Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to the witnesses for coming.
I would say at the beginning that I do think the research and innovation work that AAFC does is good work. But you'll hear from me and from a lot in the farming community that really you've almost forgotten about the key player in the system, and that's the primary producer. Or certainly this is the perception out there.
If you look at the research that the primary producers benefit from, it's really the research from the 1970s, when they did discoveries research. Canola was one of those varieties, and other barley varieties, even potatoes, were targeted to some of our microclimates in this country. Now we're dependent on partnerships with Monsanto and others, and they're looking at short-term gain for their mass markets that they can profit by. So I think there's a real shortcoming in Agriculture Canada in terms of discovery research.
In fact I could go to a number of witnesses, but I'll go to the ones from P.E.I., who said clearly, when they were before us, that in research, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has lost touch with the farm community. The new direction in research is not targeted at the farm community. From their perspective, and I know it as well, dealing with Harrington station in P.E.I., there now isn't the rapport between the primary producers and researchers that there once was. Part of that was the policy decision due to the budget cutting in 1995; I realize that.
How do you respond to that? How do we get back to research? I've looked through the estimates, and if I go to your chart on strategic planning, really, other than the economic benefits for all, really none of those categories are specifically focusing on research at the primary production level other than, yes, we're going to find some of these value-added markets and so on. The theory is that the money will come back to the farmer. The problem is that it never does. How do we fix that problem?
Secondly, I wonder if you could provide for the committee a list--I've looked through all the documentation, and I can't find it anywhere, unless it's on this disc--of the research stations under Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and what specifically they do in research. What's their specialty, I guess, for lack of a better word?
On that point, I might even say that one of the complaints with AAFC that I've heard internally--you might as well know it--is the way you manage your system now. There are a lot of man-hours and woman-hours spent on travelling the region in terms of a management perspective rather than actually doing on-the-ground research.
So perhaps you would cover some of those areas.