Agriculture Committee on April 28th, 2014

[Dr. Stephen Yarrow]

Absolutely.

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

What kind of program would you suggest we should be implementing if we are to get that information out, not only in Europe, of course, but also to our local consumers here in Canada?

[Dr. Stephen Yarrow]

I don't have an answer for you because it's going to take a big collective effort between government and the various parts of industry and research institutes.

I was at a meeting recently at the FAO addressing what my colleague was talking about, low level presence in plant biotech. There were a lot of developing countries there that were so confused about plant biotechnology and plant breeding. So it's extremely basic and some of that profound misunderstanding exists in developed countries, too, with the general public. We really need to start to address that before we can get past these issues.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

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

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Thank you for coming to committee today.

I have just a few questions for you. To start off, we talked about some of the misinformation about the technology in agricultural innovation.

Can you briefly explain the differences between GMO and selective breeding, Stephen, and make it simple and brief? I know it, but could you explain what that is?

[Dr. Stephen Yarrow]

I'll have a go, and I'm sure that my colleagues on the other side in Saskatchewan may want to help me out as well.

Selective breeding is the very basic level of plant breeding. If you were doing some sunflower breeding in your back garden, you would be crossing different types of sunflowers and then from the seed produced from those crosses you would be looking for improved sunflowers: be they higher yielding, or different colours, and all those sorts of thing.

At a more sophisticated level you can start doing that analysis using genomics and micro-assisted breeding and all sorts of other sophisticated laboratory-based techniques to understand what the variation is in the first place, and to understand how to select the traits that you're trying to extract from breeding. That's selective breeding.

Plant biotechnology short-circuits that for very specific traits, such as insect resistance, herbicide tolerance for weed control, drought tolerance, and things like that. But you have to think of the two together, if you're thinking about plant biotechnology in general.

I'm not sure if I've helped you there.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Yes, that's perfect.

I'll give the other guys some time to answer this next question. You spoke of myths in political arguments. You said that you want to keep this conversation out of the mythic atmosphere.

What are the myths out there about plant biotechnology?

[Dr. Reno Pontarollo]

It's kind of hard. I deal in the facts. I guess it's much easier for people to fear something they don't know. When you're dealing with superstitions, myths, and, in some cases, people would say, religion, you're dealing with faith and fear. Science has to be grounded in facts, so when a scientist speaks of whether something is safe, they speak in terms of “generally regarded” or “our evidence shows”. People coming from the other side of the argument will be more forceful with the words they use.

As my colleague Daniel here suggested, in a survey done by a very reputable firm, over 70% of people thought the meat they were eating in Canada was genetically modified, more so in poultry than in beef and pork. Over 60% of them thought the strawberries they were eating were genetically modified. These products do not exist in Canada.

As far as I know, they don't exist anywhere, but once these myths are perpetrated, published by non-scientific journals, and repeated in the newspapers or on news media—much like some celebrities would like us to believe things like “vaccination cause autism”—that credibility they carry is damaging to the actual scientific facts. These are the types of things we fight on a daily basis. We need to engage these people in their own environment, and that's in the Twitterverse and in social media.

Two weeks ago, there was a great example in Berkeley, California. A very well-known scientist, Pam Ronald, a colleague whom I know quite well, was speaking in a very open dialogue and an engaged environment, with 700-plus students watching, about genetic modification and the need for it to be incorporated into the food system. These are the types of things we need to do and that I think governments should be supporting it, particularly the Canadian government.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Can I get an answer to that from Dennis?

[Dennis Prouse]

Sure.

I was going to toss in a little bit of sunshine amongst all the doom and gloom, because despite what you may see in the Twitterverse, the number of nations that are planting biotech crops continues to rise every year. The number of acres being planted continues to rise. The yields continue to rise. Why is that? That's because they actually are shown to work.

I'll give you one small example. The nation of Burkina Faso in Africa started planting Bt cotton in 2012, I believe, and saw a 58% yield increase in one year. That's a real, meaningful benefit for the people of Burkina Faso, and you're now starting to see more uptake in Africa.

Notwithstanding some of the media and political pressures that we all may sit here and discuss, the reality is that uptake continues to go up, and it continues to go up on a very steady climb.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you very much.

