Agriculture Committee on Feb. 7th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much, Mr. Vandenberg.

Now we'll go to Mr. Wartman for 10 minutes, please.

It's good to see you again, sir.

[Mark Wartman, Development Officer, College of Agriculture and Bioresources, University of Saskatchewan]

Thank you. It's nice to be here.

It's really a privilege to have the opportunity to appear before the agriculture committee, and particularly to address this subject on the part of the College of Agriculture and Bioresources. I've been in association with the college to some extent for over seven years. I have really valued not only the work of the college but also the whole ag-bio cluster, which I think is important to keep in mind when we're looking at what is happening in this area.

One of the biggest challenges I hear across the board is to have funding in place to enable the development of these technologies that are vital to our future. My job in the college is fundraising, and I can tell you that there are some unique challenges in fundraising in our environment today. We definitely need our governments, provincial and federal, on board to help build the infrastructure that enables these technologies to progress.

We have seen a tremendous shift in our taxation picture in this country over many years. There is less and less corporate and capital tax, and the benefit of that shift is certainly there for the corporations. We can see it in the banks' profit numbers and corporate profit numbers. However, there has not been a corresponding shift in the amount of money they are putting into these vital developments. As the public purse is reduced through the changes in taxation, there is also less available from the corporate structure, so we turn to our federal and provincial governments, clearly, with the reality that we need your support in terms of making these very vital technologies move forward.

When I talk about ag biotech, I'm talking about a whole lot of tools, as Bert so well put it, that we have and that we have been working at developing, tools that are vital not only to our future economy here but vital also, I believe, to the future of the world.

When we look at the largest challenges in the world, we're looking at environmental challenges, climate extreme challenges, and population growth. When I look at the work that is happening around this ag-bio cluster, I see it as essential for us to be working in each of these areas.

In the area of the environment, we are looking to develop plant products and products around our soils that will mitigate environmental problems and remediate those problems. For oil sands and for some of our mining areas, we are developing effective plant remediation. If we're going to be developing in these ways, we have to be able to mitigate the impacts.

One of the other key areas that we are working on in terms of ag biotech is adaptation. We know that with climate extremes and changes in our environment, over the last decade we have seen a number of pests that have never been here before moving further into our hemisphere. We need to be able to adapt in what we're doing, but we also need to be able to enable adaptation of our plants. We do that through our breeding programs. We do the same with our animals. How do we help the animals become more resistant to disease? How do we help our plants become more resistant, as others have said, to drought, to frost, and--in these days, Brad--to excess moisture? These are all things that are happening at our college.

Finally, there's production. With the world population projected as it is, we are going to need to increase our food production dramatically. The research and development work we're doing at the college is about increasing production and making sure production is secure by making our plants and animals more resistant.

These are vital activities, but in order to do this work, we absolutely must have the infrastructure, and that infrastructure costs significant dollars.

I can say that over the last decade, we've had some very effective partnerships from the province and the federal government. We took the wedge funding under the agricultural policy framework and applied all of that--$54 million--to research in this area. It benefited a number of the organizations that you heard about today. It helped build some of our most productive infrastructure, which you'll tour later, such as the crop development centre and the new grains innovation lab.

Many of these benefited from that funding, but it needs to be ongoing. It can't be one shot, and then we feel good about it and it's done. We need to continue to have the best equipment and the best infrastructure if we're really going to develop in the way that we very clearly need to develop.

Today one of the greatest demands I hear when I'm meeting with corporate and other people in the ag-bio sector and the food sector is their need for our graduates. They need knowledgeable graduates. In biotech, our students are probably the greatest bioproduct that we can deliver to this world. These are the students who are researchers, the students who are very well educated and who have had that opportunity to work with people like Bert, Jill, Bill, and Mary and really understand what is needed to move forward in this whole area of ag biotech.

Also, we must have the facilities. We must have both the educational facilities, which I know are outside of the federal purview, and the facilities for research that will draw them in. We have to be able to provide them with a good education. That's foundational, so today when we're looking at what's foundational about the College of Agriculture and Bioresources, we keep in mind that education and the development of new researchers are key aspects.

We have a shortage of plant breeders. I think I've heard that from a number of people. The only way we're going to counter that shortage is by having very good educational systems and infrastructure that draw them in and enable them to learn.

