Agriculture Committee on Feb. 14th, 2013

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Anyway, on a serious note, I guess I'm concerned as well.

You mentioned nitrogen fertilizer and the increasing costs, especially with such a low natural gas price. I'm from northeastern British Columbia, where we have farms and we have natural gas. I look forward to the price of natural gas getting up there, but I have big concerns for our farmers. If the price is so high now, what's it going to be like afterward?

You talked about a seed co-op. I'm curious to know if you've pursued a fertilizer co-op. I notice there's one in Quebec that they're trying to start.

Have you considered that, or have you considered another market type of check to that increasing price? Ultimately, to control prices in the market is very difficult for a government to do, so we'd rather see a market-driven response to that. What's your response?

[David Rourke]

That's something I've been looking at for quite a few years.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

What? Political office?

I'm kidding.

[David Rourke]

No, no. Sorry. The nitrogen.... It's trying to get better fertilizer costs. Merv is about the same age as I am, and by the time he's ready to retire, I won't be interested. I don't think he has anything to fear.

We've looked at a number of issues. In 1980 a German engineering friend showed me a plan for a modular wind-powered anhydrous ammonia plant. I followed up with him in 2005. I hired an engineer to look at it, but it's just not practical. Wind power is too expensive. In Manitoba we have relatively low electricity rates, so we'd be better to just put a motor on it. The engineer said it would cost us between $800 and $900 a tonne to make it at this modular, small-scale plant, so that was a non-starter.

I've looked for biological fertilizer options around the world. We tested some of them at our farm last year. I went to Cuba. Because they've been cut off from a lot of the rest of the world, they had to develop some of their own innovations. They used azotobacter; I didn't get a good handle on it when I was in Cuba, but they had some fantastic crops with no visible nitrogen application. They used earthworm castings. They used manures. They used crop rotations. In some of those cases, the literature shows that azotobacter could replace 50% of the nitrogen. I just haven't found it on our own farm. I've talked to people all around the world and actually tried to get an LMO to bring in a research scientist from the former Yugoslavia who had just finished her Ph.D. on biological nitrogen replacers, but I was turned down.

Otherwise there are at least three plants that have been proposed, and FNA, Farmers of North America, is one of them. I've put money into that one. There's another one with the North Dakota Corn Growers Association, which may not be the most appropriate name for it. The Manitoba Canola Growers Association and some other commodity groups in Manitoba have linked up with that one to see if something can happen there. Those large plants are being proposed, and I hope that at least one or two of them go ahead.

Further to that—

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Go ahead.

[David Rourke]

There were two plants sold. I'm as much to blame as anybody. Hindsight is perfect. There was a plant in Brandon that was sold by Simplot. Why didn't farmers buy that plant? The simple answer is that we were not organized enough to do it at the time. There was a plant in Saskatchewan that was sold to Cargill. It was partly Saskatchewan government-owned. Why didn't farmers take ownership of that? I don't know if we're just slow, but we need to start to recognize that a lot of our profits are being taken out by other people.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Competition is a great price leveller. WestJet is coming to our riding, and the prices are going to drop dramatically the day they arrive.

Cal, are you aware of anything going on with a fertilizer co-op? Do you have an interest in that, or what do you think of that?

[Cal Vandaele]

I'm not involved in any way in that. Our company does trade some fertilizer with farmers. As David said, prices are high, but so are crop prices. It's maybe sustainable today. You have to trust that supply and demand to some degree will sort this out. As crop prices take a hit in the near future, perhaps the fertilizer suppliers will react accordingly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

I have to stop you there.

I just have one question for David.

You mentioned it has taken you seven years to get to the registration process. Does that not seem like an outrageously long time to register something that's able to go to the market? How does that compare with the same process in the United States?

[David Rourke]

Actually, it's been promoted in The Western Producer that it should take about 13 years to get it from the initial cross. We're actually very fast.

In order to even get something to test, you have to go through at least eight breeding cycles. If you use winter nurseries, you can break that down to about four. You've got to put those through all your nurseries so that you can select the right material, and then you have to have some level of confidence going forward. Maybe you can knock a year off that, but in less than that amount of time, it would be difficult to know if you had anything worth taking to the market.

If you use more advanced breeding techniques, such as double haploidies. It's really important if you've got a winter crop like winter wheat, but to do it even in seven years..... You can speed it up a little bit, but it also reduces some of the genetic variability that you're looking for. You have to be careful that using some of those fast techniques don't actually result in not getting what you want at the end.

We're using a thing called single seed descent. In those early years we could actually push three generations per year, but it still takes time to select the material in the area of adaptation. Seven years is actually pretty fast.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thanks, guys, for being here today. I'm sure your advice and input will be duly noted in our report. We thank you for your time today.

We'll go back to work. For the committee's sake, we are going to have a quick in camera meeting in regard to some proposed travel.

We're going to suspend for two minutes.

[Proceedings continue in camera]