Your time is up, Mr. Zimmer.

Now I'll go to Mr. Garrison for five minutes, please.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here.

If you'll bear with me a moment, I think you'll see where I'm heading. On April 14, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its fifth assessment report and talked very strongly about the impacts of climate change on food security. Even at its lowest levels, their lowest-increase scenarios show global warming of about 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. The other scenarios, at the other end, show four degrees. What they concluded was that at a minimum we're going to see crop yields declining by 2% per decade and a more likely scenario of about 1% a year at the same time as the demand for food is increasing by 2%.

What I think I heard both of you saying is that the tendency is for research to be microfocused on small projects. My concern is the role that your organizations could play in addressing this much larger challenge we have coming from the impacts of climate change on food security and food production. I'd like to ask both organizations whether you see the possibility of any kind of coordination of work in responding to the threat to food security from climate change and about what role you see for your organizations in addressing that challenge.

Maybe we'll start in Saskatchewan.

[Dr. Reno Pontarollo]

Sure, I'll start. Actually, in the call for competition for research that we're going to be announcing, one of the major tenets will be food security and food safety. Food security is different from food safety in this definition. Food safety is making sure that your hamburger doesn't have E. coli in it. Food security is making sure everybody has a good hamburger. With regard to climate change and its effect, that is certainly another one of the tenets and pillars of the competition. Again we're talking about projects that will last for five years. We will need to continue investing in this as we go along.

I have another anecdote. Driving through the Red River Valley in Manitoba 10 years ago, you would have seen flax, canola, and wheat. When you drive through that country now, you're seeing soybean and corn. I think the companies that Stephen and CropLife deal with would probably like to see more corn and soybean in Canada as well. They know the genetics of these organisms very well. Trying to get them to grow with lower heat units, in shorter photoperiods is within the realm of possibility for them to do. Climate change, in some ways, could have a very positive effect on Canadian agriculture.

[Dennis Prouse]

You are seeing research that is going on now—and my colleague Dr. Yarrow could speak in more detail to it—on things like drought tolerance and saline tolerance for crops. These are exciting possibilities in order to deal with climate change, and I guess further to the earlier question that was asked, there is a measure of frustration sometimes amongst our members when there is an ideological opposition to genetic modification when you are working on changes that could be that important to help feed the world.

[Dr. Stephen Yarrow]

Perhaps I can build on part of your question, if I understood correctly, regarding how the private sector and the public sector can work together more effectively to address some of the challenges you are talking about. I can't speak for individual companies that are members of our association. They are very highly successful but also highly competitive. But generally speaking, they are very interested in these types of public-private partnerships. There are conversations going on. I don't know the details of the connections between Genome Canada and so on with the public sector. I don't see the two worlds as being completely separate. I see quite a lot of integration going on into the future. And hopefully, if we get this all sorted out correctly, it will be for long-term types of projects rather than just the short-term ones that were referred to.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

While I understand your emphasis on the long-term projects, the international panel on climate change said that we'll see significant impacts within the next 15 years. Therefore, maybe these short-term projects will have greater importance given that we will start to see these impacts very, very quickly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you very much.

I'll now go to Mr. Dreeshan, please, for five minutes.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you everyone for being here today.

I would perhaps like to start, Dr. Pontarollo, with the P3 model that you were talking about, the public-private partnerships. You said there were some examples that seemed to be working well. I'm not sure whether you had elaborated on that. Can you give us an idea of what you see as the best model to make these public-private partnerships work in the activities that you are doing?

[Dr. Reno Pontarollo]

We do have some good examples, not only just in the agriculture area, but in the oil and gas area as well.

We had a specific project called Prairie Gold that looked at taking two specialty crops called camelina and carinata—these are relatives of canola—and developing the genomics base for those two crops to help two companies move developed crops with a product specification for industrial oils and biojet fuel. For instance, in the carinata project, we were working with Agrisoma and helped fund the development and production of biojet fuel for them as part of that. This was a $4.5 million project working with the University of Saskatchewan and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. So we helped them produce this biojet fuel and they flew a jet in Ottawa at the NRC facility on 100% biojet fuel. This was considered one of the top 25 science news stories in North America that year.

