Evidence of meeting #11 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 40th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Conservative
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
Thank you, witnesses from both provinces, for coming. You've made the point pretty aggressively that under the current scenario there's no question we're losing the livestock industry—hogs and beef—in Atlantic Canada, and the government has to find some way of redressing that.
I'd also agree with the point the P.E.I. group made. I know our office, Mr. Chair—I don't know about yours—is having a lot of complaints about Farm Credit, that it's easier to deal with the chartered banks in terms of the farm financial cases than it is with Farm Credit. That's not the way it should be.
In the P.E.I. presentation, you said one of the solutions here—and I may not have this quite right—is to release the livestock that was assigned as security for 2008 and therefore allow producers to receive advances on the livestock for the 2009 production year. I assume you're talking about the assignment to the federal government under the advance program?
Past Chair, Prince Edward Island Cattle Producers
Yes. Those cattle were allowed to be set aside by themselves and then start the program again.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
And that would give producers the flexibility then to be able to re-get an advance and keep operating.
Past Chair, Prince Edward Island Cattle Producers
Yes. If somebody maxed out at $400,000, you would set.... If there is money sitting there, not...
Past Chair, Prince Edward Island Cattle Producers
Yes. We don't expect the program to have $800,000 out to one individual.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
Okay. So that should be one simple solution that is certainly possible.
I believe the Nova Scotia group gave some numbers. In P.E.I., what is the reduction in hogs and beef, or in beef in your industry? Do you know?
Past Chair, Prince Edward Island Cattle Producers
We don't have a definite.... We've lost a pile of producers, but we're not sure of the numbers.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
I have just a couple of quick questions, and maybe you can answer. I guess the key is that if we're going to have an industry, Mr. Chair, how do we get young people back into the industry? Under the current situation, as two producers—and I know both of you have reduced your operations—what is it going to take to get people back in the industry?
Past Chair, Prince Edward Island Cattle Producers
This is a question that's pretty dear to me. I was involved in a Future Farmer program that our province ran. You were in for five years and then you were out. It has been running for six years now. I was in on the bottom floor, and there were eight key producers in my group. Out of those producers, we have two left. So this is a very important question to me.
What we need is a guarantee that they can be viable. There is no interest in anybody coming in to something they're going to fail at. Brian and I are both younger farmers, as P.E.I. and as Canada goes, and we're not sure what we're doing. I have one son and I don't want him to even come near the barn because I don't want him to take an interest in it because it's such a battle. We need support programs there to help our young people get in and stay in.
The beef industry, for one, was one that people were moving into over the years because it's relatively easy to get in. You don't need the big infrastructure you need for dairy or for hogs. Your equipment is minimal as well, versus the potato industry. So young people were trying to get back into that industry. I used the example of the six out of the eight—three of them were trying to do something in the beef industry.
Conservative
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
The other proposal I think we put to the Canadian Cattlemen's Association when they were here was the viability test. People don't meet the CAIS AgriStability viability test because they had losses in two of the last three years. What's your view on that? Should we eliminate—
Past Chair, Prince Edward Island Cattle Producers
We need that changed right away.
Past Chair, Prince Edward Island Cattle Producers
Yes, and we need negative margin coverage to change to at least 70%. As it currently stands, I don't know how many.... A lot of beef farmers are going to fail that viability test. We have people who won't even take part in the program anymore because they won't pay the accountant to go through the channels to get there.
Conservative
Bloc
France Bonsant Bloc Compton—Stanstead, QC
Thank you very much. Once again, I am sorry that the debate has been delayed.
I would like to know which slaughterhouses you have access to in Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia. Are they Canadian or American?
Director, Prince Edward Island Cattle Producers
We have direct access to a plant in Prince Edward Island, Atlantic Beef Products Inc., a new facility that's only a couple of years old. For the hogs there were two plants, one in P.E.I. and one in Nova Scotia. The P.E.I. plant has closed, but there is still a plant in Nova Scotia for hogs. So we have one plant for each commodity left in the Maritimes.
Executive Director, Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture
As we mentioned, we have the Larsen's plant in Nova Scotia. That's strictly a hog plant. It's mostly P.E.I. pigs going into that plant now. We have a number of provincial plants, and some of those handle a few hogs. We have another federal plant in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Tony's Meats. There are Nova Scotia and P.E.I. hogs going into that plant. That plant is producer-owned. There were on the order of ten producers who bought shares in that plant and who own it with the idea of trying to move further up the value chain.
