Agriculture Committee on Oct. 20th, 2011

[Dr. Mary Buhr]

In terms of both plants and animals, we literally need to be breeding for drought tolerance, for lower water needs. We can do that, if we're encouraged to do it. We also need to look at improving the practices we put in place to reduce water losses. We need to be looking, I think—and I'm probably not the one to speak to this—at regulations around irrigation and water capture in many of our different aquifers. It has always been free, and we don't give it the value that it has.

Again, we need to be looking at not just breeding our current plants and animals, but at all of the indigenous plants and animals that may have innately greater efficiency of growth in the absence of excess water so that we can, again, do the best with less.

The other question was with regard to waste streams. Every aspect matters. We need to harvest more efficiently so that we're not losing product in harvesting; we need to make sure that what we harvest is used as thoroughly as possible. Just as now we use canola seed for oil production and use the rest of the plant to feed animals canola meal, there are probably other plants and things that we ought to be using more fully, so that we're capturing all of their value, again without depleting the soil too much of roughage.

There are many examples around this kind of thing that we really ought to be doing. We need to be processing food in a very effective way and processing it so that it is nutritious but also so that it meets the taste needs of the consuming public.

We need processing, storage, and harvest. Those would be the three pieces that are the most obvious in terms of reducing waste.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

From your perspective, are we seeing the research work being done in those three waste stream areas that we need to get done in order to attack the problem you're identifying, in which there seems to be potential, without actually using other resources—no more water, no more arable land—to actually have an increase in production simply because we lose less?

In the industrial world, scrap costs you money, so that if you have waste, it's a cost. It seems that in the food world, the agricultural world, we have a huge scrap value, and yet we're not attacking it as a huge cost to us per se. It's seen as another value added rather than a huge cost that we have lost. It seems to me there needs to be a transformation in thinking, in some sense, to seeing this as a huge cost to us rather than a potential for earning a living from it.

[Dr. Mary Buhr]

Let me give you two examples. Guelph spent years trying to get sufficient funds to support post-harvest technology, and I don't know whether they ever managed to get it. Nobody was interested. It simply wasn't sexy enough, wasn't interesting enough. It can take a lot of technology, which can be expensive, and it's just not that attractive.

I would say that the research community basically isn't getting some of the research support they need simply because it's not sexy enough.

Then, how much food gets wasted at a restaurant or in your own homes? What do we do with it? Maybe we compost it, but maybe the rest of it—absolutely the vast majority of it—is burnt. And we have legislated that it cannot be used to feed swine because of the health risks. Well, why aren't we looking at how that food could be used to create more food? Is there a solution? We just say burn it.

[Kevin Boon]

Can I make a comment about the waste side of things?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Well, we're way over time, but if you're very brief, Mr. Boon, you may.

[Kevin Boon]

Another aspect of waste is not just what we're wasting in food. We use a lot of products. Ag plastic is one, which we utilize every day to cover and protect our feed. We have no place to get rid of it, because we can't get it clean enough for any of the recyclers to take. We need to look at innovative places such as that to put our money. It's environmentally sound and it makes good sense.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

One thing we didn't really touch on...and I don't have an answer to this, but it's too bad we couldn't convince the public, rather than our having to deal with so much waste, to create less waste. The amount of food that is thrown out in a restaurant drives me nuts. And people think nothing of it. It's just the way it is.

We now move to Mr. Lemieux for five minutes.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you very much, Chairman. I'm going to let Mr. Payne make a comment. He wanted to make a comment on the matter.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Thank you, Pierre, and thank you, Chair.

This is to Dr. Buhr. In your comments about water and waste water and irrigation, I understood you to say it was free. I can tell you that on the Prairies it is not free. Every farmer must pay for his or her irrigation water. Thank you.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I am going to keep my questioning short, Chair. I wanted to have a discussion with Mr. Boon.

We've had a lot of discussion about the science clusters with different witnesses. They seem to be a good idea, because they're bringing together industry experts along with government and scientists. When I was listening to your comments, though, I had a general sense that you were on the outside looking in. I didn't get a sense that you felt you were a contributor to that process, from the comments you were making.

Could you comment on that in terms of where your influence is in these science clusters? I know the CCA receives $6 million from the federal government to manage a science cluster; I know they launched certain initiatives. I would imagine, though, that the CCA checks with its members concerning where research should be conducted, but I wanted to ask this. It was nothing specific that you said; it was more in the tone.

[Kevin Boon]

Then you're pretty perceptive.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Well, all right.

