Agriculture Committee on Oct. 21st, 2014

[Chidi Oguamanam]

One can speak to a few of them, to the extent that they are interested in how many acres qualify for a smallholder farm and the complex nature of administering that kind of system. Sometimes it might be by way of harvest: what is the percentage of income that a smallholder farmer earns in his annual reporting? Then, what kind of threshold do we need in order to make him liable to be licensed for the seeds he has used?

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

What threshold would you suggest? Would it be a matter of income, or acreage, or both?

[Chidi Oguamanam]

I would suggest, seriously, that we pay attention to that. It would take us to really understanding the landscape for agricultural production in our country. Some have used 10 acres; some have used something in that neighbourhood. Some have said, well, you might have 10 acres, but for this harvest you are reporting that the percentage of your income from farming is x, and then that is the threshold.

One good thing about this bill, which I recognize, is that there is a lot of room for subsidiary regulation. Much of this will happen through that model.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I see.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you very much, Mr. Valeriote.

Now we'll move to Mr. Zimmer, for five minutes, please.

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

Thank you all for appearing at Ag committee today.

The first question goes to Jaye. I appreciate your presentation. I notice that you spoke a little bit about this in your opening as well, your suggestions for an amendment to what we currently have. I just want a bit of a reason as to why you want the amendment within the current legislation.

Please go ahead.

[Jaye Atkins]

Thank you, Mr. Zimmer.

I believe the act certainly allows us better clarification of some of the things that in administering the program today we find very difficult, things like better and clearer definitions around attribution rules, and for those who are not familiar with it, the ability to have a connected or a related producer in another business or another company, and trying to ensure that the benefit of the first $100,000 interest-free money is not abused.

That's one example. On the example of looking at adding specific products, I'll use the example of goats, of moving that into livestock—whereas today it's classified as an animal and may be restricted by the reference margin on AgriStability—allowing those producers to increase or improve their ability to get financing for their operation. We look at that today. Particularly in the industries that we offer the advance payments program in, we look at them a little bit as some of the peripheral industries, such as goat production and biomass production.

Many of the products we administer are products that are not actively pursued by financial institutions. We certainly stay away from the quota industries, and those types of things. I think some of the places in the new act, such as the example I've given, give us more clarification so that the interpretation is more clearly adhered to, or can be adhered to. It also provides consistently the same message to all administrators so that we as administrators do not have to translate the act per se in order to accommodate what we're trying to do.

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

Thank you.

The next question goes to the professor. I appreciate your opening comments. But in one of your comments you questioned whether farmers would be able to operate competitively under the new regime. I guess I'm not quite clear. I think my colleague Mr. Lemieux brought it up as well, that there is competition. You can either use publicly available seed or the proprietary seed, or whatever kind of seed you wish. You just will have to pay more for it. I guess I'm a little unclear about what you mean about the lack of competition.

You brought up other countries, but, with respect, we're concerned about what's good for Canadian farmers. I am, on this side, because I have Canadian farmers where I'm from, and I represent them. So I'm not quite clear on how you say this is in some way an obstacle to competition.

[Chidi Oguamanam]

Maybe that's not exactly what I meant. But the whole idea of not allowing people who farm, who may be family farmers, smallholder farmers, who could possibly be organic farmers.... It's the whole idea of not telling us that they have a privilege. But that privilege forbidding them from going to the market with their harvest is something I really want us to pay attention to.

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

How are they prevented from taking...to the market?

[Chidi Oguamanam]

If you look at clause 5, that I read out to you, it has not accommodated the ability of a smallholder farmer. Let's talk about this idea of saving seeds, the big advantage of saving seeds. We know what happened in Monsanto. Somebody could have had something come on to their farm, and maybe after harvest they never cared about it and it grows in this harvest season, and eventually they can be bushwhacked, they can be pre-empted by breeders.

