Evidence of meeting #21 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 need.
10:25 a.m.
As an Individual
Yes. It's the fact that we don't have a Canadian food policy. We don't have a statement that says this is the way things are going to be with food in this country. Once we decide that a food policy is important for our nation, we can move forward, but right now we don't have that.
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Again, I want to thank all you guys for coming here. You did a great job.
When we look forward, do you have one suggestion you'd give this committee?
We've talked about a lot of things. Cammie, you had five different things that you wanted to highlight. Is there anything we can sum up from this? Is there anything we can take back that, first of all, is a hurdle; and second of all, would be a solution?
You said income, so maybe I'll leave you, Peter, if you don't mind, and just concentrate on the young people here.
Cammie, you can start off, if you like; and we'll finish off with you, Curtis, if that's okay.
10:25 a.m.
As an Individual
I would say, again, if I had to pick one thing, it would be looking at alternative models for land tenure and affordability of land, such as community land trust.
10:25 a.m.
As an Individual
Probably the one thing that I would work on strongly is a Canadian food policy that everyone can work collaboratively around. I think we need to cooperate and we need to decide that this is what we need to do for our farmers and for our people.
10:25 a.m.
As an Individual
The bottom line is profitability. I think if statements were checked out regarding profit and income for most of the farms across Canada, you'd see that there has been pretty near zero profitability on these farms in the last five years.
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
That's one thing about profitability. When profitability is there, all of a sudden capital shows up, and all of a sudden it solves a lot of the other issues.
Thank you.
10:30 a.m.
As an Individual
No, I agree with what has been said. It's income. That's it. Profitability or income, it's the same thing. It's supply-managed. We need a method to get a positive number on the income tax return, and then access to capital or access to land. There are a whole bunch of things that we can work in there, and the pension. If Cammie's neighbour has a pension and says “Yes, use my land”, then that's fine.
10:30 a.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
There are two sides to the equation for income: there's the generation of it; and there's the reduction of costs. When I look at the costs, as I said before, if everything is getting capitalized before you even get started, you just can't get started.
When a young farmer is competing against someone your age to buy land, you have everything paid for—maybe or maybe not. The young farmer is starting off with maybe 5% or 7% equity, and we're telling them that they need 25%. Right away, they get priced right out of the marketplace, and I don't know how you level that playing field.
10:30 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Thank you, Mr. Hoback.
Thank you to all our witnesses for being here today. We know what it's like to take time out of a busy day, and we really appreciate that.
We have another slate of witnesses coming before us, so if we could please have you vacate, we'll ask the next witnesses to please come to the table right away.
Members, we'll take a few minutes and then get going again.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Order, please.
I'd like to once again welcome our witnesses. It's a beautiful day here in Nova Scotia. I know what it's like to take half a day off and get off the farm, so to speak, but we appreciate all of you being here.
We have an even larger delegation of presenters in this half. I urge you to keep your comments to under seven minutes to leave as much time as possible for questions.
If you have a written presentation and you don't get to read all of it into the record, please give it to the clerk. It will be copied and translated and given to every member. Then at least your thoughts will be with the committee.
We'll go to Geneve Newcombe for five to seven minutes, please.
10:40 a.m.
Geneve Newcombe Nova Scotia Egg Producers
I thought, sitting at the middle of the table, I wouldn't be first.
Good morning.
I'd like to begin briefly by introducing myself. My name is Geneve Newcombe, and I'm part of a large family farm in Port Williams. If you look out from the windows, you can probably see us from here.
Our family has been farming here since 1761, and my children are the tenth generation living on the farm. Our farm is a mixed operation, with egg layers, chicken, and dairy. In addition, we have an on-farm feed mill and grow most of the crops required to feed our livestock.
My husband returned to the family farm when he was 22, after completing his degree in agriculture. Two years later we were married, and thus my farming life began. The primary reason we have been able to farm successfully and profitably is that the farm was handed down to my husband and his brother by their parents. If they had been required to purchase the farm at fair market value, we would not be enjoying the successes and growth that we've had over the past 20 years.
