Agriculture Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2011

[Andrea Brocklebank]

If I could make a request, it would be for a ten-year program--but we'll go with five--and it would be launched immediately on April 1, 2013, with applications being accepted at that point such that we could initiate the process immediately and allow funding to continue to flow to the programs we're doing.

We don't need to reinvent the wheel in terms of the administrative processes, and we sometimes see that. The program, the elements, and the outline of it are good. Let's just continue it and enhance it. That's our goal. So we need to allow for flexibility based on what we've learned. We need, obviously, increased funding. And looking at the whole suite of Growing Forward programs, allowing for that continuity is the big thing.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Mr. Toews, regarding your comment that cattle and forage research is underfunded and that there's not enough investment in that research, where would you see funding going? What different projects would you see that going to? Is it a matter of applying more often to the programs that are out there, or is there something else that needs to be put in place to fill that requirement? Obviously, as Mr. Lintott mentioned, there are some lands that have traditionally been used for pasture or for hay that are now being burnt off and used for crops. So there is an argument to be made for enhancing the capacity within a pasture field. What would you see that funding going towards to get the desired results for the industry?

[Travis Toews]

I think your question initially or partially was about where we see the funding coming from. Certainly in the industry, we've seen our provincial members place a higher emphasis on research, particularly since the results of the study I referred to were released. That showed a very high return on investment for research dollars. So as an industry, we're stepping up, and I expect that will continue. Clearly, there is a role for government funding in terms of the “public good” aspect of some of this research. I think, as has been noted, there is opportunity as well to tag team with the private sector as much as possible, to work with the private sector to help drive the pieces we need.

Clearly, forage research, as Mr. Lintott mentioned, is key, as I look down the road to the opportunity for the Canadian cattle and beef industry in the next 10 years. There are also other priorities, as Andrea noted earlier, in terms of food safety, carcass cutout valuations, and animal health and welfare issues.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Frank Valeriote]

Your time is up, Mr. Lobb. Thank you.

Before we go to Mr. Zimmer, I'll let the committee know that we've gone through the first and second rounds. I suppose we could start at the top again, but give that some thought, so at the conclusion of Mr. Zimmer's questions we can decide where we go from there.

Mr. Zimmer, five minutes.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Thank you. I would like to make a note that it's nice to have Travis here. He's my Peace River neighbour. I'm from the B.C. Peace, and he's across the way, on the Alberta Peace side.

We've heard a lot of the good stories about Canadian beef being consumed locally, domestically. Costco and McDonald's are huge purchasers of Canadian beef. These are great stories.

We've also heard your comments about science and innovation being a top priority. We've gone ahead, and you're telling us what you want to see, but for the sake of the public, and I guess some newer members, what have been some really good science and innovation examples in the beef industry?

I'll ask Jacob as well. What are some really good stories that have come out of that science and innovation.

[Travis Toews]

I'm going to refer to Andrea. She knows them in a detailed way. Certainly there are a number of stories. There's animal health production products and practices, and transportation is a big one.

[Andrea Brocklebank]

We could be here for the rest of the evening.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Give us a good two minutes.

[Andrea Brocklebank]

I could list the most recent of the cluster, first of all, on animal transfer. The largest single request to the Minister of Agriculture, in terms of letters, is people seeing animals on trucks. That's sometimes the only time they see them. We had no benchmarks in industry to say what we were doing and if it was good or bad, so we went out to look at all trucks and we reported.

What we found in eastern/western Canada is that 99.9% of the time, those animals coming off the trucks were healthy, safe, and good. That's very important research, to inform our consumer and keep that level of trust, and also in terms of how we develop regulation, to ensure it doesn't cause our industry to go out of competition by overburden. So that's an example.

With regard to feed efficiency, we've increased carcass rates, from...I think it's 600 pounds to 800 pounds over the last 20 years. That's beneficial in terms of cost of production. We need to feed those animals less. It's also beneficial in terms of our environmental footprint and things like water use. We've been able to do that, but that's all based on research relative to forages, feed, feeding techniques, all of that type of stuff.

The last one I would say is antimicrobial resistance. We had no measures on whether it was an issue for our beef industry. We invested in research and we were able to demonstrate at the Standing Committee on Health that the beef industry does not have a problem with that at this point. We've done feed lot tests consistently and we have no problem.

Those are very important in terms of providing that level of trust, but also ensuring that we're regulating based on science.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Thank you.

Jacob, please.

[Jacob Middelkamp]

Thank you very much.

We have quite a few, and I could go on for an hour too, but you probably you don't want it.

CPRC, as an industry, has a welfare cluster set up at the University of Guelph that's going ahead. We have done studies on transportation for chicken, especially broilers in the winter time. There's the special omega 3 that I mentioned in my presentation already, and production practices, where we do what's going on in the barns: air quality, animal welfare, food safety. There are lots of things going on.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Jacob, to be more specific, food safety is a big area. Do you have a specific instance of science and innovation, again, for the public's sake? There's a lot of broad terminology that we're using here, but do you have some good concrete examples of that?