Today in our college, we have three major projects under way. We have the new phytotron renewal, an upgrade of the phytotron, which I'm not sure you'll get a chance to see today. I know that some of you have seen it. That is our controlled environment plant growth facility. It gives us three full cycles a year. It's absolutely essential as one of our biotechnology tools that enables plant breeding. If we don't have that up and running at capacity, the impact on the economy is huge. Delaying some of those new developments in plants by just a few years has a huge economic impact.

We have a need for a new dairy facility and we are working at developing it. Now, people will say that the dairy industry in Saskatchewan isn't that big, and it isn't, but this facility and the research it does have an impact on at least all of western Canada. It's used by the veterinary college, which trains veterinarians for all of western Canada and for all of Canada, really. Also, there are huge dairy herds in B.C., where we draw a lot of people from, and they are people who are going to be going through the training, so although it may not seem that essential at first glance, it's essential in terms of its broader impact in the whole cluster. The research going on at VIDO-InterVac is using the animals that we have there as well.

Our third project, a new beef facility--which I think is key as well--shares some of the same areas with the dairy. We've heard about the impacts of BSE and how far down it took our beef industry, which was, I would have to say, growing nicely at the time BSE hit. In this province we have recognized that we need to do more than just produce cows and calves and then ship the feed off to Alberta, where they're fed and finished. It's part of what John was talking about: we need to be able to do the full cycle here, and that full cycle includes doing the research related to feeding and finishing cattle. We need a facility that does research and also does outreach to the public. We need to hold public schools for cattle feeders and farmers who are working in that area.

We need to be able to provide premium beef by having the genetics of what we are feeding those cattle and the genetics of the cattle combine to get the best products. Cargill's Sterling Silver beef is their ultra-premium beef, and if they know that the genetics are right and that the feed is right as these cattle come through the system, then they know that the cattle are going to fit within that Sterling Silver beef category.

We have to have support for the foundational pieces, and it doesn't come generally from private industry. If we're going to advance in biotech, if we're going to meet those world needs, we must have the foundation, and that foundation is a good, solid, and continually upgraded infrastructure that will draw and encourage our students into this area and will enable us to produce graduates and postgraduates capable of doing incredible work in helping to move this whole area of biotech forward.

When you hear some of the returns on investments in this area, you know that it's only going to be good for our economy. When we see a follow-up on elements of our regulatory systems so that we don't have to do the registration in another country and we can get the product on line within two or three years instead of waiting five years or longer, I think that we'll have made some significant progress.

Your committee can have an impact by taking these pieces forward, by pressuring decision-makers to make sure the money is put in the right places. A big concern for us was seeing NSERC pulled back from its grants for food.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you, Mr. Wartman.

We'll go to Mr. Hanmer. He's been before the committee before as well. It's good to see you again, Brad.

[Brad Hanmer, President, Hanmer Ag Ventures Inc., As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, committee, for the opportunity to present.

My name is Brad Hanmer. I'm president and CEO of Hanmer Ag Ventures. We operate a 24,000-acre grain, oilseed, and pulse farm two hours southeast of Saskatoon. I'm a graduate of the University of Saskatchewan's agricultural economics department, and since then, one acre at a time, I've been taking a PhD in agricultural business.

I've spent six years on the Saskatchewan Canola Growers Association board of directors, three of those years as president, and since then I've sat for three years on Farm Credit Canada's board of directors. For the record, I'd like to state that my comments today do not reflect those of any board member or staff member within Farm Credit Canada. These are my comments exclusively.

I'm going to start off with a fairly bold statement. I'm going to say that since my first crop in 1996, when I graduated from the University of Saskatchewan, of the three biggest technological advancements, number one undoubtedly has been the Internet. That has flattened a lot of the playing field and allowed us, in the middle of rural Saskatchewan, to be able to have that information. That's step number one.

Number two, I would say, has been GPS and its related technologies. That's allowed us to become very efficient in precision agriculture, with site-specific farming, satellite imagery using fertility maps, and those kinds of things. That's been paramount to our profitability.

However, I would say that very biggest one has been genetics in canola. With all due respect to Dr. Vandenberg and his comment, I am going to have a fairly narrow focus and use canola as the example of what that has done for somebody like me.