[Kevin Boon]

I just don't feel comfortable commenting on something that I'm not thoroughly involved in.

Now, when it comes to the science cluster, to give you a bit of my brief history, I am general manager for the BC Cattlemen's Association, but that's only been two years. For 40 years prior to that I was a rancher in Alberta. I was involved a little bit in the inception, when the science cluster took place. I haven't been involved on the level of the projects they're doing.

We do have representatives from our province who participate within the Beef Cattle Research Council who understand and know what they're doing. Because we're such a big industry and because we're national, we have to trust on their input and that national body to do it. Having said that, I have no worry that if I have an issue with one, or if I have a problem, I can phone up those involved, Andrea or Reynold, and talk to them about it; I know I will get a straight answer.

Research is something where often—and I'll consider myself a layman, as a producer—we need to step back a little bit, too, and not be too involved, because sometimes we will disrupt what the outcome of that will be, or we direct it in a way that isn't right. Research needs to be pure. If research is to achieve what we want it to, we have to keep out as many outside influences as possible.

As I think it was alluded to earlier about those who fund, sometimes we look at the credibility behind it. Often if we fund a research project on food safety, the consumer looks at it and thinks, “Oh, the beef producers did it. What value is it? They have an ulterior motive.” But when we have a cluster and everyone is involved, it gives some trustworthiness to that. It gives some credibility to it, and accountability. I really applaud it.

Too, the other thing that happens with these clusters is that they create some efficiencies as well. All too often when I was involved on a committee level, we would see research come in from different applicants and they were trying to do the same thing. By having it concentrated in one area, we're able to make sure we aren't duplicating that same research.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

All right. Very good.

Thanks, Chair.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Malcolm Allen]

Mr. Atamanenko.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Thank you. I didn't realize I had a question, Mr. Chair. It's so kind of you.

First of all, Kevin, I'd like you to talk a little bit about research specific to the cattle industry. I understand it more when it comes to the grain industry and how different things are developed, but I'm not quite sure specifically what kind of research needs to be improved or done to enhance your productivity or the quality of the cattle. Is it specifically with the breeding of the animals?

You also mentioned the feed. Should we be doing more, for example, in our province to research the types of crops that would be useful to become more self-sufficient in B.C., for our industry?

I'm wondering if you could just give me a Coles Notes idea of what research involves in the cattle industry.

[Kevin Boon]

Sure.

The one thing about research is that it is all encompassing. We do research everywhere from market studies to see what is more accessible.... We talk about how much of our waste we are putting out in British Columbia or Canada that...we can't export to some of these countries. Prior to BSE, we could get rid of a lot of our offal, a lot of products that we consider waste. We're doing some research now on the lower mainland to see if we can target the Asian markets to utilize more of that product.

On the other hand, there's research into the health of animals and into antibiotics and resistance and into the feed--we're seeing trade barriers put up in Europe over growth promotants. We know that through proper research and science we can prove beyond a doubt that this is not a health risk. However, that science doesn't always go that far. So we have to find research to determine what we can do to increase our productivity without utilizing this. Is there a natural way of doing it, and can that be done through plant growth research?

Our Kamloops research centre was previously for livestock research, but all of the livestock research has now gone to Lethbridge, and the government has centralized these. They are now making Kamloops into a grasslands research. I believe that's an excellent choice. We have a lot of opportunities there. We have different elevations that we can test different grasses on. We can look at invasive plants. There are so many things that go into growing an animal. Between animal care--proper management tools, proper equipment to be able to do it.... We've got handling equipment out there now that through research has shown how we can effectively move cattle through and....

What is research? Temple Grandin did it on her back in the middle of a cattle pen, and that was research. She revolutionized how we handle cattle in North America. Systems have been created through that.

But we need that to keep up with the demands of society. Most of the practices of the old, where we turned the cattle out, we let them graze, they fattened, and we slaughtered them, are no longer acceptable to society. And we're having this growing population. In order to do that, we have to have the innovation and the technology to get them there and be able to back it up with the science.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Can I ask you specifically about Kamloops? I know we had a discussion on Summerland with the other folks. Is it up to sufficient capacity? Do we need more researchers? Do we need more people to work on the grasslands initiative? I've been to the centre. It's quite an impressive centre. Is it working to capacity or are they in need of more scientists?

