Evidence of meeting #18 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.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Ashley, you talked about 12 kilos of quota. I have a pretty good idea what it costs per kilo, but I think it would be good for you to share that dollar amount per kilo with the committee.
4:35 p.m.
Canadian 4-H Council
At the time we purchased, the supply management system was under the old rules where it was a free market, so the prices were driven by supply and demand. I believe the first 10 we bought were $32,500, and the next two were $32,000.
4:35 p.m.
Canadian 4-H Council
Yes.
That was probably not quite big enough for us to start up, to be absolutely honest. They figure you need about a kilo per cow. We would like to milk 20 and we only have 16. That's all we can really manage right now.
The quota system has changed, as you're aware. Now the prices are capped at $25,000 per kilo. That is good and bad. It's good because prices are lower, but it's bad because everyone wants some and there's not enough.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
I wanted you to put that on the record, because those 12 kilos cost just under $400,000. That really outlines the issue.
4:40 p.m.
Canadian 4-H Council
Yes. And then we had to buy the cows and the equipment. We've had to get four more kilos since then.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
May 5th, 2010 / 4:40 p.m.
Bloc
France Bonsant Bloc Compton—Stanstead, QC
Thank you very much.
I don't know if I'm old or something like that but when I was young in my small municipality, I never learned farming at the 4-H club. That time, we used to do painting, etc. I am happy to see that women have changed everywhere. In my county, especially in Coaticook, there is an agriculture school that is called CRIFA. CRIFA teaches management, finances, for milk farms, as well as horticulture and environment. I realized over the years that there were more and more young women who were taking charge of the family farm.
I want to ask you a question. You are from Ontario, Mrs. Knapton.
You, Mrs. MacDougall, you are from Quebec.
We have set up a day care centre for young business women to help them. Do you think that, if there was a day care system everywhere, it would maybe help women to choose agriculture? I am asking you this question, because I have seen women carry their baby on their back to be able to work on the farm, because day care centres were too expensive. We have set up those early childhood centres to help the young women entrepreneurs. Do you think that might help the young women entrepreneur in agriculture, outside Quebec?
4:40 p.m.
Canadian 4-H Council
I'm not 100% sure. From what my parents have told me, I spent a lot of time in the barn or in the cab of the tractor. They tell stories about me falling asleep in the hay as they were doing chores. For dairy farming in particular, a lot of the chores are in the morning or at night, so I'm not sure how feasible a day care system would be. It would depend on the number of kids and how much maintaining you needed. In Mom's case it made it harder, but she was still able to watch over my brothers and me, as well as cook the meals and work in the barn.
I think it would help, but I'm not sure if it's a priority.
4:40 p.m.
Vice-president, Youth Advisory Committee, Canadian 4-H Council
Like Ashley, I grew up on a dairy farm. Both my parents were at home full time. I know other people who work off the farm. They don't work for their own families, their own farms, so they can't take their kids to work. You can't take your son to the bank--different things like that.
Having a day care that's affordable and open to women, single parents, or anyone in agriculture would make a big difference. You could drop your kids off in the morning...especially if it worked at different times. Agriculture is not always nine-to-five. Having a day care system would probably be very beneficial outside of Quebec.
4:40 p.m.
Bloc
France Bonsant Bloc Compton—Stanstead, QC
There is another thing we have always asked for: when young people want the family farm and their parents give it to them, the young are always taxed on the capital gain. Right now it's $750,000. When I went in Ontario, I realized that farms were worth much more than $750,000.
To help the young, would you be in favour of raising this limit to at least $1 million for the transfer between parents and kids? At $1 million, it is still not a big farm, especially if you take the quota into account. As you say Mrs. Knapton, at $30,000 a quota, you get to $1 million pretty fast. Would you agree that this initiative might help some young people go into farming?
4:40 p.m.
Canadian 4-H Council
Absolutely, because another factor you need to consider in succession is that, for instance, in my case, Mom and Dad are going to give me the farm, but I'll have to buy out my brother. It's not fair for them to just give me all those assets immediately. I think something like that would be very beneficial for sure. I will be paying out to my brother as well.
So yes, absolutely.
4:40 p.m.
Bloc
France Bonsant Bloc Compton—Stanstead, QC
I have another brief question for Mr. Mike Nowosad.
