Evidence of meeting #4 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 industry.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
There's partisanship from the chair.
I come from the Edmonton area, where we have the University of Alberta. There's a lot of biotech at the University of Alberta.
It seems that partnerships are a key when it comes to the advancement of biotechnology. Do you have any examples of industry teaming up with biotech, and some of the success stories there? Has the government been a positive or a negative in enhancing that relationship with industry?
Chief Executive Officer, Vineland Research and Innovation Centre
I can think of quite a few.
I have a canola example. Is that okay?
Chief Executive Officer, Vineland Research and Innovation Centre
Okay. I was thinking about the marker consortium. There's a consortium to generate molecular markers for use in canola breeding. In fact, all of the companies participate in this consortium, and I believe Agriculture Canada generates the markers.
President, Canola Council of Canada
Yes, it's related to managing diseases in canola. There are some devastating diseases, like blackleg. There is also some cooperative work on sclerotina with the Agriculture and Agri-Food station in Saskatoon, and also a partnership with the Plant Biotechnology Institute in Saskatoon, which is NRC.
They form industry consortiums. Each of the seed developers puts in a certain amount of funding, and then the markers for the SNPs are available, essentially to all of the companies. They're tools for biotechnology, so it increases the chances of success for the companies to incorporate that type of disease resistance into the canola varieties.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
Canola has been a tremendous success story, particularly on the Prairies over the last several years.
Is this model being looked at in other areas of agriculture as well—agrifood?
Chief Executive Officer, Vineland Research and Innovation Centre
You could almost argue that our feeding diversity efforts are like the early days of canola. You're trying to create crops where they didn't exist before. It's a bit of a discovery effort, but I think everyone would dream about that.
President, Canola Council of Canada
I think one of the big successes about the canola industry has been the value chain. Jim has talked about that with the Vineland research centre.
Essentially what has driven the Canola Council of Canada and the canola industry is having growers at the same table as the seed developers, along with the crushers and the exporters. With that value chain sitting around the table, essentially crushers are selling to consumers. That's where the market comes from. They have an idea of what are going to be the market drivers. The seed developers are trying to develop varieties for the market, but also varieties for the growers, so it's that linkage.
Going back to an earlier comment in terms of how you get technology transferred, number one, it has to be focused on what that value is going to bring to the industry; and two, it's got to have an economic impact. No matter what you do, you need to put some type of an economic analysis against it so the industry downstream can evaluate whether or not there's going to be any demand for it. What's the point of doing research if there's not going to be the demand at the end of the day?
You can do basic research and blue-sky research, and that's fine, but when it comes to looking at applied research and very, very specific projects, you need to keep focused on the economic impact and the value. Otherwise, it's not going to be transferred; consumers aren't going to want it. I think it's fairly simple in terms of focus.
Liberal
Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies, College of Management and Economics, University of Guelph, As an Individual
To quickly add to JoAnne's comment about research, I have the beauty of being a teacher, a researcher, but I'm also an associate dean. I manage over 100 researchers within my college. It's not always easy to influence research agendas within the college.
All the universities in Canada face the same reality. If we are to make these researchers more responsive to industry needs, we need to do two things: provide incentives to them--and that's not just money, but it can be funding for graduate students, anything that could help them get tenure or get promoted; and the other piece is to make them more accountable in some way.
At Guelph, we're keen on pursuing the initiative that would make researchers dealing with industry more accountable. One of the things we're trying to do is to design measurable, quantitative results: how you actually quantify performances down the road, and whether we are delivering what we promised to deliver to industry.
NDP
Jean Rousseau NDP Compton—Stanstead, QC
Thank you for being here today.
My first question is for Mr. Charlebois.
You raised the multidimensional aspect of the food issue. In your opinion, should climate change, both the opportunities it affords and the problems it will be causing, be taken into consideration in the strategic planning of agricultural and agri-food research in Canada?
There are crop concentrations in various parts of Canada. There will be migrations; something will happen. There's too much water in Quebec in spring and so on. I'd like to hear your comments on that subject.
Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies, College of Management and Economics, University of Guelph, As an Individual
Yes, definitely. One of the major problems is that people in the universities often see that the government operates in isolation. If a strategic plan or framework is to be developed that makes any sense in meeting the needs of the population, concepts such as human health have to be included. We're talking about wellness, the wellness of individuals. You also have to take into account demographic, socio-economic and climate changes. I don't mean just climate change: that's one factor among many.