I suppose I'm still classified as a young farmer; I'm in my late thirties. On our farm prior to the innovation of the herbicide-tolerant canola, as Bert has said, we had mainly been a summerfallow and cereal province. In the mid-eighties my father was innovative, and we added pulse crops in our rotation, but the problem we were finding with pulse crops was that was the only major economic driver we had. Wheat, which we can get into later in my presentation, has been a stalemate in our ability to generate revenue and a stable return. Lentils and peas and chickpeas were fantastic, thanks to the work of Dr. Al Slinkard and Dr. Bert Vandenberg--they were a game changer for us in the province--but in our part of the world, canola is king. They call it the Cinderella crop, and I really think it's been the most important economic driver in my life. Without the canola crop, I wouldn't be here today, and I'm that bold in the statement. It has been the one that has flatlined our ability to have stable economic returns year after year.

Here are some of the things I have to tell you about: 1997 was the first year in Saskatchewan, and in Canada for that matter, that the novel-trait herbicide-tolerant canola was allowed to be commercially grown. Prior to that, canola production was mainly limited to the northern part of the grain belt because of the weed control issues. As well, at that time there wasn't a lot of direct seeding technology, so right around the same time that direct seeding technology was coming down, we were allowed to have another crop, canola, that was an economic powerhouse. It could be grown in big quantities on massive acreage that previously would have had either summerfallow or an unproductive crop. Without that I wouldn't have a business as I have grown it with my parents and brothers today.

Of the direct results we found, number one was reduced chemical cost. We are not dumping out the quantities of chemicals that we had used prior to herbicide-tolerant canola. Second, it reduced our fuel consumption. Our fuel bills are a lot lower because of a one-pass system with seeding. We're using a lot less fuel per acre as a result of this crop. Third, our soil health has improved. As a trained agronomist, I know we have improved our pH, our water-holding capacity, and our cation exchange capacity, in parallel with using pulse crops. We're pulling off yields we never would have imagined, and at the same time we're respectful of the environment and we're promoting better soil health.

When hybridity of canola came in the mid-2000s, it was a second big game changer for us. We're realizing yields on the canola crop that are matching, and in some years surpassing, the yield we get on cereal crops in our part of Saskatchewan.

With the stable returns, we've actually seen a resurgence of young farmers in our business. You cannot make a stable business plan and bring in financing if you don't have some model of stability. There's talk about stability of investment on the biosciences side; well, it works exactly the same way at the grassroots level of agribusiness. You need stability, and that's what biotech has done for many parts of this province. It has allowed that to happen.

Without this buoyancy of innovation, I don't think I would be participating in the commodity boom we have right now to the extent I am. Basically, this canola crop seems to find a way to get through a lot of adversity. Some of the panellists mentioned that. It's a direct result of the novel traits and also of hybridization.

Some innovations that are also going on right now relate to everything from insect events to different disease events and pathogens. They are just going to further increase our profitability on the farm.

Those of you in the corn-growing belt know what the biotech advancements have done for the corn rootworm, which is a cousin to the American corn rootworm; I think it's the same species. There is also the corn borer. Those two things allow a non-invasive species to not be controlled with insecticides, because they target those exact insects in a field. Those same innovations are coming to canola.

As a side note, I had the honour of being at a conference in Costa Rica two weeks ago, where Paul Schickler, the president of DuPont's genetic division, Pioneer Hi-Bred, said that right now western Canada is their number one global priority as a company for R and D into bringing in soybean varieties, corn varieties, and further canola traits. One reason, he said, is that Canada has a very stable regulatory system at present. They can be confident in that. Second, he said that growers are innovative and are quick to adapt to change.

I'm led to believe that the rate of adaptation of genetically engineered canola has actually surpassed the rate for the wheeled tractor and the combine versus the stationary threshing machine. Those innovations took longer for complete adaptation than genetically engineered canola. Those two things, he said, are why they're putting their stake in the ground and making sure that western Canadian agriculture is one of the most important strategic investments for a company the size of DuPont. DuPont, by the way, sold an oil company in 1998--and their stock price halved--to buy a genetic company named Pioneer Hi-Bred. Today their stock price has gained back everything it lost as a result of that strategic investment in the bioeconomy.

In 1997 there was a lot of debate about what we were going to do with canola. People said it was going to destroy markets and that the Europeans wouldn't take it. We have to keep in mind how that transpired in history. There was a lot of rhetoric on the disadvantages of what happened. The fact of the matter is that it was very strategic for the greater good of this industry. One of the panellists summed it up a lot better than I'm going to: in Europe, that market was never ours to be had anyway. It was a protectionist measure, for the most part, to protect the rapeseed industry, so the rhetoric needs to be brought down to the grassroots of investment.

