Agriculture committee  You're correct. There are three working groups: data monitoring, which is looking at the existing data and new data that has come since the proposed decision by Health Canada; the mitigation working group, which will work closely with the data monitoring as the data monitoring should be able to pinpoint some of the crop uses, and from there the mitigation working group will assess if there are mitigation measures that could be taken into account and get to an acceptable level; and finally, the alternatives working group, which you just raised.

Agriculture committee  They haven't highlighted themselves specifically as organic producers so I'm not sure, but you're correct. That is an alternative option and a producer choice in terms of the protection methods they may want to take into account.

Agriculture committee  The alternative working group is working on an Excel spreadsheet or database of all the alternatives to imidacloprid for different crops. That provides an opportunity for growers to assess whether an alternative will really work in real life based on their experience, as well as understand whether other markets accept these alternatives.

Agriculture committee  Do you mean in terms of the alternatives?

Agriculture committee  I should put a caveat around it that the alternatives will be used in the event that Health Canada makes a decision to go with the phase-out, so it is looking at the alternatives only as a precautionary approach. Further discussions will have to be held in the event that Health Canada does decide to proceed with a phase-out.

Agriculture committee  Immediately following the proposed decision by Health Canada, AAFC created a multi-stakeholder forum, and it includes participants that are most impacted by this proposed decision. Those include grower groups, academics, research scientists, industry associations, and federal and provincial governments.

Agriculture committee  We had a really good discussion with the growers. They indicated how they're using these pesticides and the importance of these pesticides. We talked about some of the alternatives, and how effective or not effective they could be. These are important pesticides. They're important to the competitiveness of the sector, and growers feel that this is a serious issue and they welcome the opportunity to share their experiences as well as look at alternatives and potential solutions moving forward.

Agriculture committee  As you mentioned, it is a proposed decision. The alternatives working group is looking at alternatives to imidacloprid, and at whether those alternatives have what we call MRLs, maximum residue limits, so whether there would be any market access challenges. If there is a decision moving forward to do the phase-out, what we would like to ensure is that growers have access to alternatives that are widely accepted by trading partners because that is required as part of Canada's trading requirements.

Agriculture committee  Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is my pleasure to appear before this committee to discuss the department's activities regarding the multi-stakeholder forum, following Health Canada's publication of its proposed re-evaluation decision on imidacloprid. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) plays a facilitator role in bringing key players together in an effort to reach a common understanding of the issue and develop potential ways forward.

Industry committee  Those are a lot of questions.

Industry committee  Under the Growing Forward 2 policy framework, we have a program called AgriInnovation. In it we have the cluster program. It is commodities specific, so we have a wheat cluster and a canola cluster. This time around, we created the food processing cluster through the Canadian Food Innovators.

Industry committee  Agricultural colleges are declining in enrolment, as well.

Industry committee  It's another one of it depends. Some colleges are reaching out more closely to the cluster areas, where they are in terms of the food processing sector, where you're starting to see a bit more of an ongoing business-client relationship between the colleges and the food processing area, but there's still work to continue.

Industry committee  In Canada, we have a low rate of automation in the food processing sector. We're looking at ways to ensure that there could be government and industry collaboration, government trying to reduce the risk in terms of investing in those technologies. Some of the programming that we have in our Growing Forward 2 policy framework, sometimes called AgriInnovation, will assist in terms of the sector investing in technologies to automate their sectors and their plants in order to make them more productive.

Industry committee  I think it's a bit of both. It really depends on the companies and the sectors. There's a lot of innovators within the sector that can see the technologies from other countries and are looking to adopt and adapt it in their plants. Then there are other food processors that have tight margins.