Thank you, Chair.
Thanks to all of you for being here this morning. It's always interesting to come to Ottawa when it snows and rains, right?
This study, I'm very excited about it, and with that excitement comes caution, just like with anything else. You see all the potential, all the future hurdles, and the problems we're facing now in our environment, in our ability to feed ourselves in the future. Then you look at the potential for farmers to grow not just food but also other things. There is such a variety of things to look at in my plate--yes, “plate” might be a good word--of what my options are with my land, what I can do, how I can do it, what I can grow.
You know, the days of growing corn in Saskatchewan aren't too far away. In fact in some areas they're growing corn now, where 20 years ago they would not grow corn.
So I look at it and I get really excited, but there are some questions we need to answer, and some hurdles. I want to see this industry grow. Regardless of what we think personally, it has to happen. If we want to feed our world, this is where we have to go.
Mr. Surgeoner, you talked about process, and that's a key in this whole equation. Process is often irrelevant, as long as the product is safe. That's the guide we have to use, as government, when we look at the food we're eating. If you want to use an organic process, if you want to use a conventional process, if you want to use a process of no-till farming, that's the freedom to farm. That's up to you, as a producer, to make those decisions. But the end use is up to us, as government, and the consumer is our main concern.
So maybe you've marketed yourself that organic's better, you've used a process, and you've used marketing to develop a market for your product. Now if you decide that you don't want to go through that process, that you want to be growing higher yields and have more options, then you use another process.
Is that a fair statement on how governments should look at this whole sector on the food side of things?