Agriculture Committee on Nov. 1st, 2011

[Jon Bell]

I'd like to say that we start a lot earlier than university. We start basically at the ground level. We have started with coupon programs, with a healthiest babies or tots program, where kids are now being encouraged to come to farmers' markets and learn about the farm.

There are also school programs that bring farmers to schools. That's actually not a program that we, per se, are involved in, but those sorts of things are happening in our community. The same members who are part of our market, in fact, are involved in bringing kids to farms, going to schools, and starting the education at that level and trying to get them to appreciate the difficulty of farming and the challenges over time.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I don't think we can start too early.

Go ahead.

[Pierre Lampron]

We are talking a lot about research today. We can look at it from a more general perspective. Having a profitable and stable sector helps to attract people to this area.

In dairy production, which I represent, we do research on animal welfare, the environment, and so on. We are in line with what the public wants, we are recognized and young people care about that. If we were doing something that goes against the interests of the public, against what people want, I think that would discourage young people. Research in the area, based on what the public needs, is important.

Our organization has loan programs to attract young people. The provincial government also gives set-up grants to young people. This whole financial aspect helps young people get started.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you.

Mr. Bell, research and innovation often impacts smaller producers and larger producers very differently. Do you make any distinction in your area between large producers and small contributors to the markets?

[Jon Bell]

No, we don't make a distinction between growers in my own market. We have a tomato and pepper grower on a commercial scale, and he is just as welcome to be selling his produce as someone with a plastic greenhouse in the backyard. There is no distinction.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

To the three of you, if you could imagine what kind of innovation and research you would want to accomplish by 2017, when you're looking back five years from now, what would you like to have done?

You talked today about the general ideas of research and innovation. What are some examples of things you'd like to see accomplished in five years from now?

[Jon Bell]

As my red light is on, I guess I'm it.

I would certainly like to see the west coast of British Columbia moving to being the market garden, if you will, of western Canada because of lower energy use to grow these products. It's a perfect location to do research into newer varieties, low-light tolerance, and other types of development, for vegetable crops.

I think it's the way of the future. Consumers are demanding that more and more local product be available to them, so I think it's a growth area.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

You're a good salesman.

Gentlemen, go ahead.

[Dennis Prouse]

Mr. Anderson, our five-year goal would be smoothing out red tape. Mr. Storseth alluded to that earlier. There would be a regulatory system that continues to encourage innovation through better timeliness of approvals, service standards, predictability, sharing of data and approvals, and international synchronization.

These are all issues, as you well know, that are on the government's radar now and that would make tremendous strides in giving very practical improvements to bringing innovations to market. There's a great opportunity to make a lot of that progress, and we're hopeful that in the next five years a lot of that progress will be made.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much.

Did you have a last comment, Mr. Lampron?

[Pierre Lampron]

What we would like in five years is to see more progress in what we have already started, meaning animal welfare and food safety. On the health side, we should show all the benefits of using dairy products and do studies that support the claim that milk is good, by giving such and such a reason.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much.

Everyone has had a chance to ask questions, I think. We've had a pretty good day.

We have a bit of committee business we have to tend to, which will just take a few minutes. Plus, bells for votes will be happening shortly.

I would like to thank all of you for being here today. We appreciate your taking time out of your busy schedules. We enjoyed your testimony.

Thanks again, and you're free to go.

I don't think we need to go in camera. At the end of last meeting there was some discussion about bringing ideas as to where we go next in our study of Growing Forward 2. There were going to be some suggestions coming back today

Mr. Lemieux.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Chair, I was just looking at the outline. I had a suggestion.

We've been looking at science and innovation. Perhaps a next topic might be competitive enterprises, which is to look at programs whose goal is to develop farmers' business skills and strategies, but also things that affect the competitiveness of farmers. It's a nice follow-on from science and innovation because it's related to the actual skills we would want to see in the agricultural marketplace.

I don't think we'll need from now until our December break on that, so perhaps we could look at BRM, business risk management tools, in the second half.

So maybe five meeting on this, four meetings on BRM. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the department is coming right after the break, right? We'll have nine meetings left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Yes. The department is confirmed for the first Tuesday back after the break, which is November 15.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

So we'll have nine meetings from there until the Christmas break.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I propose a five and four, almost a 50-50 split between competitiveness and BRM.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

We have to do all these categories at some point.

Is there any further discussion?

Frank, you're okay with that?

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I'm okay with that. It makes sense.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Is everybody...?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay.

Well, that's great. That allows David to....

David is wondering if you could all send your witness lists in by noon on Friday, if that's possible. That gives you three days. That isn't to say that you can't get some in after that, but we need somewhere to start, and of course we're going to deal with the witnesses kind of in the order in which they come in.

Okay? Is there any further discussion?

Then I think David has his direction, and I don't believe there is any other committee business.

Thank you very much. See you all on Thursday.

The meeting is adjourned.