I mention this fact, and it has come up earlier today too, because a young person interested in farming today is at a serious financial disadvantage if they do not come from a family farm or have parents who are willing to pass the farm on to them.
One of the main challenges facing agriculture, as we've heard today, is profitability. In Canada we have minimum wages, labour standards, food safety programs, climate issues, etc. All of these contribute to our cost of production. We will never be a low-cost producing country, and thus it will always be a challenge to compete in a global marketplace.
I took the opportunity, after knowing I was coming here, to speak to my two sons. One has just finished his second year at agricultural college in engineering, and the second son will be attending university this fall. I asked them for their views on the challenges facing agriculture. They believe that one of the biggest issues is the lack of confidence in the future. They have witnessed local hog, beef, and fruit farms disappear. I also believe that if were not for our supply-managed system, our local agriculture infrastructure would not exist today. We understand that people always need food but do not always see the value of local food. Consumers, like the rest of us, are watching their dollars and looking for cheap food.
My sons have more confidence in our farm, as we are fortunate that our commodities all operate under the supply-managed system. Supply management gives us greater stability and confidence in investing for our future. The biggest threat facing our farm at this time is the WTO talks and what impact they may have on supply management. We need to ensure that our government continues to protect all three pillars of supply management: import controls, producer pricing, and production discipline. If we lose any one of these pillars, our entire system will collapse.
When I speak to my sons about their future and whether farming may be in it, they're unsure at this time as to what role it may play. Both are interested in exploring other career options and think of the farm more as a backup plan at this time. The areas of farming that they consider positive are: they enjoy the work; they like the variety; they enjoy the opportunity to work outside and the challenges of everyday problem-solving that arise. For them, the down sides of agriculture are that there are not a lot of young people in it, the long hours, and the commitment needed. They talk about the lack of vacation. When you're in the dairy or agriculture industry, it's a 365-day a year job. It's not that on our farm we don't have employees whom we trust, but my husband, like many farmers, has the feeling that the farm can't exist without him; that's an issue sometimes. In addition, financially farming does not pay as well as many other career options that are open to them.
One area we feel the government could help with in promoting the industry and sharing ideas is to help create networking opportunities for young farmers to get together, share ideas, and visit other operations to see how they operate.
In conclusion, the best way to keep young farmers in the industry is to make it profitable. Farming is a lifestyle, not just an occupation, but at the end of the day you still need to make money. We do not expect our health professionals to work for free, and we cannot expect the producers of our food to do so either.
10:45 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Thank you very much, Geneve.
We now move to Danny Davison for five to seven minutes.
10:45 a.m.
Danny Davison As an Individual
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, committee members.
My name is Danny Davison. I'm a 39-year-old father of four, so whenever I get a chance to take part in something that's meant for young farmers, I'm happier and happier as the years go by.
I'm a beef and apple farmer from Falmouth, not too far from here. I was here earlier this morning for the first set of panellists, and in a way I feel that farmers owe a bit of an apology, in that over the past two or three decades we certainly haven't done our due diligence in informing the public and government as to the importance we feel there is in a safe local food supply. Because we haven't been diligent enough, things have gotten to the point they have reached now, which is a crisis situation, really, in my opinion.
When we look at the problems facing agriculture—I had a list before I came in and made an even longer list while the first panellists were here about all the various issues there are with respect to getting new entrants in or making farms more attractive to young people and that sort of thing—ultimately, as many people have said previously, they come down to profitability. I think the agriculture community is in a very tough situation to be trying to fix profitability without, at this point, help from somebody else, that somebody maybe being government.
I speak with more familiarity about provincial agriculture than about the federal government's role in agriculture, but certainly, speaking locally, the two-ish retailer system we have here in this province and in the Maritimes in general is a real issue in terms of getting profitability back to producers, both with respect to the amount of shelf space that is provided for local production as well as the pricing of that product, if we are lucky enough to get it on the store shelves. Ultimately, even if we have the shelf space we're dealing with any number of regions in the world that on a global scale ultimately can produce many of the same products we produce here, but at a seemingly significantly lower cost, for any number of reasons such as access to cheaper labour, maybe less-stringent restrictions on products they can use and how much they can use, and possibly government subsidies in those other countries. The profitability issue, if we could work on fixing it, would to my mind be one that would make a lot of our other issues go away.
