Agriculture committee  We're challenged with answering that question every day by producers who pay check-off. It's a very difficult valuation, by the way. But what we have done over the last 10 years is to look at the reductions that we've seen—say a 34% reduction in land use to produce the same amoun

Agriculture committee  I think the potential is large. We know there's a growing beef demand in the world, and we know consumers are wanting a safe product and a high-quality product, and Canada can provide that. I think the big thing we see as a challenge from a production standpoint—because right no

Agriculture committee  The industry is challenged by this, particularly when we talk to our global trading partners, as well as with our public. To be honest, producers know they're doing a good job, but sometimes it's about demonstrating that and having independent people to do that. So the first work

Agriculture committee  Absolutely. Although a lot of our research, you could say, is directed towards improving productivity for producers, ultimately, if they're using less water and are more feed efficient, there are fewer days on feed and they produce less manure. All of those things are ultimately

Agriculture committee  We have particular studies in that area but to be honest with you, that's the cross-sectoral approach because that engages your feed efficiency, your forage and grazing utilization. When we're doing that, and you're looking at improvements in genetics and genomics, you have to en

Agriculture committee  I think it speaks to the fact that we're ultimately trying to optimize how we feed our animals, and as that evolves, making sure that we can still produce at the end of the day, but in a manner that uses the least amount of resources. And that's done partially by improving the pr

Agriculture committee  It should be simple. We've tried to assume some leadership from an industry standpoint, but when we looked at it across Canada, there are over 30 research funding agencies. That's among industry and the provincial and federal governments. Everybody has their different priorities,

Agriculture committee  I will tell you this: we have tried to actually stop doing that because that's when we run into issues of not focusing on food safety as much, so we have taken a portfolio approach instead. That said, our industry right now is faced with competition for limited resources, specifi

Agriculture committee  Thank you. To start, I guess sometimes it does sound like we're behind in what we needed, but I want to emphasize that we've made significant gains over the last 30 years, and continue. We've seen in the beef industry a 14% reduction in water use, a 34% reduction in land use, an

Agriculture committee  I think the biggest thing is that we are changing the way the funding system has evolved. It's really positive where we've gone with the clusters, because you do have more direct industry-government engagement in planning. We need to continue that. It's about tweaking the system

Agriculture committee  I apologize for using that term, but basically it's the difference between non-hybrid and hybrid crops. Barley is a self-pollinating crop, so it's very difficult for a private company to capitalize and to have you come back to purchase seed every time. In essence, when you have

Agriculture committee  I think to speak a bit broadly about it, the biggest thing we need to be able to do when negotiating trade is to have science to back it. That's often around animal health and food safety, but there's even the code of practice around animal welfare and the increasing attention be

Agriculture committee  The beef industry understood that they had some work to do and, frankly, the clusters helped their becoming more coordinated by having that consistent strategy. But now it's also about getting not only participation beyond.... The cluster is part of it, but so are other AgCanada

Agriculture committee  I think it goes back to communicating the science an, of course, to using science as that base, and to having credible people within industry but also outside of industry to bring that science and those people forward when we're going to have those discussions. At the end of th

Agriculture committee  Under the cluster, we don't have any direct private sector involvement. We've done that strategically, knowing that the cluster really works on the applied research that benefits the broader industry and society as a whole. It also feeds into the research that the private sector