Evidence of meeting #40 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was varieties.
A recording is available from Parliament.
October 28th, 2014 / 11:45 a.m.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
Thank you to the witnesses for being here and on video conference. This is an important bill, as a number of folks have said.
Ms. Townsend, we've talked about UPOV 78 and 91. I believe you said you have 130 different seed organization members. I think you also said something about small farmers, and I'm wondering if you could expand on that.
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Seed Trade Association
Sure. As I said, about 53% of our members are what we call independent seedsmen who are small farmer-grower retailers. They hold the balance of the votes in our organization. If you go up to the big multinationals, there are five, maybe six of them; I might have been wrong when I said five. That's quite a small percentage out of the membership, but we have everything in between, everything from the small grower retailer to the big multinational companies.
Conservative
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Seed Trade Association
CSTA doesn't do anything unless our members support it. We operate on a consensus basis, and we've had strong direction throughout the last 22 years to advocate for this.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
Thank you.
Mr. Wilson, family-owned and third generation, that's quite outstanding. You sell to small farmers?
General Manager, C&M Seeds
We sell to a network of retailers across the province. We sell to small farmers, large farmers, those who choose our opportunities to bring them profitability.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
From what you're hearing from the various organizations that buy your seed, are they in support of Bill C-18 and moving to UPOV 91?
General Manager, C&M Seeds
I would say, yes. There is obviously some misunderstanding in the marketplace and once that's clarified, I would say very strongly, yes, that they are in support of it. They see the opportunity. They know we need to move open pollinated crops forward as fast as we have been able to with things like hybrid corn, canola, and soybeans. They certainly want to see those opportunities to allow them to have a strong rotation on their farm and increase their profitability.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
Thank you.
I think Canterra Seeds have said it's big news for Canadian farmers, and quite a statement. I'm wondering if you want to elaborate on that. Also, you talked about a company from Europe wanting to send you some material. Maybe you could also talk about that as well.
Director, Research and Product Development, Canterra Seeds
I missed your first question, elaborating on.... What was the first part?
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
You said that for Canadian farmers, Bill C-18 is big news. I was wondering if you wanted to elaborate on that and how positive it is for farmers.
Director, Research and Product Development, Canterra Seeds
I would just echo what Archie was saying in terms of the increased additional crop types where there will be additional advantages in terms of the types of varieties that will be coming forward. With the additional investment, of course, there's going to be more work, more varieties. It's everything from yield and disease resistance and end-use quality traits and everything like that. As those varieties across crop types.... Patty identified which crop types currently get the investment. Cereals is the next one which everybody is looking at as poised to get additional investment.
Look at western Canada. One-third of the acres are in canola. One-third of them are in wheat, and one-third of them are in everything else. So, canola, corn, and soya are smaller in western Canada, but the other two-thirds of those acres are looking for increased investment.
Then the other part was....
Director, Research and Product Development, Canterra Seeds
Yes, okay, what that was about. In our field program we bring material. We don't do breeding, but we work with breeders from around the world, primarily in wheat, but also in other cereal crops, flax, and field beans. We bring their material and screen it for adaptation in western Canada for performance. It can be everything from very early generation material to finished varieties and how they work.
We've met with this particular partner periodically over the years, and always have had very nice meetings, but never any exchange of material, because they were unwilling to send their material to Canada if they weren't able to protect it appropriately if it advanced.
My point was it was simply the announcement of the introduction of the bill that spurred them to say that Canada's moving in the right direction; it's going to take several years—these things take years—so let's start looking at the performance so that when it's in place we're ready to start launching varieties if they work in our program. This past year is the first year we had that set of material.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bev Shipley
Thank you very much.
We'll move to Madam Brosseau, for five minutes, please.
NDP
Ruth Ellen Brosseau NDP Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
I'd like to thank all the witnesses for their testimony here today on this really important bill. I shared some of the concerns of my colleague, but I think what we've done today was to just make sure that the witnesses who we weren't able to have last week were brought in to testify. It's hard having seven witnesses, but I appreciate all the testimony.
One thing that was brought up was advance payments and the importance of reinforcing farmers' privilege. Are there any other concerns or things you guys could comment on as amendments to make this bill better?
I could start with Patty.
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Seed Trade Association
Sure.
As we've been moving through and talking to farmers and seed companies, there was one concern and we agree that maybe there's a lack of clarity around the use of the term “stocking”. When we talk about stocking, we think about stocking grocery store shelves for sale, and I think some people think stocking means storing. Of course, if farmers are going to save grain to use as seed on their farms, they need to store it, so we were really happy to hear the minister say that they are going to propose an amendment to clarify that.
I think other than that, this bill is very close to the UPOV language, which is important, because it has to be in order for us to be able to ratify UPOV and to send the signal to countries around the world that we're open to accept their varieties.
NDP
Ruth Ellen Brosseau NDP Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
We actually did have one witness say we are maintaining our international obligations under UPOV 78 and it is not necessary to adopt UPOV 91.
I'm going to continue on and make sure I get comments from Erin and Archie. Do you have anything you would like to add to make this bill better?
Director, Research and Product Development, Canterra Seeds
I don't have anything beyond what Patty has said.
General Manager, C&M Seeds
I would say that clarity around stocking is needed, and making sure that people understand what that is.
Certainly, I think that what makes it better is to get it done and out there for the world to see. When we met with our international partners, looking for opportunities.... It was the first question asked of me in the field crop section committee when I was in Holland last week: what is the status; when are you going to get UPOV 91?
Let's get it better and get it done.
NDP
Ruth Ellen Brosseau NDP Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
I know we're looking forward to seeing that amendment to reinforce this bill and actually make it better.
I wonder if I can go a round on video conference, perhaps starting with Brent Preston, please.
Proprietor, The New Farm
Although it doesn't really affect my farm, I think that creating a rock solid and unambiguous farmers' privilege clause in the bill would satisfy a lot of concerns I've heard from people on the bill.
Again, this is an omnibus bill. It's changing a lot of legislation. You could make a start by suggesting that the federal government develop a buy local policy for federal institutions. Let's make sure that federal tax dollars are used to buy Canadian food. That would be one small thing which I think would be welcomed by a lot of people.
NDP
Ruth Ellen Brosseau NDP Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
I completely agree with you.
We actually did have a piece of legislation, a private member's bill, that went in that main direction. It was debated in the House, and we obviously are not government so that did not become law. A food strategy, a long-term vision, is something that our party has worked on.
I'll continue with Mark Huston.
Do you have anything else you'd like to see to reinforce this bill?