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.
1:15 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
I'd like to just talk a little bit about research and development. You talked about some—not brands, but I guess new—apples that are coming out, and I'm sure you're always doing that type of thing.
Is there any involvement by provincial and federal governments in that? Is it all done within the industry? Can you speak a little about that?
1:15 p.m.
Vice-Chair, Ontario Apple Growers
I have here a list of all the research projects we've taken part in over the last year, and the federal government, through CORD funding, has been supportive of a number of those initiatives.
We just had our board meeting yesterday and prepared an annual report. In that report.... No, it was in the financial report....
1:15 p.m.
Conservative
1:15 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
Can you give me any idea in percentage or in dollars what the federal and provincial governments put into it? If the whole thing was $5 million a year, would it be $1 million, or would it be...?
I'm just trying to get a—
1:15 p.m.
Chair, Ontario Apple Growers
Rather than give you a figure off the top of our heads, we could work it out and get back to you.
1:15 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
That would be great, if you could.
Here's one more question. I think you said the apple or soft fruit industry grows about 60% of what's actually required for the Canadian population.
Did I hear that figure right?
1:15 p.m.
Vice-Chair, Ontario Apple Growers
We only supply less than 40% of the fresh market needs for Ontario. I'm sorry, I don't have the Canadian statistics, but the Ontario market is a big market, one of the larger markets in Canada, and we only provide about 40% of those fresh apples.
What I was trying to say is that we don't over-produce at all. There is the potential that we could produce a lot more apples to fill the market demand.
1:15 p.m.
Conservative
1:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gerry Ritz
Just before my other presentation, I think, Brian, you gave us a bunch of numbers on this, that, and the other being down. I can't remember the exact relationship there, but the one thing you didn't mention was the number of actual producers. Is it up or down? Are there fewer people doing the work now? There are fewer acres in production, so are there fewer farms?
1:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gerry Ritz
Okay. The one other point I had is that I've heard it said before that a lot of the problem with the fruit industry is that you occupy the same ground as where people like to holiday and like to build, because of the climatic conditions.
Are you facing the same type of situation, where urban sprawl is driving the price of land up and you find yourself bidding against developers, if you want to put in another orchard?
1:20 p.m.
Vice-Chair, Ontario Apple Growers
There have been significant development restrictions placed on a lot of rural Canada, and a lot of the land values have gone up significantly. It's people who would not necessarily subdivide, but who like that 100-acre or 200-acre farm.
1:20 p.m.
A voice
A hobby farm.
1:20 p.m.
Vice-Chair, Ontario Apple Growers
Yes, a hobby farm.
One of the dilemmas with horticulture and apples is that the annual investment required to maintain and make sure your orchard is producing at peak efficiency is incredible. Thousands of dollars per acre of input costs are required and then another few thousand to harvest them.
1:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gerry Ritz
That's a very expensive hobby. It's almost as bad as raising horses.
Alex, you'll have seven minutes, please.
1:20 p.m.
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
Thanks for coming.
One of your points was national replanting. I'm assuming that's replanting to other apple crops?
1:20 p.m.
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
Although you mention B.C., in British Columbia the provincial minister of agriculture is telling our people to grow grapes.
I was at the Fruit Growers' convention in British Columbia a few weeks ago and I talked with the president, Joe. We were throwing this idea around--and I talk with him a lot; we communicate. We signed the Columbia River Treaty with Washington State. We gave them our water, they've irrigated their land, and now they're flooding our country with apples.
It used to be in British Columbia, and I imagine across Canada before NAFTA, that produce in season...once we produced onions there would be a tariff on the border, so people could continue to produce onions. If we take onions, we had over 2,000 farms, and now there are only half a dozen or so because of NAFTA.
Americans are pretty good at protecting, whether it's their lumber or their agricultural produce, even in NAFTA. We've tried going to try this process, when dumping took place a few years ago. By the time it goes through the courts, by the time we get a legal opinion, often the prices rise and then it's too late, so we've wasted all this time and the producer has suffered.
Joe and I were talking about this, and I'm sure there have been discussions. When dumping takes place, there should be some kind of a rapid response mechanism to slap on some quotas or tariffs on behalf of government until that dumping stops. Otherwise, if we go through the current procedure, it's very complicated--and you've talked about that in your presentation.
Is there a unified stance in the horticulture industry in Canada to work with government, to lobby government, to have something like this in place? As I said, they do it to us.
You were talking about producing 40% of your needs for apples and you import 60%, probably from Washington State. It's the same distance from British Columbia as it is from Washington State. Why isn't there an agreement that we're sending our surplus apples to Ontario, or vice versa? We've got these apples coming in from Washington that often come in and are dumped at below the cost of production.
So that's the scenario. Joe is going to be in town next week and we're going to talk. I think he's got a meeting with the minister and he's going to talk to him.
You've got your three-point plan, but is there a plan to have some kind of a stance, to get something in place, to really protect the producers with some kind of risk management before they have a disaster?
That's my question.
1:20 p.m.
Vice-Chair, Ontario Apple Growers
It's a challenging scenario. In the early to mid-nineties there was an anti-dumping agreement for apples. There was a minimum price. I believe it was $12.50 a pack carton for ten months of the year. I think in July and August the duty was removed.
Every period of time there would be a review of that dumping duty, and it was rescinded around 1995-96. The reason given was that there was no proof that dumping took place while the duty was in place. That's what the duty was to prevent. So it was sideways logic, but anyway, that's what was used.
In 1992 the Canadian apple industry had an opportunity to develop a national apple marketing agency with similar powers to dairy, chicken, and so on. Don't ask me how or why, but it was defeated by the growers and not put in place. It would have held import levels at a rolling five-year historical average. I've asked the question of politicians as to whether there'd be any hope of such a vote taking place again, because I would go on a national campaign to ensure that such a system was put in place.
The appetite of government to deal with dumping of agricultural commodities hasn't been there recently. In this grain corn ruling, it was very clear to most people that dumping was taking place. If we gathered statistics for eight or nine months.... Well, for the whole of 2004, the sale volume of Washington State apples went up dramatically, and the sale value went down dramatically. What does that tell you? It tells you that dumping was taking place. Could we prove it in a court of law? Well, we spent $30,000 to hire a lawyer to investigate it and decide whether it made legal sense to proceed. After the corn ruling, he just told us not to bother.
Washington State wised up and didn't dump last year. But for whatever reason, our return values did not increase in eastern Canada. They did in the west, but in eastern Canada the value that growers received for their apples from the 2005 crop was as low, if not lower, than when competing against the dumped crop from the year before.
I don't know if I've answered your question. We're not avoiding anti-dumping action, but it's left to the policy-makers of the day to decide whether it's something they are willing to support us in.
1:25 p.m.
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
So what you're saying is that if there's a political will to do this, then you would probably get on board to work with government.
1:25 p.m.
Vice-Chair, Ontario Apple Growers
Yes, it's actually a sentence that was taken out of my presentation that was talking about the anti-dumping action.