Thank you.
I will speak more slowly, because I'm from Saskatchewan, where we're still debating whether the extra hour of daylight with daylight saving time will hurt our crops.
My name is Richard Phillips. I am from Tisdale, Saskatchewan.
I'm employed by the Grain Growers of Canada.
On the issue of competitiveness of Canadian grains, oilseeds, and pulse producers in the world, I will reiterate what you've heard from many people today and what you've heard from many speakers before us: that is the need for public research. Clusters are proposed, and they're talking about private partnerships. We see potential in those, but at the end of the day we still see a big need for A-base research, which is your base agronomic research, whether it's for the Maritimes or the Prairies. You will see that in the cereal grains and the pulse crops especially, where there isn't a place for the private sector to put money in and get money out. At the end of the day, the private sector will invest where they can get a return on their money. Because we believe in farm-saved seed, and people will save seeds in their cereal grains, the private sector will not likely ever invest major dollars at this point in time or for the foreseeable future in those grains.
Ag Canada does a tremendous job, and we thank the government. There were some recent announcements for some investments in research facilities, but as we know from the prairie oat growers, the Cereal Research Centre in Winnipeg is nearly a condemned building. So we need more money and more commitment to that public research.
It's not just the cereal grains; it's shattering in canola as well. There are things like pulse-cereal rotations. For those of you who may not be farmers, if you plant a pulse crop and it's inoculated and you grow a cereal grain after it, the nitrogen that's fixed by the pulse crop will help improve the yield. So what is the right combination of those crops? We could actually save money as farmers on fertilizer use, for example, if we could have the right combination of crops in rotation.
There's no role for the private sector in that sort of research. Those will always have to be public dollars. However, we as producers are willing to step up to the plate. We have check-offs on many of our crops. Many of the organizations here, the farmers at this table, are putting money into check-offs. The Canadian Wheat Board works with, say, the Alberta Barley Commission funding research. Farmers are prepared to step up to the plate, but we want to be partners with the government on that base agronomic research that is critical to us.
Briefly, on a couple of other issues, in terms of trade we're strongly in favour of moving ahead on the EU deal. Moving into the North African market, the EFTA market, and Peru, some of the initiatives undertaken are good for those of us who rely on the export markets.
As maybe a small critique of the government, we're more than 13 months into the Growing Forward program and we have only one major program announced so far. We would strongly encourage the government to move ahead quickly, because producers are looking for that. What are the tools and programs we can use to take ourselves to the next level in competitiveness?
Biotechnology based on sound science is critical, going ahead.
I really look forward to the question and answer period where we can talk more about some of the issues around the Canadian Wheat Board. There are a wide range of opinions out there. I would say that a lot of producers believe, though, that at the end of the day producers should have a say in determining their own marketing structures.
In line with that, we actually wrote to the Wheat Board earlier this week. I have a copy of the letter here. We've asked to meet with the Wheat Board, to sit down and talk about these farmer director elections. Every time there is an election, there are disputes, whether it's from people who like the Wheat Board or people who don't like the Wheat Board. There are always disputes over voters lists, who's getting them, where the home quarter is, or if the person is in the right district.
So we'd like to sit down with the Wheat Board. There was an expert panel put together about three years ago that reported back in about late 2005 with 14 recommendations. If the grain growers and the Wheat Board sit down together, I think we'll probably come back to this committee or to Parliament with a series of recommendations to clean this up. Clean elections are in the farmers' interests. It's in the Wheat Board's interest to know that those are valid elections. Together we hope to come up with some solutions.
Thank you very much.