Thank you, sir.
I'd like to thank all of you for giving me the opportunity to come here and address the committee.
The reason I'm here is to provide an industry perspective on the current and emerging role of biotechnology in agriculture. I think we're all aware that the bioeconomy, which is the economy based on using biological organisms, is a significant component of the Canadian economy and currently supports over one million Canadian jobs.
Agriculture on its own is an essential component of that bioeconomy. I think the role of agriculture in this regard is substantial. It is a key component in providing us with food. As we look towards the future, we can also count on agriculture to provide our country with energy, new materials for manufacturing, and environmental solutions. I think one of the things we see here is that society has demanded a significant effort in clean technology solutions to a lot of what we face as a petroleum-based society.
We believe that agriculture, and in particular the role of biotechnology in improving agriculture, can offer some sustainable solutions to environmental issues while providing both food and energy for domestic and international markets.
I think a lot of people on the committee would appreciate that agriculture itself is the original clean technology. It is the way that we are able to capture energy from the sun and convert it to materials that go into commerce. We have a significant opportunity to utilize our land resource base to develop a series of products that are able to provide value to Canada.
The other thing that I think the committee is aware of is certainly something that has become recognized around the world: Canada has developed an enviable agricultural system. It has a strong regulatory system, a good production system, and a segregation system. Indeed, Canadian growers have been able to use that system to develop some innovative markets and innovative products. However, I think that everybody within the sector will recognize that current commodity agriculture will face increasing pressure from offshore commodity production.
There are many different ways that income diversification can be achieved at the farm gate by using different production techniques as well as by producing different products. The ability of Canada to innovate and use its innovation process to develop those products and to achieve durable economies in this regard is substantial. It's with this in mind that our company uses innovation to develop new products for the agricultural market.
Agrisoma is a Canadian company that is benefiting from the innovation chain. We are linked with all the past investments that governments have made. We are linked with the National Research Council and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. We are linked with producer groups, such as the Saskatchewan Mustard Development Commission. Over the last 10 years, we have been focused on bringing together various elements of this innovation chain to develop some unique products.
What is it that we do? We are a company that is developing a non-food crop to produce oil for commercial transportation purposes. The focus of our product is to preserve food production and target marginal land production and land areas that are non-productive for food to produce crops that can be processed to provide oil for use as a substitute for petroleum in various applications in commercial transportation.
We exemplify the small and medium-sized enterprises that have developed in Canada. We are the least known company in Canada, even though we've been around since 2001. We employ 15 people. We have invested $10 million to date, built on a $65-million platform technology, to develop products. We are focused on developing products within the next two years and delivering them to market. I believe we are Canada's largest wholly owned agricultural biotechnology company.
We've benefited from the support of organizations like Agriculture Canada, NRC, and Sustainable Development Technology Canada, which have recognized the value of what we're doing and have found creative ways to support us as we go forward.
Biotechnology is the core technology we use, but what we're really focused on is products that are good for the farming economy.
As a result of this, we plan on delivering to the farmers a number of things. We'll be delivering to them new products that can be used for income diversification and better utilization of land resources. We'll be able to enhance the rural economy by providing additional value-added opportunities for growers and processors. We will look to have environmental benefits through products that provide benefits on greenhouse gas reduction as well as sustainable agriculture, and we are looking to really build Canada into not only one of the world's largest suppliers of petroleum-based energy but one of the world's largest suppliers of bio-based energy as well.
As a company are really focused on being able to take what is a new market opportunity and utilize technology to deliver new and innovative products to the Canadian farmer; however, for us to be successful, we're really here to talk about some initiatives in the policy area.
One of the challenges that all small Canadian enterprises have is the ability to raise capital. We are at a disadvantage to sectors such as oil, mining, and gas because of the lack of flow-through shares available to the biotechnology industry. While these are available to those energy industries, we have a challenge in terms of being able to leverage private investment.
For example, Sustainable Development Technology Canada is an organization that has been very beneficial to us. They have an extensive due diligence process and investment criteria that force us to really look at products very critically and to look at the market critically. As a result of that, they are able to provide us with leverage funding for our own investment to enable us to get to market faster. Organizations such as SDTC have been very instrumental in our being able to go out there and raise additional capital because of our activities.
However, even with capital and even with appropriate resources to commercialize a product, what we do need is effective policy related to the regulatory side. Canada has a very strong regulatory process for its agricultural products. It has been developed with hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars of investment over the last 15 years to achieve a truly world-class regulatory system. However, as new opportunities come forward--and we're talking about new crops for energy, new crops for food, all sorts of new opportunities--the regulatory system has to be adaptable, it has to be clear, and it has to be relatively rapid in terms of its ability to assess and make approval for products, so we believe that it's important for us to utilize the strengths that we have developed to date with the regulatory system and build into that new regulations that will allow us to develop and commercialize new products.
In addition, for the bio-based economy and for our activities that are close to home, we believe that policy related to environmental solutions for some of the problems of commercial transportation can be developed. If we look at the recently mandated biodiesel standard, we see that being more aggressively applied within urban areas, such that commercial transportation in urban areas utilizes a safer fuel with less particulates and less pollution in areas where there is the most exposure to population.
These are some of the areas that we want to talk to the committee about. We want to tell you there are a lot of good things going on. There are a lot of areas of development that are going to benefit both the growers and Canadian society at large, and what we are hoping to receive from the government is not necessarily your money, but a clear policy and a clear framework for us to be able to go forward and commercialize these products.
Our technologies work. They work well, with an unprecedented success rate. Currently biotechnology in agriculture and in particular crops that have been engineered with new traits occupy over 1 billion hectares of production across the world. It is a sector that has grown very quickly. I recognize there is controversy around it, but a lot of the work that has been done in Canada has been able to show safety, efficacy, and quality of these products. We'd like to continue that for new opportunities at the farm gate.
We seek to assist the development of effective policy in both the regulatory and investment regimes to encourage the further development of agriculture into something that is truly a powerhouse and can drive even more of the Canadian economy.
In summary, we believe biotechnology can bring benefits to the agricultural sector as new value at the farm gate through product diversification.
We can provide environmental solutions, and we can also look at better controlling the impact of rising food and production costs to be able to produce food in a safe and sustainable manner.
I thank you for your attention.