Evidence of meeting #31 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was quebec.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
Did you say that 65 % of flue-cured tobacco farmers in Quebec are no longer growing tobacco?
Director, Office des producteurs de tabac jaune du Québec
At the moment, this involves almost all of them. There are only three still in production, and they have cut back a great deal. So we could say that 92% of people are no longer growing tobacco. They are growing different crops, as I said, and the economic situation is very fragile, because of the significant investments involved. If farmers grow different crops that have some potential, we need more than just a little cart. Big equipment is required—refrigerators and other such things.
As a result of the agreement, we were able to pay off our existing debt, it helped us a great deal. However, there is no doubt that people lack the capital required to get into new markets. Of course, you know that it is no easy matter to deal with financing issues.
Bloc
André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
Have most flue-cured tobacco producers switched to other crops?
Director, Office des producteurs de tabac jaune du Québec
About 25% of them have.
Director, Office des producteurs de tabac jaune du Québec
They are still doing research and conducting tests. There are a number of examples I could mention. In my own case, I tried to grow beans, among other things. The first year, the yield was very good. It was interesting and great, except that when it came time to deliver our product, the purchaser was insolvent. I had to hire a lawyer to defend myself, and, fortunately, to recover my property.
But let us take a look at the case of Nicolas, who is not here today. He is a member of our group; he is the secretary-treasurer. Even if small amounts were involved, he had to deal with a situation where he had nothing at all, and finally the authorities had to get involved. I managed, but he did not.
Sometimes people who go into market gardening—fruits and vegetables—go into bankruptcy. Some producers had invested as much as $75,000 and were waiting for money to start coming in, but it never did. Of course, the following year, they try to grow a different fruit or vegetable or something else. It is not that easy to find markets. People still have some energy to carry on, but these attempts to develop markets have used up a lot of the money people had. And now we are facing the new problem of young farmers. When children who become old enough to take over the family farm see their parents gradually using up all their savings, they are not necessarily encouraged to go into farming themselves. However, if people could get some new funding that would allow them to grow a crop for which there is a market, then there would be some hope.
That is pretty much what we are facing, and I imagine it is similar to many people in Ontario.
Conservative
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank everybody who has taken time out of their busy schedules for today's situation to make their presentations.
I know that Mr. Finlay has been advocating at cabinet and to the Prime Minister and caucus for a buyout for the industry. As a caucus member and a fellow farmer who knows what a crisis is, who's gone through BSE, I don't fully understand all the implications. I know you guys have a huge capital investment in your operations, there's a regulatory situation, and I understand there's competition coming in from other sources as well that is impacting upon you.
Try to paint the picture for me a little bit. When you're talking about transition, what are alternative crops? I'm hoping you guys aren't going to just walk away from your farms and see all this land go idle. I hope there are alternatives out there. What alternatives are there? What's going to happen in your communities as you move forward?
Exactly what is it that you're asking us to take forward to the government? What is the exact buyout and transition program that you're talking about?
Chair, Ontario Tobacco Board
That's a bit of a multi-part question. As far as what farmers are going to do next is concerned, we're in a very unique part of the country. It's called the Norfolk Sand Plain. Many of you will know that prior to tobacco production coming into that area, that area was a dust bowl. It is a bit of a fragile ecology, very sandy soils. We don't believe that there is one singular solution for that area. We believe that more effort needs to be put into the areas of research and marketing development. I think there are many solutions that would have to be spread out over that area.
We, as a group, do not want to be in a position to be forced to compete with existing commodities like tender fruit and vegetables. Many of our farmers are actually being forced to do that already, trying to subsidize their farming business. We have debt associated with the shortfall in tobacco production. Many are trying some alternative crops. We believe that through a major injection of capital we are less likely to cannibalize these other sectors.
Some of our farmers—
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake, MB
How many acres are we talking about here, the land base in Quebec and Ontario?
Chair, Ontario Tobacco Board
I can't speak for Quebec. The Norfolk Sand Plain is over 100,000 acres of that type of land.