[Kevin Boon]

I would say right now they're definitely in need of more scientists, for the simple reason they're just gearing up. To be quite honest, we still aren't exactly sure of where the program is going and how it will be facilitated. It's just within the last few months that it's changed over to this way. They are being very good about consulting with industry, with the universities, with the Grasslands Conservation Council. There is a very distinct need in this area and a really good opportunity to utilize.... And here again, I talked about some of the differences in British Columbia. Because of our terrain, as you well know, we can't do some of the common practices that are done within the Prairies.

I also have to say the political atmosphere in British Columbia is perhaps a little more green--I'll put it that way. We're influenced by that society, so we aren't able to use herbicides and pesticides in the same manner. In the past at that research centre we were able to create and breed biobugs that went out. I believe it was knapweed that basically we were able to eliminate through bugs. It's that type of research that we're able to do. It's effective; it gets rid of it. It increases our production because we get rid of a noxious weed that is competing for our grasslands, but we do it in a manner that society is making us do it.

Down the road, those attitudes may have to change. If we've got three billion people to feed in the next 50 years or more, it goes back to that element of risk too.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Malcolm Allen]

Thank you, Mr. Boon.

We have Mr. Storseth on the list, but he's not with us, so I'm interested in whether Mr. Payne or Mr. Sweet would care to finish this off. We're okay? I'm happy to come down to Mr. Lobb. He was actually after Mr. Storseth. Does Mr. Lobb want to take the last few minutes?

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

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Mr. Boon. There was an investment last year to deal with traceability and a number of different things with the BIXS system. One comment I've heard from some—not all, but just a few—cattle farmers is the one about the tags. I'm wondering if that is something you folks have experienced and if you can tell us if that is being looked at as well with that program.

[Kevin Boon]

Yes, and actually I apologize for not remembering that one; that's one of the most recent ones when you talk about federal involvement. Tags and technology are huge issues for traceability. We have almost two things happening here within our cattle and livestock industry in Canada, and that is an increased demand for traceability, but really it's trackability in some ways. There's this desire to know every place that animal has been, every minute of its life. Technology is not allowing us to do that.

Until it does, we have to use that common sense approach as to how we do it. With tags, because of our environment, we definitely have some challenges--for example, retention: the strings on the bailer twines will pull them off if they're not in right; trees will pull them off. We have to understand that while that animal is on its original place, it's fine and it doesn't need it. We have to put trust in the owners and in the fact that there is research being done. The Canadian Cattle Identification Agency is in the middle of a program doing three-year tests to try to increase that retainability. There is also readability.

I think one thing I want to put in this—and that's part of this research and development—is that we will get a lot better results if we can tie it to a market value and to our value chain. We can utilize that little tag now and that RFID number for value adding, for tracing some of that information to know what the vaccination standards are, to know that they're on a verified beef program, to know what kind of feed they've been on—have they been on grass, have they been on grain, have they had hormones? Those things are extremely important, and if we can put value to that, there is no need to worry about tracing these cattle through because the ranchers and the feedlots and the processors will do it on their own because there's value to it.

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

I have just one quick last question, because our time is running short, on conversion ratios. I raised this in previous meetings as well. With pricey cattle, obviously everybody is quite happy to see where the price of fat cattle is right now. They are equally unhappy at the price of the feed to get them to that weight. So for conversion ratios of feed efficiencies, can you tell this committee just briefly what you've seen so far in research and where that research is heading?

[Kevin Boon]

Certainly. There are certainly different things like chemical additives and growth promotants that will help those conversions. There's also genetics. There's always genetic research going on to find out which genetics convert better, which feeds convert better.

We are trying to cover a problem that is maybe not necessarily going to be solved through conversions. We have to look at why those feed costs are going up and why the other prices are going up. Right now in our feeding prices we're competing with energy for a food product. To get the grain into our cattle, we're competing with biofuels right now. So we have to make sure that when we develop programs such as this.... It's great for the grain farmer, and I'm not one to back off on agriculture, but what are the best grains?

I was listening in this morning on the presentation that was made by the dairy farmers to the Senate committee on agricultural on issues like this, and it brought to mind sugar beet and sugar cane—a much higher return for the investment for what's there. So let's make sure that if we're going to do it, number one, we make sure we're using the right product in the ethanol, and number two, we don't subsidize one at the expense of another. I think that's an extremely important thing to remember going forward, that in producing the ethanol and the biofuels, we have to wonder what we're doing on the other side and what's the importance and what's the cost.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Malcolm Allen]

Thank you very much. Our time is up, and it's been an interesting hour. Thank you to both Dr. Buhr and Mr. Boon.

Thank you to the committee for your time and your questions.

As Mr. Miller would say, we're done. The meeting is adjourned.