Agriculture Committee on May 12th, 2014

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

The interesting thing is you talked about traceability. In my riding, in Medicine Hat and Redcliff,there are a lot of greenhouses. There's an organization called Red Hat Co-op, and all the greenhouses are supplying tomatoes, cukes, and peppers. They do have a traceability system in the Red Hat Co-op. I took a tour there about a month ago, and it was quite amazing because they know exactly where that product came from, from which greenhouse. It has an excellent traceability system. They're marketing that product all over Canada and the U.S.

Do you have any other comments you'd like to add in terms of the traceability?

[George Gilvesy]

No, we're very familiar with Red Hat Co-op and Lyle Aleman. We have ongoing dialogue with him through the Canadian Horticultural Council greenhouse subcommittee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you very much, Mr. Payne.

Now we'll go to Madam Raynault, for five minutes, please.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank all the witnesses for their presentations.

Mr. Gilvesy, you didn't have time to get through your entire brief, which covers a lot. Would you like to go over some of the points in your brief that you didn't have time to present?

[George Gilvesy]

Is that to me from the greenhouse sector?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Yes, she's speaking to you, George.

[George Gilvesy]

Okay. There was one point I didn't talk about, yes.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

You prepared a great brief for us but you ran out of time before you were able to finish your presentation. Is there anything you'd really like us to know, for instance, regarding competition in the produce sector? Is there anything you'd like to add that you weren't able to cover?

[George Gilvesy]

Yes, I did have a point earlier that relates to how the greenhouse farmers face a serious threat to market access with the lack of an effective security mechanism. Farmers and marketers of perishable produce receive valuable protection within the United States market through various legislative and regulatory controls that are in place there. The failure of the Canadian government to enact similar provisions within Canada is becoming a significant trade irritant between the two countries and may result in the loss of protection provided to Canadian fruit and vegetable farmers.

Through the Regulatory Cooperation Council initiative set in motion by Prime Minister Harper and President Obama in late 2011, we've been given a significant opportunity to enact a fair and ethical licensing and payment protection system for perishable produce in Canada, and it's something that we think is very important in moving forward. In Ontario we export $500 million of produce to the United States. The loss of the protection of that due to this trade irritant will cause a bad situation for our membership.

We're looking forward to the Regulatory Cooperation Council finding some resolve for this. We're still optimistic with regard to that process.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

What's your biggest R and D challenge? Is there a lot of lag time as far as the approval of research and innovation goes? Do you have to wait a while before your program or research is approved? What's your biggest obstacle?

[Wilson Scott Thurlow]

Are you talking to me or are you talking to them still?

[Leanne Wilson]

I'll answer. I would say the most serious challenge is the gaps, because you're not able to predict. If you knew you weren't going to get funding at all, you would scale down your research and move on, I guess, but because there are gaps, you're always waiting for the next funding program.

You're not sure where to go when everything is put on hold for a bit. That makes it very difficult to try to build a long-term research program and to secure resources, both the physical resources, such as experimental greenhouse space, as well as resources of researchers. I would say that the gap and the lag in approval times is really the biggest issue we have.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Thank you.

I believe Mr. Thurlow also wanted to respond.

[Wilson Scott Thurlow]

I was very confused, because you were looking right at me when you asked the question.

I would echo my friend's answer. I think the more funding that's available for research and development, the better. It's not as if there is a limitation on how much can be made available, though I will applaud the government's rigour in establishing the research chairs in the way they have done. I would also point out that there are very specific defined funds, whether it's through SDTC or the Growing Forward 2 program, that can be taken advantage of.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Thurlow, how would the government benefit from a greater investment in renewable energy? People want to use renewable energy, but that's not always an easy proposition.

[Wilson Scott Thurlow]

I think that is the most important question. It's not as if they can't invest in several different types of renewable energy at the same time. I think our focus would be on making sure that consumers have choice at the pumps to make their transportation technology work, with the fuels that they would like to see put in place.

Earlier we talked about having pump turnover. The reason the Americans have 30,000 pumps is that there is very aggressive depreciation for capital cost programs that are in existence. This is a recommendation that we would encourage. It will allow for individual fuel providers or new entrants to the market to share that risk with governments, so that fuels that are otherwise not available in Canada will be available to consumers.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Madam Raynault.

We'll go to Mr. Lemieux, please, for five minutes.

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

I thank our witnesses for being here.

Let me start with the vegetable growers. I can just imagine that electricity must be one of the highest costs. Are you able to give us an indication, perhaps, for an average greenhouse operation, of what percentage of their input costs might be related to electricity alone?

[Leanne Wilson]

At this point in time, the electricity cost isn't high, actually, because it's just the basic cost of lighting and a bit of warehouse lighting. What is going to be an issue going forward is that right now the majority of our growers aren't using supplemental lighting to produce their product, but in order for us to go to 12-month production, which is what our major goal is, we're going to need supplemental crop lighting, and that's going to be an extreme cost.

We're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars in electricity costs for individual growers so that they can actually produce 12 months a year, and current electricity prices are just not allowing that to happen. The reason growers aren't moving toward putting in supplemental light in Ontario is that the electricity cost in Ontario is so high that it's just not affordable. They can't make it—

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

What about in other parts of Canada, in other provinces, where the hydro rates might not be so high?

[Leanne Wilson]

There are a few growers in B.C. who do supplemental lighting. There's a grower or two in Quebec, as well. Even then, they struggle with the economics of it.

There are ways to get around it, with things such as combined heat and power, where you can produce your own electricity on site and sell the rest to the grid. In Ontario, they're trying to develop programs that will work there as well.

It's trying to figure out a number of different ways to make it, whether it's producing your own electricity, or off-peak electricity pricing, or different technologies that will allow you to reduce your cost to do that 12-month production.

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

Out of interest, how old is that technology of supplemental lighting and its being used on a scale by enough of the industry to say that it benefits the industry?

[Leanne Wilson]

Supplemental lighting has been around for years. What has changed is the type of supplemental lighting.

Historically, in greenhouse vegetables—floriculture is a bit different—it's been high pressure sodium, HPS, that has been used for years. Now there is more movement to LED lights. There's even movement to things such as plasma lights.

The technology itself has changed. The efficiencies of them have changed. We've done a lot of research on lighting to see which lighting is the best and which can use less energy. LEDs can use a lot less electricity than HPS. It's moving towards that technology that will provide more for the crop, more targeted spectrum of light, and other advantages with different lighting systems.

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

Thank you.

Let me move on to talk about the $2.7 million that's been given to the OGVG for science and innovation. I'm reading a project description here, and there are some very interesting initiatives: developing biological control programs for year-round greenhouse vegetable production; improving pepper and tomato in Ontario, and evaluating resistance of current varieties to causal viral pathogens. There's another one about consumer preference-driven development of tastier tomatoes on the vine. I imagine that's to appeal to the consumer, once again.

The eligible start date was about a year ago, April 2013. We're now in May 2014. Can you tell the committee what sorts of projects you have already initiated, or that are on your schedule to be initiated, with that $2.7 million?

[Leanne Wilson]

All of the projects are under way. There are five different projects. You've described three of them. There is also one on production efficiencies, and another one on diffuse plastics.

All of the projects are under way, some with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada researchers, some with university researchers and private researchers. They're basically all under way on different projects, and they're all on schedule and doing well.