Conservative
Chair, Ontario Tobacco Board
No. A number of years ago our acreage would have been 50,000 acres. We are always in a rotation. We're not perpetually double-cropping tobacco. This year's production represents approximately 25,000 acres, so many of those acres have already either gone into cover cropping or other crops.
There has been a great deal of research already into these alternative cropping areas. There have been departments within the provincial government that have been working on this for 25 years. Some of our farmers will stay in farming after an exit program into some other area of farming. Some, we expect, will just do well to pay off their debt and leave farming completely—go through retraining, start a business, get an off-farm job.
We also believe that some of the most fragile and sensitive lands ought to be retired from farming through reforestation.
We hope that some of the current innovative ideas, such as biomass production for ethanol feed stocks, may become viable.
I think there is a multitude of potential solutions. I don't see one singular quick fix.
I'm sorry, I forget the second part of your question.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake, MB
Well, just this whole idea of transition and what exactly the program is. How much money are we talking about here? You said there are 1,000 farmers who belong to the marketing board right now.
How many farmers are in Quebec?
Director, Office des producteurs de tabac jaune du Québec
There are 58.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake, MB
And how many farmers do Tobacco Farmers in Crisis represent?
President, Tobacco Farmers In Crisis
We represent about 500 farm families. We represent P.E.I., Quebec, and Ontario producers who voluntarily joined.
You addressed the size of the farms. We have farms from 50 acres to 150 acres, on average. It's not like out west, where you're growing sections. It's very hard to pay your bills on 50 to 150 acres. If you're looking at going into an alternative crop, and you have the existing debt that we have in our specialized equipment.... It's strictly for tobacco. You can't use it for any other crop; it's highly specialized. Where will you get the seed money to look at getting out of tobacco after you've paid your debts and the taxes that will be due? It's a very difficult decision for families.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake, MB
When we are talking about doing away completely with the tobacco industry in Canada, there are still going to be people smoking, so where is that tobacco going to come from if we're not growing it here at home?
President, Tobacco Farmers In Crisis
That's exactly our problem. It's happening right now. There is no requirement right now for a Canadian content, a percentage in the cigarette. Under the tobacco advisory committee, for a number of years there was a working relationship between the companies and the farmers and the government. Now that doesn't work.
We have an underground economy that has stolen market shares from the legal producers, and these companies are reacting to this. If we're not going to get contraband back under control, these companies are going to leave Canada and they're going to leave us, as farmers, abandoned.
Vice-Chair, Tobacco Farmers In Crisis
May I address it back to the alternatives, very briefly?
Vice-Chair, Tobacco Farmers In Crisis
I'm 48 years old, and through my 26 years of farming, I have grown six alternative crops. All six have failed and failed miserably. It is very trying, and these are costly failures. I would suggest that a new agriculture venture would cost any one of us here a minimum of a quarter of a million dollars--money we don't have.
My land has been in my family for 250 years, and I want to keep that land. I'm not going to leave it willingly. I have a lot of debt. I hope there's a future for my son or my grandson, but it's going to take some new federal ag policy, period. At my age, I'm too old to start again. I've learned my lesson in agriculture. It's been 26 tough years, and I'm not going down that road again.
If I can see commitment from this federal government to turn this around with some support for the Canadian farm family, yes, I'll turn my son and my grandson loose, but not before. It's too costly. It's too hurtful. That's it, in a nutshell.
Conservative
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
I'll pick up where Mark left off, I guess, in regard to the comments that were made earlier.
I hope we're not seeing a blueprint for all of our small farming communities here. If we continue in this direction, it seems to me what we're seeing here we will see all over rural Canada. Obviously, we have to do something.
That's simply a comment I couldn't help thinking about.
The other thing is, and James touched upon this, obviously people are still smoking. Rothmans and those companies aren't shutting down production. The fact that they've stopped buying from producers in Quebec doesn't mean they've gone out of the smoking business.
I was talking to a duty-free person in my riding and he was telling me that if the companies leave Canada, he will have to buy from Mexico and it would cost him more.
Are we seeing a shift out of Canada from the major tobacco companies? That's the first question. The second one is, what's the reason for this? Is it this underground economy that's going unchecked, or is it the pressure from...? Let's stop there for now.
