Agriculture Committee on May 5th, 2014

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

You're absolutely right. People want to buy their cheese from the farm around the corner. But what about supermarkets, where the products are all mixed up? How can people tell the difference between Canadian cheeses and imported ones? It's no problem when consumers buy cheese straight from the farms—which I have in my riding. But how can they tell Canadian cheeses apart at the grocery store or supermarket?

[Bill Emmott]

There has to be an agreed-upon branding situation between the processor and the farmer so that the consumer will readily know when they pick it up. In the ice cream program now we use what's called the blue cow. I like to think of her as a white cow with a blue background. When they pick it up, they see it says, “100% Canadian”. The consumer will recognize that and pick it up. It's like buying a Ford car. On any car that's made by Ford, it says “Ford”. It's just a brand so that people know what they're getting when they buy it.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Products have a very clear label, which helps people buy local.

Do I still have a bit of time, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

You are out, but it's a good question. Thank you, Madam Raynault.

I'm going to Mr. Zimmer, for five minutes, please.

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

Thank you both for appearing before the ag committee today.

Following along the lines of what my colleague across the way mentioned about the dairy industry being the hardest hit by CETA, I guess it's the old lemons and lemonade analogy for me. Typically we see it as an opportunity, as opposed to lemons.

I just want to ask you, on the topic of research and innovation, what is your organization doing to target or specifically address that new potential market of 500 million people?

Madam Raynault mentioned our Canadian brand. Certainly it's a good brand, especially in the world. We all know it's a good product. There are certain cottage cheeses that I can only get in B.C. which I miss here in Ontario. We like our local brands, but certainly there's a market for it.

Can you respond to that?

[Bill Emmott]

One of the issues that we're facing is it's not only CETA, but there's also the World Trade Organization. Under WTO rules we are only allowed to trade a certain amount. We're still waiting for the final papers on CETA to see if we have to live with both sets of rulings, and we assume we do.

We're going to have to add full domestic price or some type of a domestic price to produce those super products. We used to have a product in Great Britain that was a raw milk cheese that was well known—it was a cheddar cheese—and highly sought after there. We're going to have to go back to developing those types of products for the European market.

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

Is your organization doing that right now? Do they have a list of products that they're going to be embarking upon or studying, or is that something that's still to be determined?

[Bill Emmott]

It's still being determined. We just did a six-month update about CETA today that we're releasing to our producers. It all came out in October last year, so we're just working on our way through that. As I say, we have to see the final....

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

Yes, I can definitely relate. You need to see what the final is before you can say.

Is there a move in your industry that's seeing this as a positive thing, like the way we view it? It seems to me we've seen this shift slightly: at first we realize it's a change, and many of us are afraid of change, but to see the potential all of a sudden, we see wow, it's big. Do you see that within your industry?

[Bill Emmott]

You have to remember that dairy is an industry that's very viable in Europe as well as here. They have geographical indicators in Europe as well. Almost all our cheese makers and all our cheeses are from Europe, so we're up against an issue there as well.

We see it as an opportunity, absolutely. You make lemonade when you get presented some lemons. We'll work our way through it, no question, but it's going to take some time. A phase-in period is seven to 10 years, and we're not sure of what that phase-in period is and how quick it's going to happen.

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

It's good to hear.

Mr. Brandle, I have a similar question for your organization, too, with regard to CETA and again with the topic of research and innovation. Is your organization targeting CETA and the potential that it brings? Have you realigned your research and innovation targets or aim to address that particular market?

[Dr. Jim Brandle]

I would say that we've always seen Europe as an opportunity, and of course many of our growers are, for example, Dutch, and they have already existing connections to European markets. So you'll see things like our Pixie grape, which is a miniature ornamental grape, moving its way into those European markets as we speak.

I think other opportunities for automation for varieties are certainly there. I would also say that we have an international science advisory body that works with our organization and we have a lot of European representation there. For example, the Dutch and the Belgians, the bio-control industries and greenhouse industries, we try to understand them pretty well so that these opportunities aren't just exclusively kept in Canada or kept small. We want them to be big, and big in the world. That's really how you make it work, and that's really what brings prosperity and competitiveness.

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

What you're saying is you've already been doing this and you're well down the road to addressing the potential at CETA, and we see that.

[Dr. Jim Brandle]

That's right. You just needed to pave the way a little bit, make it easier.

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

Perfect. Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you, Mr. Zimmer.

I'll now go to Mr. Garrison for five minutes, please.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Thank you to both of you for being here today.

Being from Vancouver Island, I want to focus most of my attention on the dairy question. One of the things that comes up quite often in discussions of Vancouver Island is the fact that until very recently, I guess about three years ago, Vancouver Island was self-sufficient in milk products, and now we're importing products from the mainland.

How important a question is that to people within the dairy industry and the dairy association? I know it's important to my residents. Where the milk comes from and where it is produced are very important questions locally for me.

[Bill Emmott]

It's always an important question to any farmer, that they want to produce for the market that's in their area, and I recognize that. Each of our organizations is provincially organized. I'm not as familiar with British Columbia. Our national president comes from the island, actually.