If this conversation on what we call the biotech killer, Bill C-474, had happened back when canola was coming forward, I highly doubt that we would have that innovation in agriculture today, so I want the members to please be very respectful of the lessons we learned in canola and what they meant in terms of the billions of dollars canola has dumped into the rural economy.

I want to mention a couple of things in closing, and I don't want to sound like a broken record, but a lot of the panellists have stated their wish lists.

First, zero tolerance in our international markets is totally unacceptable. That is our first and foremost point. As you know, we're a major exporting country, and my business relies solely on the export business. We absolutely need to make sure that there is no such thing as zero. I think there are a couple of industries, such as the flax industry, that are in a lot of trouble right now over having zero tolerance. It can't be done anymore.

Also, I have a warning flag. We are going to lose our advantage in cereals. Pulse crops and oilseeds in western Canada are very buoyant, and there's a bright future, as Dr. Vandenberg said and as I said, for oilseeds, but the other component of a rotation is absolutely needed, and that's the cereal side. We're losing advantage every year. Economically, it's very unlikely that I would turn a profit growing a cereal grain.

That is something we need to address. We need to attract investment to make sure people understand that Saskatchewan's economy is not driven by wheat any more. It is a necessary evil for us in a rotation, but it's highly unlikely to have a price-times-yield combination that makes me money. That is a challenge I have for this table. We really need to address this.

The last thing is that biotechnology is very exciting for us right now in our business. We absolutely need to have younger people come into this business. My father, who has been a great innovator his whole life, is going to turn 65 this year. It's a hard year for him, because he won't be able to drive any of our implements. It has become so high tech that you no longer need a driver; you need an operator. We're continually bringing in new knowledge on the farm in order to operate. It's getting very sophisticated.

Volatility in the marketplace is also becoming one of our biggest challenges, and not only in the commodities, but in buying our fertilizer. This is big business that swings on a dime. It can be hundreds to millions of dollars within a month. We need to have stable returns, and biotech is one of the keys that will allow us to have stability and that backstop.

We're maintaining yields that we never dreamed of even 10 years ago. In terms of the advancements in canola, buying the latest and greatest innovations in canola has allowed us to keep up with our cost-price squeeze and inflation over time. That's driving big business and innovation to come to our country, so please keep those markets open. That's the first priority. Allow biotech innovation to keep us competitive so that Canada is the number one spot globally. We are not the biggest on the block, as Bert said.

One of the biggest visuals that I remember was in 1997. The first big wave in Brazil opened up, and they were basically farming the Sahara. They went from being a nonentity in the global marketplace to being the world's largest exporter of soybeans. Since then the world has swallowed the continent of South America, so keep that in mind.

Prior to 2004, the profitability of farms was not that sexy. Consumption and production had a 1% growth rate until 2004, when something switched. We've had seven consecutive years in which consumption patterns outstripped our ability to produce. We are now at about a 2% to 2.5% consumption growth in countries where they need it the most.

That's the challenge to us. In Canada we do have the comparative advantage, and we need good legislation to allow this to happen.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you, Brad.

You commented about being a young farmer. Being a farmer myself, I will tell you that anybody 54 and younger is a young farmer today, but agriculture certainly needs young farmers in there.

We'll move on to questioning now.

Mr. Valeriote, you have seven minutes.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I want to thank you all for coming today and for taking time out of your busy schedules to present to us.

I'm going to approach this a little differently. It's not meant to be contentious. I just know there's another side to this story, and we need to have that side for our discussion. It's been our intention to have a full discussion of all of the issues. Living as we do in our own world, we sometimes do not embrace the other part of the discussion that I think we need to have.

I agree that there is room for biotech in this world. I appreciate the three billion more people who will require a 70% increase in the production of food over the next 30 years. Then there's the reduction in the accessibility of water and all the incidents associated with global warming. We've had that discussion. What I see, though, is a growing rift between those who embrace biotechnology and those who have concerns about it, whether it be the Enviropig at the University of Guelph or transgenics. We sit around this committee and hear ideas, but it's hard to mould these ideas into actual policy.

Before 2004, there was a forum in which all people involved in biotechnology were able to get to the table and talk about possible regulations and what might be needed in biotechnology. I understand that in the early 2000s the forum evaporated and no longer exists.

