Agriculture committee  We'd have to go looking for those numbers as well. When it comes to specifics, I have staff to do that. I do appreciate the difference between research and innovation, but the thing we need to think about is communication back to the producers and getting those new activities on

Agriculture committee  It's always an important question to any farmer, that they want to produce for the market that's in their area, and I recognize that. Each of our organizations is provincially organized. I'm not as familiar with British Columbia. Our national president comes from the island, actu

Agriculture committee  On a national scale, I couldn't get you the complete numbers, but we could certainly get those for you, and we'll get back to you with those. I know that artisanal products in Ontario and Quebec, and in most provinces now, are very high on the list. We're doing some research on

Agriculture committee  One of the issues that we're facing is it's not only CETA, but there's also the World Trade Organization. Under WTO rules we are only allowed to trade a certain amount. We're still waiting for the final papers on CETA to see if we have to live with both sets of rulings, and we as

Agriculture committee  It's still being determined. We just did a six-month update about CETA today that we're releasing to our producers. It all came out in October last year, so we're just working on our way through that. As I say, we have to see the final....

Agriculture committee  You have to remember that dairy is an industry that's very viable in Europe as well as here. They have geographical indicators in Europe as well. Almost all our cheese makers and all our cheeses are from Europe, so we're up against an issue there as well. We see it as an opportu

Agriculture committee  Well, 6,000 of our 12,000 members reside in Quebec, and they're very strong in our association. One of our vice-chairmen, in my position, is Bruno Letendre. He and I correspond it seems on a weekly basis. Some of the research that goes on in Quebec...the research farm is in Lenno

Agriculture committee  I think it's quite simple in that most people want to buy local; they want to buy from somebody they know. If it's a producer who's in the next township, or in the next town, they're more likely to want to buy from them because they can say, “I support farmer Smith just around th

Agriculture committee  There has to be an agreed-upon branding situation between the processor and the farmer so that the consumer will readily know when they pick it up. In the ice cream program now we use what's called the blue cow. I like to think of her as a white cow with a blue background. When t

Agriculture committee  There's a thing called mastitis, which is a disease of the udder. Part of the cluster is some of the scientists are in New Zealand, some are in the U.S., and some of them are in Europe, and with the magic of the Internet and everything now, they could quickly transfer this knowle

Agriculture committee  There's been no money announced or any programs announced at all. What we're looking for is something that's going to help create excitement in the marketplace so that the consumer will still be able to differentiate what is Canadian cheese and what is European cheese. We're not

Agriculture committee  I think one of the outstanding things we've used in the last number of years is genomics. Instead of having to wait for the standard five years to see if an animal actually produces what her genetic potential is, through genomics we can actually scrape a few cells off an embryo a

Agriculture committee  Yes. You're going to hear from someone from Semex, one of our exporters, in the next session. We export semen and embryos all over the world, because there are verifiable records, and people can rest assured that they're going to get what we've said they're going to get.

Agriculture committee  Absolutely, and 8,400 litres sounds like a lot of milk, but my herd now does 11,000, and there are many herds that do much more than that. When you do the research on the feed you're preparing for them, I like to say that I have a nutritionist who prepares the rations for my cows

Agriculture committee  But it's where we're going. Science is so tight now, and getting better—and will get better.