Agriculture Committee on May 12th, 2010

[Brian Boates]

Just quickly, when I came home and looked at the operation, it seemed to me that value added was the way to go, and there was a lot of encouragement to do that. But once I had done that, this whole increased food safety thing came out of the blue at me. I knew it was coming, but if you are looking for areas to help farmers, that would be one for me.

On the one hand, I have a very modern processing set-up on my farm, yet on the other side of my operation, I'm farming with 30-year-plus machinery that I inherited from my father. So there's no balance there, in having a modern processing plant and totally antiquated machinery.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you, Brian.

We'll now move to Mr. Hoback, for five minutes.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Actually, I'm going to build on Mr. Easter's question on the provincial side and look at provincial initiatives. Are there any provincial initiatives that you guys have participated in or helped to develop that you think would be beneficial for us to look at on the federal side?

[Danny Davison]

Yes, there are several programs in the province that are valuable to producers and are cost-shared federally and provincially. Again, while I don't know as much about what the requirements are on the federal side, I would say that if there's any flexibility or any leniency to allow the federal government to give more money to provinces, as I think was mentioned to the panel this morning, and allow the provinces to decide how that money is going to be spent.... I think it was mentioned that may be similar to the health care system. I say this because I think that within the province there are a lot of people who have a pretty good idea and maybe have closer ties to where money needs to go to help the province move forward—or maybe, as someone mentioned here, multiple provinces, the Atlantic region or maritime region.

So I think, yes, there are a lot of good programs, and it would be very beneficial if the federal government—

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I'm trying to get into more specific programs, though. Is there anything specific that you can talk about in terms of provincial initiatives here?

[Danny Davison]

I'll just mention one. There's a farm investment fund. Certain portions of that are cost-shared. I might be wrong a bit on the details, but the federal government allows its funding to go to things such as on-farm food safety. There is a little bit of leniency for succession planning and things like that.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

That's federal funding, though. Is there any provincial funding in that?

[Danny Davison]

Yes, there's federal and provincial funding. They go together on those things. And then there are other parts of the program that only the province funds and the federal government won't fund, such as land development, that sort of thing.

So the answer to your question is yes, and it's things like, in my opinion, the farm investment fund.

[Tim Ansems]

Provincially, as Danny had mentioned, there's the farm investment fund. When I got into the turkey industry ten years ago, there was interest forgiveness on my loan. As was mentioned earlier as well, it was pretty minimal to the amount of money that I had to borrow. The interest forgiveness was sort of, “Good job, Tim; well done.” Financially speaking, it didn't really help much. It's appreciated, but...

The federal program that I really liked a couple of years ago was the options program, which Peter mentioned earlier. It brought my family income up to the poverty line.

[Mark Sawler]

The program that I think has made quite an impact on our farm, and maybe on the region, has been Select Nova Scotia, or the promotion of local consumption of product. It has grown the market and has allowed that.

I've seen a dramatic change in the attitude of the people I sell to and in the consumers, which has had a dramatically positive effect on my farm in the last three years. It corresponded with the start of Select Nova Scotia, but it may have been related to other factors in the environment, such as the 100-mile diet and all that kind of stuff. I think that is a real capitalization.

Here, a lot of farms are sized to the local area. We're not huge exporters of food, except maybe fish and a few things like that. But for the horticultural industry, barring those two or three exceptions—apples and blueberries—where most of it is consumed in Atlantic Canada, Select Nova Scotia has helped us who sell to the Atlantic region.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

As you look forward, are there any policies or programs that you see coming out of the existing government that you think are going to be beneficial, that you're working on at this point in time with them?

[Mark Sawler]

I don't have an answer to that question. I just know that program has helped, and I would hope there'd be continued support.

It's hard to keep one of those things fresh, right? They start out and have a little bit of initial impact, but how do you keep them fresh and all that kind of stuff? That's sort of beyond my expertise, but I'm hopeful.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Go ahead, Danny.

