Evidence of meeting #57 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 research.
A recording is available from Parliament.
General Manager, Alberta Wheat Commission
They saw the change in the marketplace as benefiting their farming operations financially.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
And certainly, Mr. Otto said that he's already seen the benefit from that this year. That's excellent.
I just want to get a little bit of background information on your organizations.
With the Alberta Wheat Commission, do you have about 11,000 producers?
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
You collected it through check-off. Is it a mandatory check-off or a voluntary check-off?
General Manager, Alberta Wheat Commission
It's mandatory with the option of requesting a refund if the producer does not see value in what the organization is doing, or for whatever reason.
Conservative
General Manager, Alberta Wheat Commission
The check-off is 70¢ a tonne on every tonne of wheat sold. That is estimated to generate between $3 million and $4 million per year for the organization.
General Manager, Alberta Wheat Commission
We have a strategic business plan which calls for about 60% of that revenue to be invested in research and market development initiatives.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
You talked about developing farm leaders and I assume you mean future farm leaders. This is something which, as an Alberta MP, I've been working on with different groups. One of the groups that seems to be left out is the primary grade level, the types of educational opportunities in regard to on-farm education.
Are there any thoughts of partnering and working with the province to help create better opportunities for education for future farm leaders?
General Manager, Alberta Wheat Commission
The short answer is yes. We're in the process of having discussions with Ag for Life, an organization in Alberta that's trying to promote agriculture at multiple educational or grade levels.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
Excellent. Thank you very much.
On value chain round tables, could you expand on the role of those round tables and the effectiveness of them?
General Manager, Alberta Wheat Commission
You should have all of your stakeholders and players around the table, and if they can remain focused on the issue they're working on, I think we can achieve some positive things. What tends to happen is that we get numerous groups operating in isolation, and we don't really have the value chain partners having that debate and mapping out the direction they want to take.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
Mr. Otto, you talked a lot about the potential for growth in the barley sector. Where do you see the largest potential for growth?
Chairman, Barley Council of Canada Working Group
The largest potential for growth is in offshore feed markets and the expansion of our malt markets. It has been the opinion of the barley industry in western Canada that the true potential was never going to be achieved through the central desk marketing system that was in place until August 1 of this year.
There is a great opportunity for alternative malt barley markets in China. They were identified in the Western Barley Growers study that we completed last spring. Certainly, there is also potential for greater market access to feed markets. That was shown about three years ago when we had a temporary open market for feed barley and the industry sold over 800 tonnes of feed barley overseas. That potential is always there, and it's a market we have failed to access efficiently.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
How important to your organization, your producers, is the trans-Pacific partnership and Canada's role in it?
Chairman, Barley Council of Canada Working Group
It's very important. Any new trade agreements that will enhance the agriculture industry in Canada are very important. Certainly, that is a growing market and it's one that we have to participate in.
Liberal
Frank Valeriote Liberal Guelph, ON
Thank you, Mr. Istead and Mr. Otto, for appearing before the committee this morning.
It has been a couple of years since the rail companies presented before this committee. We heard many farmers express concerns about damaged cars, unpredictable pickup times, the lack of a service agreement, and the absence of a mechanism for dispute resolution. These issues are still plaguing producers, particularly out west.
I know that no agreement has been reached on a service agreement template or a mechanism for dispute resolution. I understand that the government is to be coming forward with some form of legislation to deal with these issues. The CN CEO said that legislation could derail service.
Do the concerns that I recited earlier and that were expressed to us by the farming industry several years ago remain concerns to farmers and producers? What are your expectations if legislation is brought forward to deal with the issue?
Chairman, Barley Council of Canada Working Group
There has been some concern about rail service and timely arrival and the shipment of grain on railcars. It still is a concern today. However, under the new marketing system that came into place on August 1, we have had very good rail movement. We have moved more grain this year than we have in the last 10 years. We have shipped more grain into export position. That grain is already in the customers' hands.
Yes, we have to watch the rail service, but I truly believe that the marketing system we have in place now is operating more efficiently and doing a better job than the old system of getting grain to export markets and to customers. I firmly believe that a truly competitive and commercial market system will go a long way towards resolving some of the issues we've been concerned about in the past.
Liberal
Frank Valeriote Liberal Guelph, ON
Are you saying that we have no need for a template rail service agreement or a dispute resolution process? Are you satisfied with the way things are?
Chairman, Barley Council of Canada Working Group
No, I still think that, in the voice of caution, we always have to have that overseer of watching how grain is transported. We have to understand that, yes, we do have what I call a monopoly system in place for rail transportation in western Canada. Certainly, somebody to oversee and watch what's happening, and make sure that it runs as smoothly as it can is still needed.
Liberal
Frank Valeriote Liberal Guelph, ON
I understood, as many did on this committee, that with the demise of the Wheat Board we'd see a rush, a huge growth in processing in value-added industry out west. I remember the Alliance Grain Traders saying that they were going to open a pasta plant, and then that didn't happen. Can you give us evidence right now of value-added industry that has now grown because the Canadian Wheat Board in its former iteration no longer exists?
