Thank you.
He touched on the biodiesel part from the Grain Growers; I'll just touch on some ethanol thoughts.
I have five brief reasons why we are happy to see an ethanol industry develop and why we would support Bill C-33.
Number one—and I'm speaking more from a western Canadian perspective—it reduces our dependency on foreign grain markets; in western Canada we're heavily dependent on exporting, and when you're exporting your grain offshore, you're vulnerable to tariff, non-tariff barriers, currency fluctuations, labour disputes, and ocean freight rates. The more grain we process locally, the more we avoid those issues.
Secondly, it reduces our dependence on shipping grain by rail. I've been before the committee before and I've talked about Bill C-8 and the need to get some shippers' provisions in dealing with the railways. In western Canada, the two main railways haul about 65% of the grain we produce, so anything we can ship to local production and local value adding will reduce our dependency on those railways. We hope you have followed up with your Senate compatriots and encouraged them to put Bill C-8 through quickly.
Thirdly, it provides us with another local option for marketing our grain beyond some of the feedlots and the other smaller value-adding processors that we do have out there. As we've seen in the corn, canola, oat, and pulse sectors, there's nothing like local buyers of grain to support local prices. From our perspective as producers, the more competition for our grain, the better.
Fourthly, it creates jobs and economic activity in rural areas. It's not just the truckers hauling in the grain, but it's the electricians who have to service the plants and the plumbers who provide the water. There's a lot of work and a lot of services needed to keep an ethanol plant running. That all spins off into other jobs in the communities as well.
On the environmental aspect, even leaving aside the arguments of some of the studies, the fact that we're not using fuel to haul our freight all the way to port to get to overseas markets--we're just taking it down the road to a local ethanol plant--that alone is a huge environmental savings, in my mind.
What are the challenges that we see? Number one, keeping producer ownership where there's a strong interest in investing. My father and I have put a fair amount of money into our local ethanol plant. It's a challenge because there are people coming in. Some day if we're successful there will be a takeover bid, I'm sure. So whatever structures can be put in place to encourage and enhance local producer ownership in the plants, we think, is critical to the long-term success in western Canada.
On keeping our livestock sector strong, I know there are some challenges out there with the feed prices right now. Whatever we can do, beyond even the dry distillers grain that is going to come out of these ethanol plants, the livestock sector is an important market for our feed grains.
I have three or four quick suggestions. We think if the committee is looking at what they could do in addition to Bill C-33, there is research into the feedability of these dry distiller grains to the beef, and especially into the monogastrics like hogs--what are the maximum rations we could use? There is also research into the component parts of wheat and corn that could be removed even before the ethanol process, like the germ. Besides the DDGs, there are many other enzymes and products in kernels of corn that could be used for other purposes. Lastly, there's research into wheat and corn varieties that are best suited to ethanol production. Let's do what we can to improve upon the formula of one unit of energy in and 1.4 units out in ethanol. Those are a couple of suggestions.
I look forward to the questions. Thank you.