In terms of fixing it, again at a provincial level there has been talk about a tax-rebate type of system, for retailers to promote or give rebates on the amount of local produce they have on their shelves. There's also, of course, the heavier-handed approach, which would require legislation to force them to provide a certain amount of shelf space at a certain reasonable price for local products.
On the flip side of that, getting away from the heavier-handed tactics, I think that educational pieces could help, and the provincial government in the last few years has certainly come a long way in helping the agricultural community educate consumers as to the importance and the safety of a local food supply, with programs such as Select Nova Scotia, which some of you might be familiar with.
And I think it was mentioned in the previous panel, in the questioning, that there has been a movement toward a “Brand Atlantic” type of approach, which would help that whole piece go forward on a more Maritimes, unified basis.
Ultimately, for me it comes down to the profitability, and other things will look after themselves.
The other thing is research is extremely important, local research. A local bug doesn't care what the climatic conditions are in B.C. or Ontario or Quebec. They live and they do their damage based on what the conditions are here. A variety of apples doesn't care what conditions are in another part of the country. They grow and they have the quality that the environment here gives them. So local research is extremely important.
I'm getting short on time, so if I think of anything else, I'll put it out in the question and answer period after. Thank you very much.
10:50 a.m.
Conservative
10:50 a.m.
Mark Sawler As an Individual
Thanks.
My name's Mark Sawler. I'm a vegetable farmer. My father started to farm; we've been in business now for 42 years. I was brought here as a young farmer. I'm not sure I still fit that category now, because I feel I'm an old farmer.
I'm going to talk about a couple of the issues.
From what I see--if you're talking about young farmers entering or you're talking about issues to the farm--in Nova Scotia and in this region I see lots of young farmers. They've entered both through coming into existing organizations and having started their own farms.
If we're in what I call a corporate farming system, which is international trade, all the stuff moving, which is based on cheap energy, which we still have, then if we're talking of saving small farms, we're not going to save a lot of them. You're going to save a bunch of them as heritage, for people who want to support a heritage thing, which is only going to be a small portion of your population. A small portion of your population's going to be willing to pay those guys more because they're going to get a provenance value for it, right?
If you're talking about the mainstream, producing food for basically our population, you're talking about corporate farming, because that's the model out there. We're dealing with corporations. If we're not corporations, it's not going to happen.
On the issues of getting in, my father faced the same issues of getting financing to start. The best thing a young farmer can do is marry somebody who either works for the government or has a high income. My father started off the same way: “When my wife was a nurse, she brought her cheque home and it was handed out to the help, and that's how it started 40 years ago.” It's no different today; it's just the same thing.
The thing about this is the scale's bigger. When he started back in 1968 he got $12 a bag for carrots. The highest price I got this year was through a larger bag. I can tell you the costs that I pay for my help and the costs that I pay for fuel and everything has gone up.
So I can't sell 100 bags of carrots to make a living; I now have to sell 1,000 bags. If I'm not ten times as big... Now there can't be ten farms, there can be only one, so you're talking about fewer farms. Do we need a whole lot of new farms, or do we need to make the farms we have profitable? That's the first question.
If we come to say that, the second thing that's probably affected profitability as much as anything is access to market. Access to market is in two ways. One, there's been a consolidation on that retail that was extreme. Even though we only have two retailers, there will be retailers to move the distribution to one spot.
At one time we could talk with the Sobeys in this area, and they had five distribution spots. It was dealt with as almost five different businesses. When I started off I had ten to twelve options where I could sell my product; I'm now down to two or three. It's not because they have fewer retailers; it's just there are retailers who have consolidated within themselves. So I now have to be of a size to deal with that one retailer as one retailer, where before there was a natural sharing because they were spread out. There's been a consolidation, so there has to be consolidation on our side to deal with that power or it won't exist.
