Evidence of meeting #15 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was farm.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:35 p.m.
Professor, Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario, As an Individual
It's actually before interest and depreciation that the small farmers are losing money, and this is as a class. On average they tend to lose money year after year after year.
If you look at aggregate farm income statistics, you will see that on average Canadian farmers lose money. Almost half of them sell less than $100,000 a year, and the average sales for that class are about $39,000 a year. It's very hard to make a living selling that much.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
Okay, I just wanted to make sure we weren't talking of net income.
4:35 p.m.
Professor, Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario, As an Individual
Well it's net income, but it's actually before interest and depreciation, so net income would be even less.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
Okay, it's before net income.
The last question, if I have time for one more question, is for the Klippensteins.
Kevin, in your presentation you said you'd like to see GMOs extinguished. Was that what you mentioned? I wonder what that meant and why you would say that.
4:35 p.m.
Chair, Organic Farming Institute of British Columbia
The biggest problem for organic agriculture is the GMO cross-contamination. As long as there are GMOs out there, there is the chance of cross-contamination. With corn, we're seeing that now. We have all these other vegetables that are starting to have it, and it could wipe out the whole organic industry.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
Just so I'm clear, in your presentation you said that if you could be in charge tomorrow, you would extinguish all the GMO crops in Canada.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Okay, you're out of time.
We'll now move to Ms. Raynault for five minutes.
November 29th, 2011 / 4:35 p.m.
NDP
Francine Raynault NDP Joliette, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My question is for Mr. Klippenstein.
What advice would you give new farmers who want to practise organic farming?
4:35 p.m.
Chair, Organic Farming Institute of British Columbia
We just had this question last week from an outstanding young farmer.
The tip we would give him would be to get a mentor, to talk to other farmers to see what they're doing and to work with somebody—a perfect example being us. I would also say to sell to the consumer wherever possible. That's where you're going to get the most bang for your buck. The more distributors you go through, the less money you make.
The key thing would be to work with somebody who is actually farming and making a living. Enjoy what you're doing. If you're going to grow wheat just to grow wheat but you don't like growing wheat, I wouldn't grow wheat. You have to be passionate about what you do. I think a mentor is the biggest thing.
4:35 p.m.
NDP
Francine Raynault NDP Joliette, QC
Thank you. A little earlier in your presentation, you talked about identifying transgenic foods? As I told my assistant at lunchtime, I bought radishes a few months ago. However, after a few weeks in the fridge, they were just as good as when I bought them. So I wondered about the foods we eat.
How could foods be identified? What do you want us to do?
4:40 p.m.
Chair, Organic Farming Institute of British Columbia
I'm not really up on GMOs and all the chemical studies behind it and everything, but I do know that a farmer from Saskatchewan I talked to a few weeks ago was saying that farmers could figure out right to the 0.001% that something was infected with GMO. They can do tests and figure that out.
Labelling would be the most important thing. They should just be able to label it. Then everybody could make their own decision on whether they buy it or eat it or not.
4:40 p.m.
NDP
Francine Raynault NDP Joliette, QC
In that case, should an act or regulations be enforced to require producers or companies to specify what products contain?
4:40 p.m.
Chair, Organic Farming Institute of British Columbia
Yes, I think there should be an act, something that says you have to do it, no wishy-washy yes, no, or maybe. There should be an act that says you have to label GMOs.
4:40 p.m.
NDP
Francine Raynault NDP Joliette, QC
Mr. Paszkowski, you said in your presentation that it was fundamentally important to get closer to the international market and increase the presence of our products.
How should we go about doing that? Would it take more than one week a year to promote your wines and introduce them to the public?
4:40 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Vintners Association
I think in general Canadian wines are not as well-known around the world as French or Australian wines. However, through federal funding we have been able to participate in some of the most prestigious competitions around the world. We have won Best Chardonnay in the World, Best Shiraz in the World. We always win Best Icewine in the World. We do have a reputation out there for producing quality wines. We don't have the volumes that some other countries may have.
What we'd like to see in Growing Forward 2 is a continuation of the federal agrimarketing program, which is the 50¢ on the dollar that we receive to support our activities in foreign markets, whether that's participating in competitions or bringing key influencers back to Canada to see our wine country, taste our wines, and hopefully go back and write about them. That creates the opportunities for development of export markets, which is exactly what our foreign competition is doing.
The point that we're trying to make in the presentation is that it's become extremely cumbersome to fill out the applications to get the $200,000, for example, that we've received over the past couple of years—and significantly less this year than in other years. We're currently in the process of putting in our fourth application for funding, which takes weeks to complete. It's not business-friendly. The program is excellent, but the need for transparency within the federal system has created an extremely onerous task for industry to provide the information on a regular basis. The approval system is sometimes delayed, which means that we have to lapse funding. We can't participate in certain projects we had intended to, because the approvals don't come fast enough. So the funding is great. The program is great. It's what all other countries provide to their industry to build their markets. There has to be some work done in terms of the administration of the program to ensure that it can become as successful as it's intended to be.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Thank you.
Mr. Sparling, if you do it very briefly, I'll let you comment.
4:40 p.m.
Professor, Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario, As an Individual
Okay, thanks. It's not to comment on this one, but actually on the GMO question.
There are two ways you can test for GMOs. You can test for the DNA or you can test for the protein that the DNA actually produces.
I just want to comment on banning or labelling. Part of the reason we don't label is that the science says the results from these are roughly equivalent. That's part of the reason why we don't. Also, Canadian farmers find genetically modified crops to be an incredibly valuable tool. We've built our canola industry on it. It's allowed our Canadian farmers to change and go to no-till farming, which reduces both the amount of spraying and the energy used. It also reduces erosion and things like that. It's particularly important in Alberta. It's an incredibly important tool for Canadian farmers, and they would be extremely upset if we took that tool away. It would also make us less competitive on an international basis.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
Thank you very much.
I'd like to thank all the witnesses for coming. These are very interesting presentations today. Unfortunately, we don't have enough time to ask everybody all the questions we'd like.
Mr. Klippenstein, I'd like to ask you a couple of questions off the top. Is the Organic Farming Institute an institute that you run?
4:45 p.m.
Chair, Organic Farming Institute of British Columbia
Yes, as a volunteer.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
Do you and your wife fund this yourselves, privately?
4:45 p.m.
Chair, Organic Farming Institute of British Columbia
No, the Organic Farming Institute was actually started as an economic development kind of project. It was for the value, through the Keremeos-Cawston communities. They got together and said, “How do we bring economic development in?” They got some funding that way and got started. Our regional director was the board member and the chair.
There were not many courses happening. I joined, and we went through a bunch of different board members. We have the manager of a bank on the board. We are on there. There's George Hanson, a winery, and there's the regional district director. There's Rochelle Eisen, who used to be the organic extension agent for B.C.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
That's all right, I just was curious.
You had mentioned in your comments that organic production attracts a high number of new farm entrants. Do you have a number on this?