As regards the multidimensional aspect of the issue, that includes a host of factors. It's the economy that troubles me, obviously. There's a lot of uncertainty at the present time. We are observing what is going in the United States, our main international trading partner, and in Europe. We're trying to find solutions and, in the meantime, there are people who don't have jobs. But those people have to be fed. All that will cause other problems that I think should be considered in the context of the strategic framework.
NDP
Jean Rousseau NDP Compton—Stanstead, QC
You also said we couldn't be good in all fields. That moreover is an economic principle that is about two centuries old. Are there any choices that we should make among certain agricultural or agri-food sectors?
Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies, College of Management and Economics, University of Guelph, As an Individual
Absolutely.
I'm really in favour of the value chain approach, the cluster approach. An unconditional value is attached to that. Quebec was the first province to use it. The federal government has in a way followed the Quebec model. Ultimately, that's what's happened, and I'm happy about that. I believe it was a good idea in the context of the first strategic framework entitled Growing Forward.
However, we can't please everyone, for two reasons. First, we can't afford to. Second, to be competitive and to rely on economic growth, we absolutely have to allocate the necessary resources for a value chain to develop. So, yes, we're going to have to make choices. We've seen that in the pork industry in Canada. Considerable sums have been invested, starting with Quebec, to maintain an industry that was nothing more or less than dead. It was being kept on artificial life support when tough decisions should have been made. I don't mean you should completely abolish the pork value chain, but we absolutely have to meet a demand. At the time, however, there was simply no more demand for pork at the price they wanted to charge.
As for the strategic framework entitled Growing Forward 2, I believe it is high time decisions were made. We have a lot of natural resources in Canada. It's a big country. So we have to deal with major logistical problems. As we have 34 million inhabitants, but this is one of the largest countries in the world, it is expensive to transport goods. We therefore have to establish economies of scale in production and transportation, but especially manage to develop value-added products across Canada.
NDP
Jean Rousseau NDP Compton—Stanstead, QC
I have a last question for Mr. Brandle.
Mr. Charlebois talked about how the consumer is not very aware of GMOs. How do you think we should educate consumers about the effects or the non-effects? Every time you talk about GMOs, they think about DNA transformation and things like that, so how do you think we should educate consumers?
Chief Executive Officer, Vineland Research and Innovation Centre
I think it's going to take a long time. It's a generational shift. I look into the suite of crops I have to work with, and I realize, particularly for fruits and vegetables, that there are major barriers. People are concerned. You eat fruits and vegetables because they're good for your health. Maybe they're worried that this process is bad for your health.
How do we have that conversation? It's difficult. Fear is a very strong emotion. How do you do that? You do that with slow and steady education.
I once heard a story, and whether or not it's true, it's still pretty good. It's about ice cubes. Of course, back in the day when freezers first came along, first of all there was a fridge, and they created the freezer on top. People would not eat the ice cubes out of those freezers because they weren't natural. It took some time for people to get over that. I think we're in the same situation. It's slow and steady.
For many of the major crops, of course, they're over that hump. Do people know yet? They understand a bit that corn, soybeans, and canola are genetically modified. They're relatively comfortable with that. They eat the products. Everyone's fine, so that's good. I hope the slow process will allow other crops to benefit from genetic modification, because again, if we have to feed 9.5 billion people in 2050, we can't do it with one arm behind our backs.
Liberal
Conservative
Ray Boughen Conservative Palliser, SK
Thanks, Chair, and let me also add my voice of welcome to the panel for taking the time to share your thoughts with us this afternoon.
I have kind of a general question for the panel.
Agriculture now has a degree of profitability that hasn't been evident for a number of years. How do you see the industry continuing to grow and profit? What specific things do you see that should be addressed, and how will they be addressed so that at the end of the day there are a few more dollars in the jeans of the folks who are out on the farm?
Chief Executive Officer, Vineland Research and Innovation Centre
It seems simple to me. This is a time to invest in innovation to get further ahead--even further ahead. What do we need most? We need more mechanization. We have to drive out costs. We need new products. I think that's the thing that has to be done now, particularly when times are good. It's easier.
President, Canola Council of Canada
I think it's related to demand. We need to make sure that what we're producing, essentially, there is demand for, and we need to create demand. Yes, it's about production efficiencies, but at the same time, you can produce it efficiently, but if there's no demand for it, you're not getting paid for it.