I buy products from farms, and I'm not going to buy a product from somebody and lose money on it. I'm not a charity. Well, they're not a charity either. Now they have come up with whatever costing they have, and everybody wants their costing and everybody will say the same thing. The reality is, the first in is going to get what's left, because nobody else is going to move it and lose money on it, right? So they're going to sell it for a price and they're going to take their money out. Whatever's left is going to go down to the bottom. If they can get a little bit more out of you, they will, because that's business.
I think we in farms think we have a pretty fractious relationship with these retailers, but my understanding is if you were a Procter & Gamble or something, you would find that relationship even more fractious, right? The reality of it is, it's business and it's life. When we come to market access we're dealing with that.
The other part of market access is because of this cheap energy we're moving in an enormous amount of choice of food. In this region here there used to be 10 to 12 or maybe 20 farms that made a living selling cabbage in the winter in the 1970s and in the 1980s. Now there are one and a half, because people are buying broccoli, and we're not growing any broccoli here. So the choices that are available to consumers are immense and they're part of what has eroded the market access or the ability to generate a pot of money. So the pot of money has to grow.
In my mind, we have to move into other things, and this energy one is perfect. We have to create those circumstances where we can feed this energy in and get paid for it. The microFIT and FIT stuff and those projects they've done in Ontario have to come here.
I think local research is a necessity. I've gone into value-added products, and I wouldn't be there without the support of the Kentville research station. That has made the difference between my farm being profitable and not profitable.
The last one is that you need money to pass. Basically, our farms become our RRSPs. You don't see too many farmers sitting with a whole lot of RRSP money. Your farm is your RRSP. If you can't sell it, then you don't have any money. You have to sell it at some point. If the money is not there, it has to be sold.
They used to have a NISA program. You could actually contribute to make your own RRSP on your farm, but that's been eliminated, and we spent it all out. Now there's AgriInvest. I'm in it, but I never hear anything about that program. The response on what they're doing with that is pretty well non-existent.
I find that the argument around here over where government money goes is immense. The provincial government won't do something, because the federal government won't put any in. The federal government won't put it in unless the provincial government puts it in. We're so frigging busy arguing about who's going to put in what share that we don't do anything. Instead of spending all that time and having all those people fight about where the money should go, make a commitment to make it one pot, then go to work and spend it instead of fighting about how you're going to spend it. You create all these consultants. It all stays there. We create a whole bureaucracy to fight about how we're going to spend a few dollars. Personally, that's why, to a large extent, I've stayed out of the politics of farming, because it's a circle.
I think I'll end at that one.
10:55 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Thank you very much, Mark.
We'll now move to the Nova Scotia Fruit Growers' Association. We have Mr. Brian Boates and Dela Erinth.
May 12th, 2010 / 10:55 a.m.
Brian Boates Past President, Nova Scotia Fruit Growers' Association
I'll begin by speaking of some of my personal experiences in farming and then I'll expand into the industry perspective, as last year I served as president of the Nova Scotia Fruit Growers' Association.
I grew up on a family farm that initially was set up to grow export apples. At that time we produced 150 acres. Today we grow 25 acres of apples and pears and we basically do value-added on all that to make our living.
In the early seventies we started a U-pick and sweet cider business. In 1995 we added a vinegar business and we now produce sweet cider, organic sweet cider, apple cider vinegar, organic apple cider vinegar, red wine vinegar, and a novel product called balsamic apple cider vinegar.
I have never had another career. I've always wanted to farm. I work with my dad. I started farming full-time in 1989. Today 60% of our production is certified organic. I'd have never gotten down that path except we wanted to make an organic apple cider vinegar and I became very interested in that. I was aided to go that route by our local research station, where we had a group of researchers and fellow growers who wanted to work together to learn how to grow organic fruit in this climate. That was really beneficial to me. I would never have gotten as far as I have today if that hadn't been available to me. A lot of the meetings actually took place over lunch, because I think some of those people probably weren't allowed to spend their time on that endeavour, their working hours, so they gave their lunch up and did that.