My first question, from 20,000 feet, would be this: do you value a forum in which these two solitudes might be able to come together and have reasonable discussions that would produce recommendations to the government about the regulations we need?

My second question is with respect to alfalfa, and I'm getting closer down to earth now. You talked about GM canola. I honour and recognize the value of GM canola, but I'm also aware, having been told by witnesses before the committee, that it contaminated non-GM canola, certainly in Saskatchewan, to the point that it's impossible for it to exist.

You know the scares about alfalfa. We're told there are over 4.5 million hectares in production, 75% of which are in the prairie provinces. Canada is the second-largest producer of non-GE alfalfa. We've heard this quote: “Contamination of organic alfalfa would impact organic farmers in many negative ways. Alfalfa is a perfect legume for nitrogen fixation and losing alfalfa in organic farm crop rotation would severely hamper the ability to maintain soil fertility and prevent soil erosion, which would harm the future of our soils’ health”.

We talk about the horse and buggy giving way to the car. I see it a little differently. If you wanted to continue to drive the horse and buggy, you could, but the contamination likelihood takes away the ability to continue to grow organic products. I agree that we need low-level presence in our international trade agreements, but low-level GM presence takes away the value if you're under the threat of contamination and you're looking to grow a particular organic crop.

First, can someone clarify whether you see the value of re-establishing the forum? Second, can you honour the idea that organics need to be able to thrive as well? Shouldn't people have the choice of buying organic products?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Go ahead, Ms. Buhr.

[Dr. Mary Buhr]

I can address the bit about the forum and the need for choice.

We teach organics. We do research in organic farming, and so does the agriculture school at the University of Guelph. It is widespread. What the world has to recognize is that there is a choice, and we have to enable it. First of all, there has to be a definition of “organic“, and there needs to be an investigation of what the costs and benefits are.

Is there a benefit in having a forum? There is, absolutely, but I would argue that we essentially already have one. We've incorporated it into our educational programs. We have a wide variety of inputs from organic farmers into our decisions.

The genetic piece is a harder one to deal with, and somebody else might want to answer that part.

[Mark Wartman]

I won't answer the mechanics part, so I'll wait for a moment if somebody else wants to do it.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Kerr, you made a comment about the car versus the buggy. You made reference to it. Do you understand...? Bert, or anyone, is welcome to answer it as well.

[Prof. Bert Vandenberg]

Go ahead. I'm going to get more technical.

[Prof. William A. Kerr]

I'm not an expert on genetics or on genetic drift, but it seems to me that one of the problems is that you create a system in which the people who want to use the biotechnology products.... The way it's couched now, the right is with those who want to grow organics. In other words, there's the idea that you are going to pollute me; however, the organic people are a smaller industry.

I don't know how to say this. I grew up in British Columbia, and we had free-range cattle in the Cariboo area of British Columbia when I grew up. There are two ways to approach free-range cattle. One is that you fence them in, and one is that you fence them out. That was the dominant production system for free-range cattle. The system they used was to fence them out. In other words, if you didn't want to be polluted by cattle coming and grazing your vegetable patch, you fenced them out.

I think that's the real discussion. We have to say that if you need to have a barrier around your land to keep genetic drift out, maybe it should fence out rather than force people to fence in. That would be my answer. At least, that's the real discussion to have.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Bert, if you're answering this, could you address that aspect as well? My third question was going to be about these barriers, because I am aware that an identity-preserved isolation distance has been created in the seed industry so that we really can identify the distances.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Francis, your time is up.

Go ahead, Professor Vandenberg.

[Prof. Bert Vandenberg]

There's research involving many crops on how gene flow works and the fact that mother nature will always surprise you. The way I look at it, there's nothing that is not possible in biology, but you can determine scientifically what the barriers need to be. If you think of it from a continental point of view, if it's going ahead in the U.S., it's going to be here anyway. It's going to move. You're going to see some flow.

Scientific studies can be done to at least create some kind of system whereby people would feel protected, but as you said originally, it's quite an emotional issue. I don't know how you deal with emotion, other than through education.

[Dr. Jill Hobbs]

I have just one quick observation. The problem here is that there are tolerance rules. We create these. I think you're aiming at the wrong target here. It's finding ways to address those zero-tolerance rules in a trade context, and then you can have differentiated markets for organic and non-organic, which is really what the consumer is looking for. Some want organic, and some don't. I would remind you that the point about the zero-tolerance rule is the thing to address.

