Natural Resources committee  If you go to the FAO Food Outlook report, they give the status of grain carry-overs from 2006 to 2008. You'll see there was a 10.9% increase in other uses of coarse grains, and that was primarily ethanol. The world's farmers had a good crop year in 2008. The problem was that we had a major change in industrial use, and that brought down the world's stocks.

Natural Resources committee  I've worked on energy crops and bioenergy conversion systems for 20 years, and from a practical standpoint, we need to use marginal farm land because those are the lands that are really in surplus and are providing low income to farmers. We can increase those farm receipts from that farm land, and if we strengthen the overall demand from the farm sector, we help all the commodities like canola and we can produce appreciable amounts of energy.

Natural Resources committee  Thanks very much to the committee for the invitation to speak to you today. For the past 20 years, REAP Canada has been Canada’s leading agency in developing ecoENERGY from agriculture. We commend the federal Government of Canada in its recognition of the need to support bioenergy initiatives from the farm sector.

Agriculture committee  It seems to me that the drivers of the bill are greenhouse gas mitigation and rural development. Liquid fuels are not the only way to support farmers. We've worked on this for 17 years, longer than anyone in Canada, to see how to use farmland to mitigate greenhouse gases efficiently and support demand enhancement for the farm sector.

Agriculture committee  In fact, I'm invited to speak at the agrologists meeting next month. But--

Agriculture committee  Just to give you a bit of my background, I've worked for--

Agriculture committee  I'm just saying that I think farmers are winners for staying in farming, because it has been very difficult. When I made that comment, I was referring to the greenhouse gas offset costs at $375 a tonne. You have to admit, that's a little bit high.

Agriculture committee  The trend is that everybody wants to see a greener environment. The question I have is is it necessary to go to two and five right away, or could we go to one and two, and then step up after that, go step by step? I consider this to be risky from an ecological standpoint and from a food security standpoint, that Canada is potentially contributing to increasing food scarcity in the world, and that we have record prices for wheat today.

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much, and good morning, everyone. If you want to get out our brief, it's in the briefs that have been circulated to you. Actually, we have revised this and added some references, so a new brief will be coming to you. Basically, REAP Canada is a research and educational organization that's been working since 1986 on sustainable agriculture and, more specifically, on biofuel development in Canada since 1991.