[Danny Davison]

In response to Randy's last comment about future programs, actually Shelly Manning is over here, and she could correct me, but we're currently in the four- or five-year stage of the suite of agricultural programs, and I think negotiations are under way for what the next set of agricultural policy framework programs will be. For this region, flexibility within those programs would be very important.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thanks, Randy.

Mr. Brison, you had a comment in regard to this. You have 30 seconds.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Yes. We heard earlier about the potential in clean energy, the potential for farmers to produce clean energy. Do you have any comment on the environment we have in Nova Scotia to sell clean energy, compared to some other jurisdictions? In Ontario, you can get more per kilowatt hour for alternative energy, plus you can actually make a profit on your operation through feed-in tariffs, as opposed to the net metering that we have in Nova Scotia. I'd be very interested in your views on to what extent we need to reform that energy system.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Yes or no.

Mr. Brison, that was to be a comment, not a question. It's coming out Mr. Shipley's time.

[Tim Ansems]

Yes, I think there's an opportunity to produce green energy, but Nova Scotia Power has the transmission locked up. Within this municipality, I don't even believe we can put up wind turbines. So we have bureaucracy at each level that makes it cost-prohibitive or time-prohibitive to get on clean energy.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay. Thank you.

Just on that, when you say you can't put them up, is it all on the bureaucratic side? Or is it on the NIMBY side, not in my backyard?

[Tim Ansems]

It probably depends on your location. I believe I have enough land area in my area to be able to put them up. NIMBY always doesn't look aesthetically pleasing, yadda yadda yadda.

I mean, give me a break, people. Oil is going to go up and you need to open your eyes and realize that we need to be self-sufficient in this country sooner rather than later. As Mr. Easter had said, we need to decide now whether we want to produce food or rely on others.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay. In my province of Ontario, the same people who say they want green energy are the same ones who don't want it near them.

Mr. Shipley, five minutes.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you.

Just on the energy issue, farmers have always been and will always be the best stewards of the land. There's no doubt about that. When we get to Ontario, though--this is just to Mr. Brison--quite honestly, it sounds good, but agriculture is being disadvantaged in terms of green energy, in terms of off-farm, other than you can rent the land and they'll put a tower up.

In terms of having a farm produce green energy to biogas digesters, agriculture has been very disadvantaged, and that's something we need to work on so that we can get the same rate per kilowatt hour as they do for solar and for wind.

I'm going to get to the basics. What are the main three components federally that we need to do to make it profitable? I just want to touch on the research, because I'm a great believer in research and science as long as the development part comes with it. I think the change that has happened... I know the AG's report took us up to 2008. I'm on the public accounts committee, and one of the things it didn't talk about was what has happened since.

We've tried to decentralize. About $26 million has gone out to the area to help get some of those regional research stations going again. I agree. For those who have had the opportunity to travel from west to east, you have to understand the complexities of the country, the complexities of agriculture, all the things that come with it.

I'm hoping that in fact there is a move to do it. It's a difficult one to start to decentralize again, but we do have to bring in the partners. We were at Guelph University. They talk very much about the partnerships that they have now in terms of developing some of the research.

I'm hoping that there is hope in terms of getting more of the research for development. Mark, you made some incredible...all of you did. We have a great country where these niche markets are important, but we're also recognizing that likely 85% of the products are produced by 15% of the producers.

We have a diversity. What are the three main things that the federal government can do to help bring profitability? That's the main thing. What do we need to do? Just start, because this is where we're actually going to start to come up with some recommendations.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

You just have a couple of minutes left. The question was what can we do to basically help that profitability.

Do you want to start, Danny?

[Danny Davison]

I think there are two right off the bat: protect supply management--be as proud of that system as we are of the banking system--and help us educate the consumer, because we've put ourselves at a disadvantage in doing that by ourselves. And get the agriculture minister to wear a big cowboy hat.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!