[Mark Wartman]

I think the forum can be good, but the basis upon which you're making decisions in the forum is crucial. I know the temptation in politics is to make them on what's popular or what's going to have impact in terms of a vote, but if you're making them, I would make the appeal that what needs to be used in this area in particular is the very best of our science.

When you have population bases that really have little to no understanding of agriculture and agricultural biotechnology, we've seen, I think, some real pitfalls to just having a public forum. The pressures are huge, then, on political decision-makers to really take a look at what the science is and what the impact is.

From a provincial point of view, we are very dependent upon trade, and the bulk of our grain and oilseeds trade, particularly in canola, has some very clear GMO implications. I think this is a minefield, and the best of science is essential in your decision-making.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

To clarify, Mr. Wartman, when it comes to politicians, we should be making decisions based not on politics but on science. Is that what you're saying?

[Mark Wartman]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Mr. Bellavance, you have seven minutes.

For translation, I believe English is on channel 2.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Good morning. Thank you very much for your testimonies.

I am sure you are more qualified than I am in biotechnology. I won't be telling you anything new when I say that biotechnology does not only deal with genetically modified organisms, but that it has a much broader scope. Biotechnology is invaluable to humanity, particularly to human health and animal health. For example, in my constituency, Domtar is currently building a pilot plant to produce nanocrystalline cellulose from wood fibre. There will be applications in all areas, and health in particular. It is a way forward for the forestry industry in Quebec and across Canada, at a time when the industry is facing real, though cyclical, challenges. At the moment, we are looking for new possibilities for the forestry sector and I think biotechnology is one way forward.

But, when we talk about genetically modified organisms, guidelines should be in place before any product is marketed. Just now, before Mr. Cross had to leave, Mr. Lemieux asked him a question about Bill C-474, which is currently before the House of Commons. We shouldn't bring up a doomsday scenario right away. We have to say that we are studying the commercial impact of a genetically modified organism before putting it on the market. For example, that's what they did in Argentina, which is one of the leading producers of genetically modified organisms. You said it well. Before taking purely partisan positions or simply playing politics, I tried to find out what the impacts in Argentina were, according to the studies. In addition to looking at the impact on health and the environment, a study was also done on the impact on international trade. So far, there has been no case filed against Argentina by the other countries or by the World Trade Organization. This example provides additional confirmation of what needs to be done before a product is put on the market.

Mr. Kerr mentioned the precautionary principle. I think that allowing no risk is actually very difficult. I also don't think that this is the understanding of the 160 signatory countries to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety that, may I remind you, aims to set control standards based on the precautionary principle. Canada has not ratified the protocol. And to say that all these countries have never marketed genetically modified organisms is false. Some of these countries are producers of genetically modified organisms and also develop biotechnology. So it is possible to do both, and do research on biotechnology. Before putting a product on the market, extensive analyses can be conducted to make sure public health is not at risk. I don't think the two are mutually exclusive.

Ms. Hobbs, you've made some very interesting comments on investments, and I am going to ask you a question about the situation in the United States. You've said that the return on investment is roughly 20% in the U.S. Do you know how things work in the U.S.? Is the government the largest investor in biotechnology or does the private sector invest more?

[Dr. Jill Hobbs]

Yes, that was some work looking at the returns to public sector agricultural research in general. In the U.S., as in Canada, it's a mixture of private sector and public sector investment in research. The key point is that in Canada, and in the U.S. and elsewhere, the public sector share of contributions to the research has been declining; at the same time, we've seen these declines in agricultural productivity growth at the same rate, so I think these concerns are not just limited to Canada. They're also concerns elsewhere.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

You are telling me that public sector investments have also declined in the United States.

[Dr. Jill Hobbs]

Yes. I think public sector investments in agricultural research have been declining in most developed countries, and that's a general concern in terms of what's happening to the agricultural productivity growth rate.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Would I be wrong to say that the Canadian government decided to cut back on research funding in the mid-nineties? I know that crop producers and grain producers in Quebec have joined forces with producers in Ontario and are asking the Canadian government to bring back the investments in research that were available in 1994. As you can imagine, it has been years since this area has seen investments similar to those in 1994. What would an increase in investments mean, especially for a university like yours?