I assume that other opportunities came along, that the farmers have left the island or retired. That's always a problem. There are many farmers who are my age or older. We're investing in robots, as was questioned before, on our farm. The next generation of my family is interested in coming into the business, so it's pretty exciting.

Your Island Farms was sold, I think, to Agropur, which is a farmers cooperative, which will still give the farmers some control over what happens there. I have great hope for what's going to happen there in the future.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Part of the debate about local food on Vancouver Island is always about people saying that in terms of fresh fruit and produce, grocery stores are in trouble after three days. For us, with the ferry service, that would be very much a reality.

One of the things we've seen in the last few years is a very rapid development of artisanal cheese makers on Vancouver Island. I think it probably first came to the attention of the rest of the country in, I think, 2011, when cheese makers from the Comox Valley, up island, and the Parksville-Qualicum area won the top three prizes in the Grand Prix cheese competitions.

One of the complaints I've heard on the island is that the orientation of Agriculture Canada is toward larger industrial production. My question for you is, how much of the research and innovation work being done is directed at support for more artisanal producers, who are producing for the high end of the cheese market?

[Bill Emmott]

On a national scale, I couldn't get you the complete numbers, but we could certainly get those for you, and we'll get back to you with those.

I know that artisanal products in Ontario and Quebec, and in most provinces now, are very high on the list. We're doing some research on what can be done on farm, but they do need to meet the same safety standards everywhere, no matter who makes them. Food safety is number one.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

I don't think anybody disagrees with that, but oftentimes what I hear from the local cheese producers around the island is that sometimes those standards are developed in an industrial context. They're very difficult to apply to an artisanal operation, which still may be producing quite safe cheeses.

I would apply the same question to Mr. Brandle from Vineland Research, in terms of the support for artisanal or smaller scale production, where we see a lot of people in western Canada, particularly on Vancouver Island, getting involved. How much of your research would be applicable to those artisanal producers?

[Dr. Jim Brandle]

The way we get engaged in a research project is we have a process we call an opportunity analysis. It's not really about the size; it's really about its potential to create impact and the potential for growth. Artisanal cheese turns into bigger cheese making and into industrial-scale cheese making. Cheddar cheese was probably an artisanal cheese 200 years ago. That's the way we look at things.

I talked to you about world crops recently, and if you look at it on the ground, it's an artisanal opportunity. There are a number of small producers, but when you look at the demographic, you can see there's the potential for literally thousands and thousands of acres of these crops. We can start small with these guys and help them grow. We get engaged in those kinds of projects. I mentioned the Pixie grape. That tends to be a smaller opportunity for an individual grower, as an example.

We also work on things like robots, trying to solve big problems for everybody who is engaged in the industry who has labour cost issues.

I wouldn't say we'd actively exclude anybody, but they need to be able to present their opportunity as one that's going to drive growth and create prosperity for lots at the end of the day, which may be years down the road, but we need to be able to see it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you very much. Your time is up.

We are going to take around five minutes off the end of the next round, so I'm going to take a chairman's privilege and ask a short question. This one may go to, I think, Mr. Emmott.

I was interested because I was in dairy. It just astounds me, the increase in production. As we know, genetics doesn't just increase the production, because you have to build the body around that. When we're talking about the research—and this may be a question for Semex when the time comes, also—I'm wondering about the time for and the significance of developing those genetic upgrades, not only for milk production, but there's feet and legs and all those things that go with it. I might just save that for Semex.

You mentioned CETA. A question was asked about whether there is funding in place. I think, clearly, the agreement talks about.... That follows, as you mentioned, the five to seven, or ten years after....

I'm interested in getting a bit of a handle on the amount of dollars that have been going into the research that would actually turn into the innovation part. I like the definition Jim gave us for clarity of understanding. Has that changed? Now it is not just about the European market. I think, Bill, what it is about is that this research and innovation part—particularly now the research—is the relationship with the processors, as the part of that cluster to develop the research. What is happening with the amount of dollars that would be going into that, and with being able to develop the Canadian cheeses that would meet the satisfaction of what we continually talk about, our domestic market and the local market, which is clearly a Canadian market? How is that working to come together? Do you have any of those numbers of potential increase in the budget, as to what has been in the budget for that type of research?

[Bill Emmott]

We'd have to go looking for those numbers as well. When it comes to specifics, I have staff to do that.

I do appreciate the difference between research and innovation, but the thing we need to think about is communication back to the producers and getting those new activities onto the farms and into the barns. That's a vital piece of all of this, as is how we communicate it. We're doing some studies on that: how we get that into usable information that farmers will actually pick up and read and then make into whatever will be their next stage of life.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Yes.

It might be—I know that some of your staff are here—that if we were able to garner some of those dollars, then we could see what could go into that type of research, basically to drive your own domestic markets.

I want to thank the witnesses very much for coming in.

We'll take a two-minute recess while we bring in our next round of witnesses.

Thank you very much.