Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good afternoon.
I represent the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute, an independent, non-partisan forum. Our task is to create a dialogue on pertinent issues and present alternative solutions, so that Canada's agri-food sector can reach its full potential.
Mr. Chairman, this is about creating a more prosperous agrifood sector. What are those essential conditions to create jobs and profitability across the sector? Our consultations revealed that achieving a great food future requires three things: transforming how we collaborate; linking economic success, people's health, and environmental sustainability to create opportunities; and third, integrating policies and strategies to support these shifts. These ideas are based on a piece of work we did in 2011 entitled Canada's Agri-Food Destination. In short, our work is about supporting and nurturing food systems.
The food system includes supply chains and how they work better together. Moreover, it's about how supply chains depend or are impacted upon so many others who are essential to success every day. Three levels of government, financial services, information technology providers, nutritionists, educators, ports, transport, logistics, human and animal health sectors—the list does go on. Taking a food systems approach is about how these players work better together so that we can truly be at our best to serve the consumer interest.
The diagram that we've submitted to you, which is submitted for the record, offers a perspective.
Food links government and supply chains. On the right hand side of the diagram are likely policy priorities of government. On the left are suggested agrifood priorities. I'm going to quickly walk through this for you to bring it to life.
Let's start with health. For governments across the country, the major goal is reducing health care costs. We need to increase the focus on prevention. Some 40% of health care costs are driven by chronic disease, and diet is a key driver of reducing chronic disease—90% of type II diabetes, 80% of heart diseases, could be prevented through improved diets, among other lifestyle changes.
Satisfying the growing interest in nutrition and what we eat is the opportunity for the agrifood sector. Pulse Canada, for example, wants to create a market pull for pulses, beans, and lentils as an “ingredient”. By adding pulses to pasta, for example, they can double the fibre and increase the protein by 25%, as well as lowering the carbon footprint. Working with researchers, culinary schools, and health professionals, Pulse Canada is trying to nurture the demand for healthy pulses.
Vancouver has a food systems strategy. It's linking the viability of local farmers, of which there are 2,600 in metro Vancouver, to produce healthy foods like fruits and vegetables for its residents. We need to identify how Growing Forward 2 can be linked to health strategies to build on this potential.
With regard to trade, Canada is expanding market access for exporters. Access opens the door, but fostering demand is crucial to our commodities and value-added sectors. To compete against low-cost exporting countries and premium exporters, we need foreign consumers to want to buy Canadian even more. Distinguishing Canadian food is the imperative. Price, quality, safety, supply reliability—these are very important, but consumers, retailers, and processors are increasingly looking to how food is produced, from environmental footprints to hormone-free attributes. Export success will likely depend on delivering upon such attributes. Traceability, for example, is an effective tool that can demonstrate this value proposition.
The bio-economy is surely going to be the innovation engine of the future. Creating business opportunities is a priority, and this is the platform for generating new revenues, reducing inputs, and lowering the costs for farmers. Take a Manitoba potato processor. It now diverts its potato waste to a biotechnology company, and that's used to create biodegradable plastic resins used in packaging and mouldings. That's a win-win.
In the livestock sector, bio-digesters can generate gas and electricity from manure, reducing energy costs and generating new revenues by selling the electricity to the local grid.
The University of Saskatchewan has discovered a bio-pesticide originating from mustard seed.
We need to systemically look at every food compound for its potential bio-applications. Improving the viability of producers, in part by deploying bio-solutions, may also help to render certain producer-directed risk programs less necessary, such as AgriStability.
Along with some improvements to the efficiency of such programs, the savings might be directed to help expand innovation and R and D. We see this as a proactive investment. Under the environment heading, it's important, and managing water and carbon is the priority. With climate change, this is essential to our remaining a reliable food supplier.
Research is vital in ensuring that farmers can remain adaptive. For example, they can develop ways of growing heat- and drought-resistant crops. Retailers and processors are setting water and carbon reduction targets. They are reaching to the farm level throughout their chains to help producers in this effort. Water and carbon will continue to shape environmental and competitiveness strategies for years to come.
If being competitive is the goal, then fostering an attractive business climate is the priority, and regulations are a big part of this. Regulations have a life cycle. We should be asking, for example, whether regulation X is still keeping Canada safe and competitive. Constantly harmonizing, updating, or embracing best practices is the key. Change is possible, as we all know from the major step to improve the regulatory environment between Canada and the U.S.
Commercializing publicly funded research and development relies, in part, on well-functioning public-private partnerships. Doing this can mitigate innovation risk. Let's look at a healthier mushroom, for example. A large processor in Ontario worked with a mushroom grower and a publicly funded innovation centre, Vineland Research, to create a more nutritious mushroom for use in sauces and soups. The processor benefited because it delivered a desired product to the marketplace. The grower benefited because he had a processor with an eye to the customer. The innovation centre benefited because it now had the supply chain to deliver commercialization success. Collectively, they reduced each other's innovation risk.
Can flaxseed prevent heart disease? There is a clinical trial going on right now that is trying to find out. This effort involves Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, St. Boniface Hospital, the University of Manitoba, and Health Canada. A processing company is keeping a close eye on this.
A research priority could be to systemically examine food compounds for such new product ideas.
Food connects common linkages. Turning to tourism, Canada's “Canadian food” can help brand Canada. There is no surprise, given the season, that harvesting maple syrup in Quebec is profiled on Tourism Canada's website. Promoting regionally grown food is good for tourism, local economies, farmers, processors, and restaurants. The strategic question here is, what's holding back local food from truly defining Canada as a food destination of choice? I would think that every region across the country would have an opinion on that.
To sum up, food spans many policy domains. The players are connected. We can create economic opportunities. We can address people's health. We can improve the sustainability of Canada. We need to make it happen to maximize this. This is about creating a food systems strategy. Developing targets and metrics will help to galvanize this. The Canola Council of Canada has done so.
We're not suggesting that government dictate what supply chains do; each supply chain should create its own targets. Government can inspire change by laying out a broad set of targets. It could also do so for its own domains of activity. This is not about crafting vision statements. We need a dialogue today about what should be our country's agrifood destination. This is about where we want to end up.
We believe we have a great food future. What do we want to achieve? Is it to double the value of our exports by a certain date? Should we be supplying a certain percentage of our own food? What would it take to do so? This is the conversation that is needed so that policy and practice can be even better aligned to drive performance.
Thank you very much.