Agriculture Committee on May 12th, 2014

[Doug Wray]

Well, I don't think it's ever a dead issue. I think one of the examples of where the private sector has left a void at present is in inoculants for legumes. Alfalfa is fine. There's lots of alfalfa being grown and seeded, so there are alfalfa inoculants. But we have a new variety of sainfoin, for instance, that has been produced in Lethbridge by Dr. Surya Acharya. If that new variety does what we hope it will do, what he claims it will do, it can establish itself and maintain itself in a mixed stand, in a mixed pasture with alfalfa, and 15% sainfoin in that stand would mitigate the bloat risk. Now, as a producer, I can feel comfortable in having high-alfalfa pastures, which would increase my productivity. With that sainfoin in the stand, my risk of bloat drops dramatically.

The problem is we have no inoculant registered in Canada for sainfoin. Since there is a relatively small number of acres of it, private industry, on the commercial side of things, is not interested in advancing it. One of the challenges is the cost of getting it registered in Canada through the CFIA, which at this point is cost prohibitive.

We think there needs to be a strategy between government and industry to look at this problem and find a solution. There are two or three other legumes, such as cicer milkvetch—one that I use very effectively on my ranch—and things like trefoil. Those are small-volume crops that don't have an inoculant registered in Canada. Without the inoculant, it's a crapshoot whether you're going to get the nitrogen fixation and the side benefit that you get from that legume in your stand.

That's an example of a key issue right now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you very much, Madam Raynault.

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

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

Thank you to our witnesses for being here.

This is a great discussion on technology and innovation within agriculture. Discussion did come up about Bill C-18. I want to touch on one of the key components. I know Ruth Ellen Brosseau was more concerned about the comments she's been getting on, for example, the move to UPOV 91. Actually, I'd like, for example, to ask the Canola Council their views on UPOV 91 and moving to it.

For those on committee who might not be aware, my understanding is that if you want to develop a trait on a plant, it could take anywhere from 10 to 15 years for that trait to be marketable. It can cost in the neighbourhood of $100 million to $150 million, depending on the plant, depending on the trait, but those are just ballpark figures. Many of our partners have moved to UPOV 91. I think we're lagging behind our trading partners by not having moved there yet. The idea is that by improving plant breeder rights, you encourage plant breeders to develop technology for sale in Canada to the benefit of Canadian farmers. I think we've seen that success story in canola, but I'd like to ask Patti about that.

What's the Canola Council's view on Canada moving to UPOV 91? What does it mean for your sector. What does it mean for innovation from the canola sector point of view?

[Patti Miller]

Life science companies' ability to capture value from their investments is critical to the success of the industry.

I can't comment specifically on UPOV 91, but that element has been very critical to the new varieties that have been developed, to the industry's ability to combat diseases, to improving yields, and to improving oil quality. Life science companies can continue to make the investments they do because they capture the benefits of those investments.

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

I think you captured it. If a company is going to invest the time, energy, and resources, which include the substantial financial outlay to develop these traits, they have to make sure it makes good business sense. If it doesn't, then it's a losing proposition, and farmers will lose in the end because they do not have access to that technology.

I think you gave a great example on herbicide resistant canola. Of course, the upswing for the farmer was tremendously higher yields. The upswing for the company that developed it was their selling seed that's used by farmers. It's a win-win all the way round. I think that's where we're trying to move with Bill C-18 and by ratifying UPOV 91.

From the forage industry perspective, I see that being a challenge. You mentioned that many farmers don't necessarily buy seed. The business case for trait development would be somewhat weaker, I would imagine, given the costs, the process, and the required resources. Certainly as a government, we would look to the sector to perhaps propose a model, a solution, or to coalesce around that priority of how to enhance or promote development of technology within the forage sector.

Are you bringing anything concrete to the table in terms of the industry working together to propose solutions that might involve better education for those in the forage industry to buy seed to promote the investment necessary to benefit from the technology that will come about from that? I'm wondering if either of you could comment on that.

