Thank you, Mr. Valeriote.
My question is for each one of you. I would like the representative of each of the sectors to provide an opinion.
It is often said that research in pure science, in agriculture and elsewhere, is carried out in a vacuum. We witness in the various university research chairs the development of research programs and plans that are not applicable in the field. Producers thus have difficulty accessing the results of this research work.
I would like to know if the Growing Forward program, with its agri-science clusters, has facilitated knowledge transfer. Has there been research work applicable in the field and capable of moving our agriculture forward?
We all know that productivity is lagging here, in Canada. If we want to be more competitive internationally, we must focus particularly on research that is applicable in the field, whether it relates to technologies or pure science.
For each of your sectors, should there be programs to facilitate knowledge transfer? How might we make this knowledge more applicable in the field, for producers?