At this point in time, we've really shrunk our business down. And in all the innovative things we've accomplished, because we do have that reputation within the industry, the commonality has been access to our local research facility. It took a lot to learn how to make vinegar and grow organic apples, and just grow apples in general. It's really part of what I see as important to having a regional food system, and I think we can short-circuit the retailers a bit if we promote regional food to our different areas, to the people who live in them, so that they do the full strategy through the chain.
We do have distribution all over the Maritimes of the products we produce, but one of the things that has occurred to me that I didn't see coming is we can get about a 20% to 120% premium on our organic fruit. We pay for third-party certification. It costs probably $3,000 a year, and I feel I make enough to easily pay for that certification, but now all of a sudden we've been asked to provide on-farm food safety and throw that in. I have questions about that. Furthermore, in the last ten years the Canadian Food Inspection Agency...at one point they looked at us as a cottage industry, and now they say we have to have everything to food plant standards. We've probably put in $10,000 a year in the last five to ten years, and scratching that money up has been interesting. It's an expense ten years ago I didn't see coming. We were always reinvesting a bit, but... And I'm not being hard on food safety; I think it's very important. But it's an area I didn't see coming as to where I need to spend money.
On an industry level, we've been working together to revitalize ourselves and create a sustainable industry. Honeycrisp has been our success story, and I think will continue to be for some time. We are also working strategically to use high-value cultivars to bring our industry forward and increase our producers' return. We've also spearheaded a bio-products research chair at our local agricultural university, which has led to several exciting discoveries for apple byproducts. New cultivars have brought new challenges. Honeycrisp is a wonderful apple, but it requires a fair bit of research to get good storage and it also takes a good degree of horticultural expertise to get this working. That's another example of why we need primary production research.
I'm very concerned, though. We're increasing grower returns, but are we going to be able to attract new entrants? The median age of our growers is getting old now. New entrants will bring new ideas and new concepts to our industry, and that's what's needed. But if we're not profitable, I don't feel that we can go forward as an industry and open that door.
That's basically everything I want to bring to the table today.
Thank you.
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Okay, thank you very much.
I now move to Mr. Buzek for five to seven minutes.
11:05 a.m.
Torin Buzek Two Sails Farm
Good morning.
In October of 2009 my wife and I bought a small farm in the Martock area, just outside of Windsor here. We had been planning since early 2007 what we wanted to do. We definitely wanted a small-scale operation. In looking at different agro-ecological models, we tended to prefer a lower external input agricultural model. We decided on a mixed, diverse farm, concentrating mainly on animal fibre, cashmere and wool, and other high-end niche products.
So far it's been pretty encouraging. We've been going now for only about five or six months, but so far the community support has been great, and we're really encouraged that there are other endeavours of similar size in the area that are actually making a go of it.
But to digress a little bit, we were really lucky that high-speed Internet was connected shortly before we moved in. It has really helped us to connect not only on a national level but also on an international level with people similar to us, and eventually it will open up a market for our product not only in North America but also in Europe. One thing about having high-speed Internet is that while a lot of the government programs are listed on government websites, we find it extremely difficult to navigate them, and most of the links are broken on both the federal and provincial websites.
The main issues we've had—which you've heard from a number of people—were start-up costs and funding. The farm we bought is a 40-acre farm. It hadn't been farmed for 10 to 15 years. So nobody viewed it as a farm. It was a barn with cleared land and an old house.
We eventually did get a residential mortgage, and I think our rate was 3.5%. We were fairly lucky. We had gone to the farm board, but a mortgage with them wasn't really doable because the payments were going to be way too high and the interest rate was too high. And any program that we found didn't really fit our model; because it was not a working farm, we couldn't have a guaranteed income we could generate with the farm in the first year. In our first year, we are estimating that we're going to make about $25, so...
After registering the farm, we found that most of the programs were geared toward larger, well-established farms. I think we have heard that from a number of people here. It is encouraging, though, to see the increase in buy local, eat local campaigns, like Select Nova Scotia, the increased support of farmers' markets, and increased development in community-shared agriculture.
11:05 a.m.
Liberal