[Doug Wray]

You're right. It is quite a challenge. The dairy industry uses alfalfa very aggressively and takes two, three, four cuts a year, and then replants every four or five years to maintain that productivity. There's a fairly robust market in alfalfa. I think it's true though that most of the genetics that are grown in Canada originate in the U.S. initially.

When we talk about perennial grass seed and some of the longer lived legumes, it's quite an economic challenge to build that business case to put the time and energy into producing a new variety. For instance, if it's a 10-year life cycle for a stand, or in some cases, if managed appropriately on the right kind of land, it can be...in my case, I have some 15-year-old pastures that are doing very well, thank you, so there's a real challenge there.

The key is for industry to identify the go-to traits that would have the most impact, and then work out a strategy with government to help deliver those traits. We're not talking about developing a new variety of canola every year; we see several varieties coming out every year. We're talking about if we had one good product every two or three years, that would take us a long way. The lifespan of a particular variety is much longer in the forage industry than it would be in the annual cropping industry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lemieux.

We'll go to Mr. Garrison, the last questioner, for five minutes, please.

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

I want to follow along the lines Mr. Lemieux was going with the Forage and Grasslands Association.

I think you've identified something that's very important. Sometimes the market fails for various reasons, and I think you're in one of those areas where it's going to fail to produce the research. I wonder whether there's some kind of cooperative model whereby the benefits of the research belong to the members of your association. Is that a kind of solution that might be used to put forward this long-term research if the commercial companies aren't going to do it?

[Doug Wray]

I'm going to defer to Ron's understanding of that game for comment.

[Ron Pidskalny]

Thank you, Doug.

I think there is a place for that. What we see happening in forages is there is a very limited capacity to capture commercial value from seed, and it's due to the perennial nature of the crop. Also, if we look at the value chain, what the forages are doing is they're capturing value from sunlight and they're turning that into protein for human diets. So we're really in the solar energy business.

In that type of scenario, we really need to take advantage of the public sector expertise, which predominantly resides within Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada at the moment. We need to marry those resources up with the resources of the private sector. There are models that the public sector not-for-profit organizations could look at. We could bring the public sector and the private sector together to look at how we might be able to put the research resources into getting new varieties into Canada, and the new varieties we need.

One of the ways of doing that is to look at examples within Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, like at Sainte-Foy, Quebec, which is really a stand-up model for core expertise in forages and grasslands. We also have that expertise available in cow-calf operations in Lacombe, Alberta. We also have that in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, in Lethbridge, Alberta, and other locations.

At the moment we have maybe one or two researchers in those institutions. We don't really see one or two researchers as constituting a core. We really need five or six researchers working together within that core in conjunction with the private sector working towards strategic goals that benefit the industry.

As an industry, we have a strategy in development where we're proposing to bring the public and private sectors together. We would like to call on our resources on the public side to help us develop a model, and we do have a means of capturing that value within the auspices of a not-for-profit organization, for the benefit of all Canadians.

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

Thank you.

I just have a minute left.

You made reference in your presentation, Mr. Wray, to the idea of trying to capture means of compensating grassland and forage producers for their ecosystem services, and I think you made reference to some progress that was being made under that. Could you come back to that point for us, please?

[Doug Wray]

Yes. We've just signed an agreement with the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, which was formed under the North American Free Trade Agreement, to see that production in all three countries in that agreement was operating more or less under the same parameters from the environment side. That commission is very interested in the concept that what's good for productivity in the grassland is also good on the environmental side in terms of carbon sequestration, cleaner air, cleaner water, all of those things.

We now have a project under way where on several ranches in western Canada, we're going to demonstrate the outcomes of those best management practices and hopefully extend those across the landscape.

That's a case where the rancher benefits from a best management practice and the public in general benefits from a better environment, to put it frankly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you, Mr. Garrison.

I want to thank our witnesses for coming in today and being a part of this panel.

On Wednesday, just so that we wrap up and prepare for when we come back, we'll have a discussion on new business.

Thank you very much for coming out.

The meeting is adjourned.