Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses for being here.
I guess I'll just start my comments by saying why I myself am interested in innovation and competitiveness. Certainly innovation has always been important within agriculture, but I would argue it's even more important now, particularly as we need our farmers to be more competitive, because we've opened foreign markets to them. So by putting in place trade deals—for example, with South Korea, and we're going to have a European trade deal implemented in the foreseeable future—this gives our farmers a chance to compete. But we need innovation on the side of our farmers.
So I see this as very essential; it's a very forward-looking study that we want to do. I see it in terms of innovation being able to help our farmers lower their input costs. I'm thinking of lower fuel costs, lower use of pesticides, lower use of herbicides, all saving money for the farmer and making them more competitive, and of course innovation that might help with better yields—for example, better-quality crops.
I'm also thinking of customer-centric crops. What I mean by that is if we're going to sell a particular crop to Europe, they may be looking for certain plant traits that are different from crops we sell to Asia. I think innovation helps our farmers to determine what crops best suit the market that they want to sell into. So I see that as being very important.
I want to thank the department for their initial comments on research, especially through the AgriInnovation program. I also appreciate the fact that you mentioned that there is good partnership and cooperation among the key players within the research and innovation fields, be it in government or within the private sector itself.
I would like to ask something about the AgriInnovation program. You mentioned that there are really three different thrusts. There is a research-type thrust, industry-led type research, and then enabling commercialization of innovation.
Let me first ask a question about stream A, which is research. Could you perhaps explain to the committee, in perhaps just a little bit more detail, how that stream works in terms of funding? What kinds of projects perhaps might be funded under that stream? What's the horizon of stream A? Is it a two-year horizon, a five-year horizon, a ten-year horizon? Does it have a commercialization horizon, or is it broader than that?