Agriculture committee  Thank you very much. Good afternoon and thank you for inviting us to speak to you about innovation and competitiveness in the Canadian agricultural sector, from the science perspective. I am joined here today by Dr. Gilles Saindon, Associate Assistant Deputy Minister of the Sci

Agriculture committee  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

Agriculture committee  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—

Agriculture committee  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 tec

Agriculture committee  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 internat

Agriculture committee  I'd first like to go back to your question with respect the CRC, just to let you know that we are currently hiring two spring wheat breeders, one durum wheat breeder in Swift Current, and two pathology positions to be staffed in Morden. The long tradition of wheat work in CRC tha

Agriculture committee  Sure: there are two aspects to this. The issue of neonicotinoids and bees is a PMRA, or Pest Management Regulatory Agency, issue. This is an acute issue, something that is dealt with through regulatory mitigation measures that PMRA is putting in. The kind of work we are doing is

Agriculture committee  That's a very difficult question. However, I can tell you where we are evolving to. AAFC is the single biggest player in the agricultural research arena, and it continues to be. One of our strengths is how we mobilize our research network to be able to do the kind of work we do.

Agriculture committee  We have one example here. The AC Emerson, western Canada's first winter wheat to be rated resistant to fusarium head blight, was developed by AAFC scientists in Lethbridge. This year we will have the first winter wheat that will be resistant to fusarium head blight, and this is a

Agriculture committee  Yes.

Agriculture committee  Right now the Canadian Wheat Alliance is a five-year, $97-million initiative, but it's really an eleven-year initiative. The $97 million has been committed over five years in terms of contributions right now, so we hope we will continue. I was just at the meeting of the scientist

Agriculture committee  Let me start with some of the whole knowledge transfer aspects of the science and technology branch. I mentioned that in 2012 we merged the PFRA, or the AESB, with the research branch. We had two branches where, in AESB, we had a specific element of what was called “knowledge t

Agriculture committee  Right. For example, if you have identified a certain bioactive compound that is nutritional, you want to make sure that as you develop that particular compound, perhaps in food, you've looked at quality, and you have a mechanism to provide that information to the stakeholders tha

Agriculture committee  Absolutely.

Agriculture committee  Exactly.