[Jacob Middelkamp]

With regard to food safety, there's lots of research going on, and more money was put in during 2010 on reducing antimicrobial resistance. That's for human health. That has been going on for a couple of years already. We are trying to reduce our medications that are a risk for human health, and there's lots of research going on for that at this moment.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Jim, I'll ask you to—

[Jim Lintott]

I just want to commend the government on recently stepping up to the plate and putting a few dollars where they're really needed. I don't have the correct term for the gate that's at Falcon Lake on Highway 1....

[A voice]

West Hawk Lake.

[Jim Lintott]

Sorry, it's the West Hawk Lake gate.

When BSE hit Canada, it took Canada as a whole. The world took us as a whole country that had BSE. We had just a few animals in a very localized situation, but the whole country got painted. If you were a farmer in Nova Scotia, you had the same problem I had or the guy in Calgary had.

What was needed and what has in fact happened is that there's a gate now at West Hawk Lake whereby we can divide the country into two sectors, east and west of that location. There are only two ways to get past it, CP Rail/CN Rail and the Trans-Canada Highway. We can monitor the movement of all livestock product, east and west, at that point.

The government has stepped up to the plate and provided us with a station at West Hawk Lake that will now allow us to divide this country into two separate entities. That has tremendous value for all livestock sectors, whether it's poultry, sheep, beef, or you name it. We all now have that huge benefit.

So half of us will be safe in the future. That is not a big expense, but it has a huge impact. That's a perfect example of the right thing being finally done.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Do I have some more time?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Frank Valeriote]

No, there is no more time. You're actually at six minutes. I've given you some extra time, because we have a lot of time left, it seems.

There seems to be consent that we won't start the rounds again. But before we adjourn, I would invite anyone who might have a question....

Mr. Zimmer, you may have another question, then. Go ahead.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

I'll go back again to Travis specifically. You talked about the potential of Korea coming on stream within the year. I wanted to relate this back to science and innovation, too, in terms of the significance or the importance of having a sound science and innovation policy to the Koreans and other foreign markets. Can you explain that to us?

[Travis Toews]

Yes, I would be glad to.

Clearly there's a very close connection between research, science innovation, and our market access opportunities. In the case of Korea, there are two things at play. We are a “controlled risk” country in terms of BSE status at the OIE. That controlled risk status, as opposed to “undetermined”, has been very influential in the market access gains we've made across the world, including our work in Korea today.

Canadian officials worked very hard at the OIE in terms of bringing sound science to establish the new ratings around controlled risk, negligible risk, and undetermined risk. Canada was instrumental in achieving the desired results at the OIE, which allowed us then to be classified within that category and has allowed us to trade legally under WTO SPS rules.

In terms of Korea, the second piece is that of course.... As you know, there was a WTO case taken by the Government of Canada against Korea—and we're appreciative of that, by the way. The panel heard all the arguments, both written and oral. About three or four days before the report was to be made public to the parties, Korea agreed to move forward with its rule-making process. Part and parcel of the case, from Canada's perspective, involved a whole lot of scientific work, some of it pulled out of recent research. That was critical in order to put our case together.

We believed we were going to be very successful in that case. The Koreans believed we were going to be very successful in that case.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Frank Valeriote]

I have a question, and then we'll go to Ms. Raynault.

When I think of commercialization, I think of great ideas and then this big gap between these wonderful ideas and the fact that we can't get them out into the market. Of course, people typically go to IT and other technologies and they don't realize there's a lot of innovation in the agricultural industry.

I'm curious if that same gap—they call it the “valley of death”—is as prominent in the agricultural industry, this lack of capital, lack of venture capital, and all of that kind of thing. Is it as prominent in the agricultural industry as it is in other industries?

[Travis Toews]

I can't answer that in an educated manner. I do know that it is a big challenge.

In terms of research, the research that's done that shows promise...the step there to full-on commercialization is a big leap.

Maybe Andrea can talk about specific examples, but as you know, that's been a hurdle.

[Andrea Brocklebank]

When it comes to producer extension, I'll call it, and changing how you produce forages, or adding fertilizer--those types of things--it's a significant risk to producers if they don't understand it. One of the things where we see the gap and we're working on it is in providing the economics behind it. Does this make sense to you as a producer, and why should you consider this? These things are complex, and we need to help facilitate those decisions beyond what the research outcome is.

The second part of that is that when it comes to commercialization, we need to have a regulatory environment that also encourages it. Canada is a small country, so in terms of getting large corporations to invest, whether it's forages or others, we have to be probably even more facilitative to some extent to ensure that this comes. We've seen that on things like drug approvals, where regulatory approvals previously--and they're improving--lagged substantially compared to the products in the U.S., which were approved years before they were in Canada. That creates a cost advantage for U.S. producers, first of all. It's very discouraging in terms of investment, and we see that with the Seeds Act, which I think has been undergoing a 10-year review.

So commercialization is important, but one of the gaps we have, which as a country we have to be really nimble on...we need to have a safe food system, but we need to also be regulatory competitive, and then focused on risk management.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Frank Valeriote]

Mr. Roberts.