Mr. Allen, three minutes.
Evidence of meeting #16 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was farm.
Evidence of meeting #16 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was farm.
3:15 p.m.
NDP
Malcolm Allen NDP Welland, ON
I was interested in what Jamie talked about earlier, about farmers driving the price of land up. I actually live in the Niagara area. If you want to talk about expensive land, come down to our neck of the woods and see what it costs an acre.
But when you start looking at land use policies--especially when we're trying to get folks like Joe in, who was talking about the expense to get land to start production.... Can you speak to what land use policies are, especially when we're close to urban areas, as you are close to London? What do we need to be doing, or what would you like to see happen when it comes to...? There are municipal, provincial, and sometimes federal acts that determine land use policies. What do you need to see that would help you actually with the types of things you need, which is land that is reasonably priced so that young farmers can get started?
3:15 p.m.
As an Individual
Where we are in Middlesex Centre, the biggest growing cash crop is probably a horse, because I think there are more horse farms that have gone in around us than there are farmers. I don't know the last time I ate a horse. I'm not sure if I have or I haven't. But I eat at a lot of fast food restaurants, so I probably have.
3:15 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
3:15 p.m.
NDP
Malcolm Allen NDP Welland, ON
I'm sure you might have; you never know. Let's talk about the offshore stuff.
3:15 p.m.
As an Individual
It just seems to me that we're a little bit behind the times. We seem to be bombarded in our area with recreational-type farmers. Now, in the early seventies, that was fine, because they bought 50 acres and they rented 48 of it back to you. So it was a good deal. Now they seem to buy 50 acres, put a $1.4 million house on it and a $2 million horse farm, and when you drive down the road with your equipment, they're waving hands at you wanting you to slow down, or they ride through your field when you're planting as if it's a given right.
I don't know whether that's a policy issue or the way society is today, but that really is, in our area, probably agriculture's major competitor. Where we are in the Ilderton area, it's not the City of London coming out and grabbing land for housing. They seem to have enough, I think for the next 10 years anyway, the way they're going. It seems to me we're almost becoming parkland. I don't know where that blame comes from, whether that's federal, provincial, or municipal. We can blame it on whoever we want, but it just does not adapt well. I think the Niagara area has gone through these issues. It seems to be that if you're near an urban centre, that's what you get. What you do about it, I don't know.
3:20 p.m.
As an Individual
I just want to follow up on that.
It's true. It's almost like a right to farm, where you have people coming in who will buy 50 acres and bid it up because they're in a different industry. If they're coming from London or an urban centre, or they have the funds, it doesn't matter. They move in and then they start telling you how you should operate and how you're inconveniencing them. They're buying farm property. They're buying a property that's downwind from a livestock operation and then they complain about it. Who's producing the food? Who was here first? Where are our rights?
It's true, you get complaints because of dust. You get complaints because you're spraying and they have a smell. You get complaints for odd hours of traffic. It's not a nine-to-five job for us. We're just starting to see more and more of that. You may not notice quite as much if you're in a rural setting, but as you get closer to the urban centres, they're encroaching on us. I think there is a right to farm here, to a certain point, and we need to be protected or get away from all these problems and let us do business.
3:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
There is a right to farm act, but that doesn't eliminate complaints.
3:20 p.m.
As an Individual
Yes, but we shouldn't have to constantly apologize for what we're doing when somebody encroaches on us. And it only takes one to put a sour taste in your mouth.
3:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
We're out of time, but Marie-Anne, you can have a quick comment.
3:20 p.m.
As an Individual
Yes, or pay for the defence to fight.... I'm very fortunate. I live in a municipality where you have to have 51 acres to sever a farm, so there are fewer severances, but it is clearly an issue. Communicating the importance of farmland, which was one of my points, would go a long way. It's something the government could do just to sensitize urban people.
3:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Again, on that issue, I agree with you, but those tend to be municipal responsibilities with certain controls by the provincial government.
Mr. Richards, three minutes.
3:20 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Wild Rose, AB
Thank you.
I thank you all for being here to share your experience and your expertise and your passion for farming.
I do sense a lot of optimism at the table here today. Clearly there is some work to do in order to help particularly the young farmers getting into the industry, and there's some work to do to improve the future, but I do sense a real optimism here at the table, and that's refreshing.
First of all, Greg, I think you mentioned that you grow some wheat.
Is there anyone else here who grows wheat or barley?
I'm curious and I'm interested. I'm here from Alberta, and one of the things we've learned as we've gone across the country is not only about the future of farming, but we're also learning about some of the things that are different in different parts of the country. Obviously in western Canada we have the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly. I know you don't have that here, but I'm just curious about where you market your wheat, who you sell it to, and the process you go through to determine that.
3:20 p.m.
Conservative
3:20 p.m.
Owner, Cedarline Greenhouses
Yes. We sell wheat just like we sell corn, just like we sell soybeans. We have a competitive marketplace for wheat, and it's probably one of the crops that's made us the most money in the last couple of years. If folks want to go through our Ontario Wheat Board, through the pool, they can. That opportunity is there for them. If they want to sell on their own and take the risk of storing it and all those aspects that go with managing risk, then they have that opportunity as well.
3:20 p.m.
As an Individual
I don't know if you know it, but the original movement for Ontario to get out of the wheat pool originated in Middleton. When Ontario farmers decided they wanted to market their own wheat, the original motion came from this area. I think for the first two years they got laughed out of the room, but we won.
3:20 p.m.
As an Individual
We wouldn't be farming today like we are now at the turn of the century if it wasn't for being off board wheat, and we're growing different market classes of wheat now. We've been innovative in that way.
3:20 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Wild Rose, AB
It certainly is encouraging, and I know my farmers in Alberta would be encouraged to hear that there is hope for them, that they can have that choice in the future.
3:25 p.m.
Conservative
3:25 p.m.
As an Individual
I produce organic wheat, so basically I have to (a) hope that I can find a buyer, (b) hope that the buyer is still solvent enough to pay me after I sell it, and (c) hope that he honours the contract at the end of the year. Really, it's no different a risk than for my other two commodities. I treat it the same as soybeans or corn.
3:25 p.m.
Conservative
3:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Your time is up. I'm sorry, Blake.
Mr. Valeriote for three minutes.
3:25 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Valeriote Liberal Guelph, ON
Last week we heard a lot about the fact that while there's free trade, there isn't fair trade. Sometimes I think we've relegated ourselves as Canadians to thinking we always have to negotiate from a position of weakness. I'm not convinced of that.
We heard things about dumping from the United States. At the end of the season they'll dump everything in at a low cost, but the reason they get away with it is because they average the cost at the end of the season, a lower price versus the average prices earlier in the season.
I'm just wondering if any of you have any comments about the need for us as Canadians to look at those agreements and realize that just because they were made four, five, ten years ago, they're not written in stone. Maybe we should be looking at these things and fixing them so that they favour us just a little more as farmers.
Does anyone have any comment on that? Am I wrong?
3:25 p.m.
As an Individual
I just think it would be nice if our federal government would grow some balls when it came to trade negotiations in agriculture, because we're always concerned about anything we export being considered dumping in another jurisdiction, yet we're more than happy to take stuff below cost in our own country to the detriment of our own producers. I have a real problem with that.