The other company that we're working with there is Linnaeus Plant Sciences. They were looking at taking the camelina oil and using it as a base for high quality, high value specialty biolubricants. With the meal from both of those projects, we were looking at trying to get them into feed studies. Dr. Yarrow referred to the difficulties we have in doing that. Interestingly enough, in the camelina project we had also partnered with Genome Atlantic. We were sharing the genomic information with that group and we were looking at trying to create a meal and oil that would help feed the aquaculture industry as well. So there were industry participants on that side.

These are the types of projects I find the most successful. They're driven by an industry need or a consumer pull, and if we have those, they are probably our best short-term projects. But the long-term projects I referred to before regarding apomixis and other pie-in-the-sky type projects would maybe not be as suitable for private-public partnerships. However, if industry wants to do them, then the public sector has to listen.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Thank you very much.

I think the other topic—and both groups have talked about this—is the education portion and, of course, some of the concerns that you have when you seem to be fighting some ideological opportunism and so on. The concept of trying to pit physical science versus political science, of course, is something that I think everybody has to deal with it. A scientist is not going to say 100% that something can't happen, and that becomes the smoking gun for the other side. Unfortunately, we all have to deal with that.

Perhaps, Mr. Prouse, I could have you address this. Do you have some messages that you can give to the general public that give us that confidence we need, so there is a chance to embrace GMO technology?

[Dennis Prouse]

One of the things that we've done is to encourage the Canada Food Inspection Agency to continue to explain what it is they do and to stand up for Canada's regulatory system. We think Canada's regulatory system is excellent. We think our food safety record is outstanding. We've seen some occasions when the CFIA has responded, for instance, to a letter to the editor with a just-the-facts approach about what they do. We were thrilled to see a third party simply describing the facts. There's no value judgment; there was no politics in it. It was just about how food inspection works in Canada and why we should have confidence in the regulatory system.

So that's certainly one thing we've done. We certainly have a role in doing that as well. We've become a much more outward, if you will, and more public organization in the last number of years. Our website is very much geared to the public now. We have a Twitter account and we have a YouTube channel, and we're certainly out there trying to explain ourselves to the public, because I'm not sure that's what happened in the early days of biotech. I think what happened is that the industry was busy inventing things and talking to each other but they didn't talk to the public very well. So we're playing catch-up on that a little bit, but I think we're doing our part and we're certainly encouraging regulatory agencies to, as I say, simply explain to the public what goes into what they do, because we think CFIA has an outstanding story to tell.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you, Mr. Dreeshen, for your time.

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

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I also thank our guests for being here with us today.

Recently, a report on global competitiveness revealed that out of 148 countries, Canada came 27th and 29th regarding enterprises' research and development expenditures.

The Genome Prairie representatives told us that ecosystem innovations would have to be optimized if we are to reach our full potential. My question is addressed to them.

I would like them to tell us very explicitly how that ecosystem could be optimized.

[Daniel Ramage]

Sure, I can speak to that.

What we mean by “ecosystems” is really the whole community that revolves around research and development, including all stakeholders from the general public to the business community to our research scientists.

What we're really looking to do is to increase the cohesiveness among these partners, to make sure that people share the same values, and to get our messaging straight.

Some of the things we do at Genome Prairie, in terms of education and outreach, look to bring these partners together, to encourage dialogue, to share information, to make sure that people are on the same page and that they have access to high-quality information so that they can make their decisions based on facts rather than on the myths we're referring to.

For instance, we partner with organizations like Agriculture in the Classroom Canada—with the local chapters in Saskatchewan and Manitoba—to reach out and go directly to classrooms and teach the basics of genomics and DNA, to complement the existing educational curriculum and bring a higher level of information to youth.

We also have other programs, for instance, that engage directly with scientists, that help them recognize the importance of communication because it's not all about working in a lab and making discoveries. Researchers need to understand that a big part of their role is going out into the public and communicating their findings in a way that people can relate to and understand.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Thank you.

There were several important words in your reply. You talked in particular about research, development and education. The word “innovation” is often used very loosely, but it really means, as you said, research and development.

There is a university in my riding and it has an agriculture faculty that conducts research. I am told that investments in research are going down. I would like to know whether you think that this should be changed, and whether this type of research should once again be increased so that it lines up more closely with basic research and is of benefit to Canadian agriculture.