You said earlier that in British Columbia, more and more people are growing things on roofs. There is a reason for that. Organic farming is becoming more and more important for people. There are a lot of food products that come from other countries and we do not know how they came here. We often find out that there is salmonella in baby carrots from California. People are a bit worried about the safety of imported products.
First, growing plants on roofs is consistent with biology; products are fresh and people are sure they will not pay too much. I would suggest that you go more into biology. Having said that, do you think that if you go into organic products, it will be more expensive at the beginning, as far as selling your products?
4:45 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian 4-H Council
I'm not familiar enough with organic farming to answer that question, although. once again, coming over in the taxi with Ashley and learning a little bit about her background—you can maybe help me out on this part, Ashley--there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason in how you define “organic”. I think that's probably a difficulty.
And consumers in Canada are...I don't know. Consumers in Canada—boy, I don't want to have this on the record—aren't that smart when it comes to organic food. If you tell them it's organic, they'll buy the darn thing and they won't know where the heck it came from.
There needs to be some sort of—
4:45 p.m.
Canadian 4-H Council
I don't agree with the organic system right now. I would not pay that extra premium for organic food, in my opinion, because I am aware that of the food that comes into the grocery store, 99% of it doesn't have pesticide residue on it. It's tightly regulated, but people don't realize that. People just think that conventional food automatically has pesticides on it, and that's not the case.
I think the shift really needs to be toward local food, because I think local food is the healthier food. It's going to be the freshest. You know exactly where it's coming from. That's what I think you need to worry about.
I think you need to educate people on the pesticide residue issue--basically that there is none. I mean, it has been proven that in terms of the health benefits between the two, there's not a big difference.
4:45 p.m.
Bloc
4:45 p.m.
Bloc
France Bonsant Bloc Compton—Stanstead, QC
You're kind, Mr. Chairman.
As you say, we have to educate the urban population. If the urban population doesn't go to the rural population, why don't you do some theme days in schools? Why don't you go in the schools, if they don't come to you? I am sure that it will help them to bring—I am not talking about bringing the whole farm... Educate people, take them there. Instead of having only one class, you'll have the whole school.
4:45 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian 4-H Council
In Ontario and in British Columbia, they're using 4-H. You can earn a high school credit. If you take 4-H, you get a credit out of it, so there is some education that's taking place and it's certainly being recognized as a credit.
I agree totally with you in terms of agricultural education. I mentioned agriculture in the classroom; it has to be developed so that there's a unified national initiative for agriculture in the classroom.
One of the areas that we're looking at, in terms of urban, is after-school programming. This doesn't specifically answer your question in terms of education, but I will use the example of the partnership that we had with RBC in Kingston, Ontario, last year. The Boys and Girls Club was looking for programming opportunities and we were looking for new members. So the Boys and Girls Club, urban kids that don't know one thing about agriculture, did a foods project. It was a successful project, they are going to repeat it this year, and they're going to increase the numbers twofold.
So I agree.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Thank you very much.
You can never say I never give you a little extra, France.
Okay, Mr. Richards, for five minutes, please.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Wild Rose, AB
Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Bonsant, I have to tell you that knowing how stingy this chairman is with time, you may have wasted that one chance you were going to get. I was going to ask a question quite similar to what you just did, so you could have saved yourself.
Thank you all for being here--on short notice, I understand. We certainly appreciate that. It's always good to have young folks here to speak with us. I have to say that had I been your age speaking to a parliamentary committee, I would have been quite nervous. If you are, you certainly aren't showing it, so good job.
I have two questions. I'll ask the first one and then ask you to answer it as quickly as you are able to so that we can get to the second one and we don't have this guy cutting me off and pulling the hook on me.
The first question is this. I notice both of you talked about whether there's a future in farming for yourself. One of you seems to think that you're interested in being on the farm; the other one is not so sure about that and thinks probably not. In your 4-H groups at home, and in the association you've had provincially or nationally with other 4-H'ers, would you find that this would be fairly common, that about 50:50 are interested in being in farming? Is it less than that, more than that? What's been your experience?
4:50 p.m.
Canadian 4-H Council
I would say it's pretty split. It depends on the area and it depends on the person. I guess you could just say I'm crazier to be wanting to farm. It's hard to say, but yes, there's absolutely a split.
It depends on other factors, too. It depends on if there are siblings. I know in my case, if James, my brother, had been interested, my parents would have made it as fair as possible. But that's not always the case. Some succession stories are pretty rough and they're not passing the farm on fairly. That's an issue in some cases, but I would say it's split.