Thank you for the opportunity to speak at your meeting today.
As I understand it, today's hearings are about a new agriculture policy for Canada, the next generation of agriculture.
In looking at how we could participate in this review, CropLife Canada members and our Grow Canada partners discovered that we share optimism about the future of agriculture and the opportunities for innovation.
Joining me today is Richard Phillips, executive director for Grain Growers of Canada. Also attending are representatives from the Canadian Seed Trade Association and the Canola Council of Canada. And of course the Canadian Federation of Agriculture is here before you. We are all part of the Grow Canada partnership.
While production agriculture has endured major challenges in the past few years, the Grow Canada partners are united in our belief that plant science innovation can be, at least in part, a solution to the challenges facing agriculture. We see this as an opportunity to articulate a vision that offers a value-chain perspective with innovation at its core. The end result is this publication, “Innovation and Partnership in the Bio-Economy: A Discussion Paper on the future of Canadian Agriculture”.
In addition to CropLife Canada, there are eight allied stakeholder organizations that have lent their names in support of the document and the vision it has for the future of agriculture. They are the Grain Growers of Canada, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, the Canadian Canola Growers Association, the Canola Council of Canada, Pulse Canada, the Canadian Horticultural Council, the Canadian Seed Trade Association, and the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association.
Organizations like the Canadian Federation of Agriculture have worked hard on their vision as well. CropLife Canada certainly supports the CFA's strategic growth pillar and its recommendations for the next generation of agriculture policy.
Grow Canada is focused on innovation, and we think this is an important and sometimes overlooked component.
What is this collective vision for the future of agriculture? We envision by the year 2015 a prosperous, sustainable, and competitive agriculture sector in a flourishing bio-economy built on leadership and scientific research, innovation, and the adoption of new technologies and on working together in win-win-win value-chain strategic alliances to be a world leader in providing new products and new solutions for agriculture, nutritional health, energy, and environmental challenges facing consumers here in Canada and in markets around the world so that all Canadians will enjoy economic, environmental, and social benefits of the bio-economy.
What does this vision, this opportunity, look like in real terms? We believe by the middle to latter half of the next decade there is the potential for a $500 billion global bio-economy, driven by discovery and innovation in plant sciences. Contrast that estimate with the size of the global plant science industry today, estimated at approximately $40 billion. This means translating our substantial investment and research and development, some 7.5% of sales, into new directions for agriculture.
This committee is very familiar with the opportunity for agriculture from biofuels. Let me add to that crops producing vaccines and pharmaceuticals; crops delivering nutraceuticals and functional foods; crops generating biodegradable plastics and other biomaterials; and crops that can better withstand heat and drought, disease, cold, and frost, and that grow in saline soils.
Today's measure of success for agriculture is increase in yield. In the future we can imagine the evolution of quite different benchmarks, for example, doses of medicine per acre, or litres of biodiesel produced, or the number of kilometres per acre. All this innovation has positive impacts on downstream processing, such as the expansion of canola-crushing capacity in the prairies or ethanol plants across the country. What all of these innovations represent are solutions for some of the most daunting challenges facing our society in agriculture, nutrition, health care, energy, and the environment in both developed and developing economies.
They also represent solutions for farmers, for their most daunting production challenges as well as economic opportunity for farmers and for the entire agriculture value chain.
While scientific innovation is a pivotal and key driver for the bio-economy of the future, it's not enough on its own. Forging strategic alliances and partnerships throughout the value chain is pivotal to ensuring the sector's commercial success. It is also about government looking at regulation in new and different ways.
How do we turn this vision into reality? While I have outlined the role that industry can play, an important partner to make this happen is government. The recommendations to government in the paper are really the centrepiece of the entire document, and they fall into four broad categories.
First is to implement policy framework and regulation to enable innovation, not disable it. We are not talking about compromising health and environmental safety; we are talking about using a smart regulatory approach to accelerate the development of science-based policies and regulation. As innovative companies we need a predictable set of rules. We're also talking about communicating to the public to build confidence in the regulatory system.
Second, we need to help farmers adopt and adapt to innovation opportunities. That means assisting with on-farm infrastructure changes and the implementation of quality assurance programs, ISO certification, safety programs such as HACCP, environmental farm plans, and behind-the-farm-gate stewardship. It also means providing training for new technologies through best management practices and environmental stewardship and by closing the pesticide technology gap with the United States.
Third is to promote marketing acceptance, communicate technology's contribution to agriculture, and assist with regulatory capacity-building both at home and abroad.
Finally, there is one more recommendation. In order to help impress upon the public, the value-chain stakeholders, and our global customers that it is not business as usual in agriculture, and to change the mindset from the old agriculture to the new agriculture, we recommend a name change. It should be changed from Agriculture and Agri-Food to the Department of Agriculture, Food, and Bioresources. This change, while symbolic, would help make clear that we are entering an era of transformed agriculture.
In conclusion, what's in this new vision for Canada? For Canada and Canadians it is about environmental sustainability and economic opportunity. It is about job growth, increasing our productivity as a nation, rural and regional economic diversification, our international competitiveness, a safe and secure food supply, and prosperity for all. It's about growing Canada.
Thank you.