Agriculture committee  Mr. Chairman, there's no question, these types of ventures are extremely risky. If you read the Globe and Mail and other papers, they will tell you that the venture capital business model is broken. What you're seeing now is a movement toward more of what they call hands-on inv

Agriculture committee  No, I do not. So that's one aspect of mitigating the risk. Another way to mitigate the risk, where government can play a catalytic role, is to provide some form of grants or loans--the preference would be loans--to early-stage ventures. These are repayable loans, so we'd not be

Agriculture committee  You bring up a very good point. There is no hard and fast criteria at this point in time that says if it's 10% agricultural oils, it doesn't fit; if it's 11%, it does. I think what we have to do is look at each individual opportunity to see what is the benefit and the impact to t

Agriculture committee  We don't have access to research funding either, but there are various programs across the country to which we can help introduce the farmer, producer, or entrepreneur, and then help them arrange the research funding.

Agriculture committee  We're funded under the Growing Forward program, which I believe has a 60-40 split.

Agriculture committee  You'd like to make that mathematical equation. It doesn't work that way.

Agriculture committee  The original mandate was for Ontario only. The mandate has changed. It is now a national mandate. We are in discussions with the other provinces: Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, B.C., ACOA in the Maritimes, and Quebec. One of the ways we work is through the partnerships we hav

Agriculture committee  It wouldn't necessarily be us, but there is a need for organizations like, I'll say, ours and like Ag-West Bio, for example, in which there is specific knowledge. They have areas in which they do much better than we do, and we have areas in which we do something better than they

Agriculture committee  Agri-technology, or agri-tech, includes any product, technology, or service that finds its basis in agriculture, in either animal science, crop science, or producer farm management. It's very broad. It can be things such as functional foods and nutraceuticals; agricultural produc

Agriculture committee  No, the funds come from Ontario only right now.

Agriculture committee  The mandate of the organization—as I understand it, from the get-go, from day one—was to promote innovation within the agricultural community and seek out new, innovative products that would bring value to the agriculture community. We focus away from commodity-based products and

Agriculture committee  Mr. Chairman, I'd like to thank the member for his questions. The national report was delivered to Agriculture Canada back in late January or early February of 2009. I'm not aware of the direct impact on policies of that report; I wouldn't be aware of it anyway. I hope it's bei

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I truly appreciate the opportunity to speak to you in the hopes of helping to advance our shared goal of building and maintaining Canada's leadership position in the global agricultural marketplace. BioEnterprise Corporatio