I am so pleased that we have an organization called Science Media Centre of Canada. I also understand where your funding comes from, and I understand where NRC funding...and I'd ask Madam Young where her funding would come from if she could help.
I'm concerned. There's been this big issue and talk about feeding the world, and I do not want that responsibility to totally fall on the laps of the farmers. You can't do that without talking about corruption in governments, other government policies, the waste of food when it's shipped to these countries--they don't know how to store it. We have governments that won't distribute food. They have their reasons--black marketing.
The other night...likely two or three weeks ago now. And this whole thing about Canada, how we have a billion--I think my colleague said--more people starving or hungry in the world. How do we put a message out? How do we help the agriculture industry carry a message to the consumer so that we don't wear it?
When I went home that night and turned the TV on, when they were talking about the hungry in the world, what did I see first? I saw a combine coming down the field, dumping grain into a grain buggy. I can tell you, likely nobody in the urban area knows what a combine or a grain buggy is, but they know it's a farmer. They didn't talk about the Galen Westons of the world, they didn't talk about the trucking industry, they didn't talk about the distribution. It was a picture of a farming operation.
I'm asking you to help us, as an industry, with what you might be able to do as part of your forum of public policy to help the agriculture industry be recognized as a provider of food, not the cause of the starvation.
12:35 p.m.
Founding Chair and Champion, Science Media Centre of Canada
May I perhaps, Mr. Shipley, just start this off briefly, and hand it off to Penny, and at the risk of being inappropriate, correct you on one issue?
I am perhaps the least-informed person at the table today. I brought forward the idea of the Science Media Centre to Canada about four years ago. Why did I do it? Exactly for the reason you said. I want to be an informed Canadian. There are too many complex issues out there for me to understand, and I don't know what stand to take on many things because I just don't get what biotech is, or what GMOs are, or whatever. That is why this became so important and such a passion for me, and why I've been working very hard for four years to see this succeed. We want to create those forums at the Science Media Centre to allow the more public side of this whole debate to be informed and accurate.
Everything that Penny talked about in terms of our services is all aligned to allow the experts, the informed people at this table, to be able to connect with a journalist--many of whom today are generalists and don't know much about science either--to bring those stories forward to avoid exactly what you say, laying at the feet of the farmers, or another party, the full responsibility of this.
Penny.
12:40 p.m.
Executive Director, Science Media Centre of Canada
I think the advantage to an organization like ours is to really look at where people are focused at this moment. If that story is occurring, if those visuals are in front of the public right now, our intention is to slip the science in there and say, “Okay, everybody's looking at this issue. Now lets talk about it. Lets talk about it from all sorts of different angles, and take advantage of that wish to know at that moment.”
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON
I want to thank you. I hope I didn't get it wrong—
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON
I'm just looking at how we can work together to help agriculture.
I think I'm out of time, am I?
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON
I'll let it go, and my colleague will pick it up in the next round.
Thank you.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Thank you very much.
I have to leave in a few minutes, but before I turn it over to Mr. Bellavance, I have a question I'd like all of you to respond to—it's a yes or no.
My observation is that the production and distribution of food should never be about one thing; it should be about choice. It should never be all the biotech-side; it shouldn't be all the organic side. When I say “shouldn't”, that's maybe the wrong word. For example, I'm not sure what the percentage of organic is today, but if the public came out countrywide and said, “There are 50% of us who are not going to buy anything unless it's organic”—or whatever their choice is—wouldn't you all agree, as farmers on the production side, that if there's a market demand for something and the price is there, the industry would adapt to whatever that level is?
Are there any comments on that?
12:40 p.m.
Executive Director, FarmStart
I think that touches on the issue of labelling. The public doesn't actually have the right at the moment to decide in the marketplace between genetically modified organisms and non-genetically modified organisms. That's why they pick organic—
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
But on that, Ms. Young, to correct you, organic is labelled as organic, and if somebody wants that choice, that choice is there today. So I dispute that.
12:40 p.m.
Executive Director, FarmStart
Yes. And as we've been talking about it, I think if people understood a little more about the implications of organic production systems, they would probably choose it. It has to do with the externalities that people don't see in the retail store. It has to do with water contamination, soil erosion, air contamination, and all of the other things that happen around agricultural systems, which they can't understand when they buy something.