I'm trying to say that we could at least accommodate smallholder farmers, however we want to define them, and allow them to go to the market with their harvest. In that way we recognize there are other actors in an agricultural process, sorters, and breeders, and high-tech agricultural corporations.

One of the issues around UPOV 91, and I agree with you as a Canadian that our agriculture is highly industrialized and we need to protect that heritage as well, but then—

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you very much, Mr. Zimmer. We're well over.

I'm going to go to Madame Brosseau. Five minutes, please.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Thank you, Chair.

I'd like to thank all of our witnesses for their presentations today on this important bill.

Something I'd like to speak to you about, Professor, is that we've had witnesses before committee who said that with UPOV 78 we are fulfilling our international obligations and that it is not necessary to go in that direction. Is it true that we are officially fulfilling our international obligations again with UPOV 78?

[Chidi Oguamanam]

With UPOV 78, we are good. In all fairness to international trade and global competition, most of our trading partners have upgraded to UPOV 91 even though it is not what I would be inclined to do. As a Canadian, in a global competitive market, coming to UPOV 91 puts us at par with our trading partners, but we do not need to do that because UPOV 78 is good enough for us and that's what happened in Norway.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

With the comment you were making before, talking about smaller farmers and small holdings, it seems that we need to pay more attention to the different types of farming we do in Canada and that this is not a “one size fits all”. I know when the minister was before committee, in the first meeting we had studying C-18, he said, “don't worry, I'm going to bring in an amendment and I'm going to make sure that this is stronger and we are protecting farmers' privilege”. I think that we are all looking forward to this amendment and it would be nice to finally have it, to talk to witnesses about it, and to make sure that it is actually strong enough and that the concerns from industry and farmers and certain groups are resolved with this strengthening of the bill.

I was wondering if you could talk to us about what varieties of cereal are protected under plant breeders' rights.

[Chidi Oguamanam]

The bill is clear. I don't know of any specific cereal, to the extent that a breeder has been able to add a certain degree of improvement to a variety and have a proprietary claim. As we said time and again, plant breeders' rights are not patent rights because they allow breeders to do research with their products, but they exclude farmers from partaking. The question becomes about people who do breeding and also do farming. The multiple layers of interest in agricultural landscape means that, when the bill really becomes a law, there will be a lot of issues. That's why I like the idea of a law to border on subsidiary regulation. I go back to article 9 of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources. It says clearly that parties to this convention would ensure that farmers will participate in any decision that affects their interest. I'm interested in whether the regulatory process would be sophisticated enough to enable this kind of participation of every dimension of interest, particularly with smallhold farmers.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Could you comment on what kind of royalty collection you would recommend for the cereal industry here in Canada? I know other countries have different regimes. I was wondering what you would see as best for the Canadian industry?

[Chidi Oguamanam]

Unfortunately, I haven't really paid attention to that and I would not want to mislead the committee.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Okay, thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

One minute.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

I'd like to bring up something new: patent infringement. There have been several high profile cases where it's happened naturally. Do you think it has to be proven that producers intend to infringe patent laws?

[Chidi Oguamanam]

Our law has a very high standard of infringement, so innocent infringement is not tolerated under our Patent Act.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you.

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

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Maybe I'll just keep going on patent infringement. When Roundup Ready canola first hit the prairies—of course there are some very famous lawsuits that went on at the time with Percy Schmeiser in that scenario—one thing that was very, very clear when you took on that seed was that you signed a contract and that contract gave you no privilege. You had no privilege to use that seed the next year, you had to sell every bushel you grew.

In UPOV 91 there will be privilege. When you look at privilege, in that scenario, then the farmer would actually have the ability to save that seed. Canola has gone to hybrid, so I don't see that option pertain. Isn't it actually worse right now because a contract could be created for a seed at this point in time that would restrict you and your ability to replant that seed and UPOV 91 is the only way to fix that?

Fix it with the farmer privilege portion of UPOV 91. It actually gives you the privilege to save seed. Well, you don't have that privilege right now. In fact, the contract that we created—