Agriculture Committee on April 9th, 2014

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

Where does the input come from? For example, you have government researchers working on projects. They can go in many different directions. They could try to tackle many different projects, but I'm assuming that we can't tackle all projects at the same time—resources are always limited. I'm wondering, where do they get meaningful input from to determine where they're going to prioritize their efforts?

[Dr. Siddika Mithani]

Our input really comes from our stakeholders. Basically, the GF2 consultations really provided us an opportunity to look at sectors and commodities and what their priorities were. Also, recognizing that stream A is more upstream in the high-risk and the long-term kind of science that we need to do, that has been the focus. So our priorities and what is funded, a very rigorous peer review process, management review, and so on really identifies the areas that have been identified by our stakeholders as priorities. So that's the stream A, which really focuses on priorities that have come from stakeholders.

There's also some funding that is for management-initiated research. For example, we had an issue with honeybees. We've now launched a project on some of the long-term effects on survival and factors influencing honeybees, as management-initiated. As you have emerging issues coming within the year, there is the possibility of also looking at emerging issues, as well as looking at industry-related priorities that have been identified.

Then the stream B really takes the stream A further; it asks, when you look at a cluster, what are the issues of concern? That's when scientists within the department, the private sector, will sit down and talk about a cluster that will look at various themes that really need to be addressed. Then those projects will be put together in a cluster. This is what really enhances the partnership aspect and the collaboration aspect that is so very important. It's about the research that's being done; it doesn't really focus on who does the research but on the fact that you are meeting and fulfilling the needs of the sector.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you, Mr. Lemieux.

Now we'll go to Mr. Eyking for five minutes, please.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for coming today.

I'm just looking at some graphs here. There's one here about spending, with a peak of around $500 million spending on research around 2006, but then it drops drastically and starts coming back up. There's quite a gap there of research funding from governments. Then there's another graph here that shows the private sector is really filling the gap and stepping up to the plate. They've gone up about $70 million to $80 million more in the last couple of years. It seems like the private sector is filling in the gap. But it also seems to correlate that it's important that the federal government put their share in, in order to trigger the other partners.

Is that very key to a lot of the private sector investment? They seem to be doing the big increase, and not governments. But is it very important that the federal part is there in order for the private sector to step up to the plate?

[Dr. Siddika Mithani]

I think it's important to recognize the fact that the innovation spending for Growing Forward 1, the earlier Growing Forward, was $500 million. With GF2, it's up to about $700 million. It's about being able—

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Do you have the same graph that I have here? If you look at 2006 to 2010, I guess, there are three or four years here where there was a big drop. So now we're saying, going forward, it's going back up. But there was a big drop there in those years, wasn't there?

Do you have the same graph that we have in front of us?

[Gilles Saindon]

No, we don't have that.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

It's called “Government Research Expenditures on Agriculture and Agri-Food”.

[Gilles Saindon]

No, we don't have that graph.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

If you don't have it, I guess it's hard for you to comment on it. So maybe I'll leave that.

I'm going to follow up on the question from the NDP on the research stations.

Over the last seven to eight years, how many have been closed across the country, and what levels are their operating funds at? Are they flatlining, or have they increased overall for the research stations?

[Dr. Siddika Mithani]

Let me start by saying that some of the research stations that were closed were the offices that had been doing some outreach. What we had done as a result of transformation was to consolidate those offices.

As I mentioned when I talked about the creation of the science and technology branch, which really came from the merger of the research branch and the agri-environmental services branch, putting all the science under one umbrella provided us the opportunity to look at the whole continuum of science, research development, and technology transfer all together.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

That's fine, but my question was how many research stations were closed across the country.

[Gilles Saindon]

In terms of that, while we didn't close any research centre, like where we have our large...we had the closure in the area of Winnipeg; the program has been transferred—

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

You consolidated them.

[Gilles Saindon]

—to Morden, using our modern facilities at Morden and Brandon, basically. But the program did not change. We had a few farms that were closed across the country, but they were part of the satellite farms linked to a station.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

As well, you mentioned that you have nine, I think, commodity clusters that you're funding. One of the biggest claims we've seen in the agriculture committee and from many stakeholders is that value added is very key for our agriculture industry. Besides that, of course, it's very important how well we do on the farm, but value added is going to drive our industry, whether we're dealing with the European trade agreement or trying to sell more products to the United States.

