Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, members, and thank you for the opportunity to speak to you this morning on an issue that is critical to Canadian agriculture, and in particular to Canada's grain and oilseed producers.
My name is Bob Bartley. I am a director of the Grain Growers of Canada. I farm at Roland, Manitoba.
The Grain Growers is an umbrella organization that serves as the national voice of grains and oilseeds producers, devoted solely to representing grain producers' interests on policy issues, including domestic support, regulatory issues, market access, and trade policy, as well as on practical issues such as investment in the sector and transportation.
We have member associations in every region of Canada and represent 90,000 grains and oilseeds producers. As an organization, we have been very active on issues related to pesticide regulation and approvals, given the importance of having timely and affordable access to crop inputs.
I would like to state for the record that Canadian grain and oilseed producers recognize the utility of a sound, science-based regulatory system to protect Canadians, including farmers who use these products on their land and in close proximity to our families, from potential hazards associated with chemicals such as pesticides and herbicides. We will continue to support a science-based regulatory system as a means to manage potential environmental and human health risks and we would also go on record as promoting the responsible use of these products.
Canadian grain and oilseed farmers use these products in a responsible manner, recognizing that there are risks associated with them, and we actively take steps to reduce or to mitigate those risks. This is not only part of sound and sustainable agriculture practice but is also a sound business practice, for these products represent major costs in our operations.
I would like to speak for one moment about the types of business risk, as a means to describe the backdrop against which Canadian farmers are operating.
It is no secret that Canadian producers are facing difficult circumstances. This committee has heard in recent weeks about the income crisis in Canadian agriculture, where producers are facing rising costs and receiving declining prices for their products. Key reasons for the decline, and indeed the reasons for the rise in costs, are beyond the control of producers.
Grain Growers considers that one of the key factors in the decline in our reference margins is the use of subsidies by our trading partners and competitors. These have the effect of overstimulating production and depressing prices. We are pleased that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Agriculture recognize the income problem by honouring the commitment to the grains and oilseeds sector made by the last government and by committing new funding to agriculture, but we note that it is also important to turn to policy solutions to alleviate the problem too.
One of the practical problems facing grain and oilseed producers is the issue of timely access to affordable inputs such as pesticides. The Grain Growers of Canada is committed to eliminating disparities in access to pesticides between Canadian and American producers, as well as between producers in different parts of Canada.
Members of this committee may know that the Grain Growers was an active participant in the work on the own use import task force. Through access to own use Imports, producers were able to save $2 per litre for one particular product when it was imported from the United States through OUI. This may seem like a small amount, but when you consider an average use pattern of approximately 1.5 litres an acre of that product and calculate the savings per acre against an average farm, say one that would be just under 3,000 acres, a producer could save more than $9,000.
When you consider this in light of the crunch producers face from declining prices, you begin to understand the reason producers turned to such a program in record numbers in 2005. However, the Grain Growers recognize that this is a complex issue and that our producers need a reliable supply of product and access to new products.
We recognize there are problems with the own use import program, no matter how much cost saving there is on an individual farm basis. Among other things, from a producer's perspective the program is not easily accessed by individual producers. Obtaining an equivalency declaration can be a complicated, time-consuming, and costly endeavour.
As a solutions-based organization, the Grain Growers strive to find constructive policy solutions to challenges facing grains and oilseed producers. For this reason, we welcomed the smart regulation initiative and we are pleased that the government has decided to enhance cooperation with our American and Mexican neighbours under the security and prosperity partnership.
We see these as important and concrete steps to improve the situation for producers in the long term. In fact, regulatory cooperation with a view to working towards real harmonization and a single North American market for pesticide products is, as far as we can see, the real solution to some of the problems related to pesticides facing Canadian agriculture producers.
Regulatory harmonization through cooperation and mutual recognition is the key to closing the technological gap for many producers. It is puzzling that Canadian regulators would establish a maximum residue limit for chemicals on imported products that will be consumed by Canadians but not approve these same chemicals for use by Canadian farmers on the same Canadian-grown products.
This issue speaks to the increasingly globalized nature of our market. Canadians eat food from many parts of the world every day, just as Canadian food is consumed the world over. As such, Canadian producers are well aware of the perils of regulatory measures used as non-tariff barriers to trade. We take measures to ensure that our producers meet the requirements of our customers and we rely on Canadian rights under the WTO's agreement on sanitary and phytosanitary measures to defend Canadian products from unfair measures. The SPS agreement, along with requiring that measures be based on science, encourages harmonization between countries as a means to reduce non-tariff trade barriers. For this reason, we see the natural progression of the own-use import task force, which has examined the problem from a number of angles, should lead to regulatory harmonization in North America.
The PMRA has taken several steps towards this through the NAFTA working group on pesticide harmonization, but we would encourage the agency to move towards mutual recognition of regulatory decisions as a means to improve the business environment for agricultural producers, while ensuring the protection of Canadians and the environment. We considered that reducing the regulatory burden would ultimately improve access for Canadian producers by ensuring access to new products at the same time as our American counterparts, and this should ultimately reduce the cost to producers. Regulatory fees would be recuperated by passing them on to the users and consumers of the products, namely farmers.
I'm sorry that Mr. Easter has gone. I wanted to talk about Wayne's wild oats.
Prince Edward Island and Quebec are areas that lack wild oat herbicides in wheat. I'm a farmer from Manitoba. We have access to several wild oat herbicides that will take the wild oats out of the wheat; Quebec and Prince Edward Island lack that. So we need some harmonization between provinces and among the regions across Canada too.
In short, as we have stated before, grains and oilseed producers do not believe that the government owes farmers a living, though we do believe that government owes us the industry policies that will allow us to make a living. These policies are within our grasp. One of these policies is the improvement of the regulatory system for agricultural crop inputs.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.