How much in your research is on value added, and in which research stations is the focus on value added? I see the clusters here, but I'm thinking of the value-added part. How do you deal with the value-added sector?

[Gilles Saindon]

In terms of the value added, we have two centres that focus in the area of food research—i.e., transforming the material into food products. Those two centres are Guelph and Saint-Hyacinthe.

A number of the clusters have elements of value added; they tend to cover the entire chain, because they focus on markets, on market demands and all of that. Much of the material, of course, has to be transformed in order to meet market demand. A number of clusters will have that component. It may not be sliced out as a cluster that will have all the value-added of various commodities; they tend to be built in.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Can you give me an example? If those two research stations—

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

You're almost out of time.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Do they partner up with Maple Leaf Foods and such companies? How does it work?

[Gilles Saindon]

We may have a partnership with industries that are in the manufacturing of food products. They may then have an element deployed partly at Saint-Hyacinthe through which they may be adding value to pulse crops, for example. We have some of that as part of the continuum, because when you produce, you have to make sure that the production gets to the market in the right shape and format required by industry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you very much, Mr. Eyking.

We'll now go to Mr. Dreeshen for five minutes, please.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for being here today.

It's great to be able to talk about innovation. I'm from Red Deer, and Red Deer Agri-trade is probably one of the more amazing types of trade shows. It has all types of innovators; they come internationally, as well, to look at what is there.

When you consider that we're trying to look internationally in scope—we are looking at advanced genomics, biotechnology advancement as far as equipment is concerned in the farms—I think it's something that kind of shows where things are going in agriculture. These are great opportunities to look at this collaboration required. We look at universities and colleges such as Olds College in central Alberta as well as a lot of universities in Saskatchewan and so on that have gone and had agreements with other countries. I had an opportunity to be in China when Mongolia and the University of Saskatoon signed some agreements, so we can see that this research is going internationally.

You've talked about some of the real important issues we have, such as Ug99 and the wheat rust issue, and you also talked about the Western Grains Research Foundation. They're trying to look at higher-yielding wheat varieties and also at those that are more resistant to disease and pests, but we have to work at this at an international level as well.

Could you talk a little bit about that? In that discussion, I know that as was mentioned earlier, you have the nine agriscience clusters and the 14, I believe you said, industry-led initiatives that are there, and we're trying to find people we should be talking to. I wonder if you can talk about some of these groups that might be places where we would want to focus in our discussions on innovation.

[Dr. Siddika Mithani]

Let me start by talking a little bit about wheat and some of the international work we do within wheat.

As I mentioned in my opening remarks, the Canadian Wheat Alliance is clearly Canadian with Canadian partners, but we as a group are also attached to and work with the international Wheat Initiative, which is really a global initiative that looks at productivity, at diseases, at how we help third world countries. Through that, there is also another international organization that was just formed, about a month ago, called the International Wheat Yield Partnership. We, in Canada, are working with them through the Canadian Wheat Alliance. We are working there as Canada the country rather than Canada as the federal or provincial government. There are many such examples where we have joined forces in moving forward internationally in these types of arenas.

When you look at the global strategic agenda for wheat, it's very important in that it talks about many issues that not only the third world countries are dealing with but also some of the issues that Canada deals with—for example, water management, resource efficiency use, water and nutrient use efficiencies, climate change, some environmental issues, fertilization, and fertilizers. This allows, again, for us as a country to look at how we avoid duplication in science and research so that we are able to leverage not only nationally but also internationally.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Thank you.

The other issue you had mentioned are these three points, one of which was enabling commercialization. Again, there are many great ideas and many opportunities, and no doubt a great amount of research that has been, perhaps, left on the shelf sometimes, that haven't had an opportunity to be brought to commercialization for whatever reasons.

Could we discuss the potentials surrounding IP protection for those working within the sector and through all the programs that we have? What are we looking at in that regard? Is somebody kind of looking after that side of it or helping direct where different businesses should go in order to be able to maximize that commercialization?