Agriculture Committee on Sept. 18th, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Please be brief.

[Christine Trauttmansdorff]

I'll come back to you on that question. I'll have to give it a little bit of thought.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Poissant.

I will now give the floor to Mr. Drouin for six minutes.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

It's my turn to welcome everyone who's here today. I look forward to working with you this fall.

Christine or Stuart, maybe you could enlighten me on the access to technology. We talk about training for technology, but there's also access to technology in building that entrepreneurial spirit in Canada. One of the things the government has highlighted is adding more value to our agricultural products. Rather than just exporting raw materials, we're actually processing them in Canada.

One of the centres in Ontario is the Ontario Agri-Food Venture Centre in Colborne. I visited it a couple of weeks ago, and I found it amazing to see the access to technology provided to farmers who come in. They gave one example of a farmer who walked in with sweet potatoes and said, “Help me do something with this.” However, all of the equipment they have inside is quite expensive. How do we help those people? With those small entrepreneurs, what would be the role of the college to help them scale up and potentially build more agri-food venture centres in Canada?

[Stuart Cullum]

This is a key question. It's actually a space that colleges are really well positioned to address.

We have a lot of land at Olds College. When I look at our farm, I see a current-state operation. We want to transition that into the future of agriculture and bring new technology in. We'll only do it through partnerships. We do not have the resources to purchase or acquire that technology. For the smart farm, we had to work with 15 partners, agriculture and technology partners, some multinational, to get the technology in place.

That allows our producers to see where the sector is going. It also allows technology companies to come and develop, scale, and demonstrate their technology, which will ultimately end up in the field three or five or 10 years down the road.

In a couple of weeks, I'll be heading to Australia. I'll be talking to an automation company in Australia, which has a technology that isn't in North America. They're looking at Olds College as a potential place to introduce that technology as a way to demonstrate what they hope will be applied in our agriculture system. For the farmers, that's great, because they need to see technology work before they're willing to invest in it on their own farm.

As an institution, we want to be a support for those companies to introduce it, as well as a support for farmers who are looking to get that technology onto their farms and validated.

[Christine Trauttmansdorff]

I can tell you about similar facilities. Holland College has a research centre that is focused very much on what you're describing. They're focused particularly on the food industry, but they're doing market testing and taste testing on the look and feel of products in order to enhance them for the marketplace.

George Brown College in Toronto is another very food-focused centre that's helping small businesses develop new product lines. Lambton College in Sarnia is focused on the sugar beet industry. It's a growth area. What can we do with those crops? How can we increase the efficiency of the production? How do you explore new markets for those products that—

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Is that something that Colleges and Institutes Canada is tracking, in terms of what colleges are doing in different spaces so that we don't necessarily replicate what one college is doing versus the other but we provide added value to the college system in Canada?

[Christine Trauttmansdorff]

That's an ongoing challenge.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Yes.

[Christine Trauttmansdorff]

Things move quickly, and colleges move quickly. They're bringing on new projects. We've tried showcases and databases of projects, and you can't possibly keep up with it. If something is happening, it's going to be happening in a college. We can fill you up with stories and examples of anything you're looking for.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I don't know how much time I have, but I have maybe one last question on access to workers and whatnot. We know that when we talk about technology, automation is sort of fixing the problem of access to workers. How is the college system attracting youth in agriculture? Are you seeing a trend developing there?

[Stuart Cullum]

Actually, it's becoming easier because our industry is becoming so technology-focused. We're able to attract a lot of young people into this industry who aren't from the farm, which is important, because they see it as a place where they can be an IT expert, a business systems expert, or an artificial intelligence expert. It's not just about agriculture anymore. It's about how they apply that passion in a sector that is going to be a future economic generator for our country.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I guess I do have more time. In terms of IP, when you're working with companies, how is that system built with the colleges? Do you retain certain...?

[Stuart Cullum]

It's very friendly. For most of the colleges—actually, I think for all of the colleges—in their applied research apparatus, the intellectual property flows to the companies. We're interested in providing a service to industry and also in engaging students as part of that learning exercise, but the intellectual property flows to the company. That's a really important principle on which we've always built our applied research activities: the free flow of IP.

[Christine Trauttmansdorff]

The other thing we're very cognizant of is that a lot of the industry partners that come to a college don't have as much information about IP and don't understand the IP regime and what's available to them, so colleges become a bit of an access point for “Who do I go to and where do I do it?” When you're a start-up or a small company this may not be the thing that you're preoccupied with at first, but it's crucial to have that knowledge or access to information about IP management. That's one of the functions that a college research office can provide.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

That's great. Merci.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Drouin.

Mr. Dreeshen, you have six minutes.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

It's certainly great to be back here. I was looking at the picture that Mr. Hopson has there. That would be my riding right now, with the snow.

I'm certainly glad to have everyone here in this discussion. The key thing is, how do we change? How do we make sure that our agricultural industry is ready for our Canadian exports? That's the critical part.

Mr. Hopson, you spoke of some of the concerns and issues we have there. Of course, one of the things the government can do is make sure that our transportation system is working. This is an issue, whether it be grain transportation or commodities, such as the potash that you're trying to move, and of course we see our rail lined up with oil tankers. These are some of the concerns we have, and they really have to be thought about.

I'd like to address my discussion to you, Mr. Cullum. Thank you for being here. Olds College has a hundred years-plus of history, and it has truly been important. It has gone throughout the world, as people who have come to Olds College understand just how important it is.

I'm wondering if in this day of big iron and big data.... I mean, these are the critical things that are taking place right now. Twenty miles from Olds College, you can't complete a cellphone call, but we do know how important it is to be able to get all this information so that all of these data points can be analyzed.

I know that Olds College has the Centre for Innovation. There are a lot of things being done there. I wonder if you can tell us how the smart farm, where we've brought in all of these different companies to help, ties into the other projects, such as your Centre for Innovation.

[Stuart Cullum]

It's a good question. Ultimately, Olds College has been in the applied research and innovation game for around 20 years, and it's focused on the needs of industry. We really want to ensure that we are developing centres that can be a foundation for industries to come and develop their products, validate the scale and demonstrate them.

It also provides a tremendous learning environment for our students. The smart farm is an extension of that. It's about ensuring that those environments are world class and, as I mentioned, represent the future of where agriculture is going. It really does connect to that.

The point you mentioned about connectivity is really important. The smart farm needed to be developed in such a way that all the critical infrastructure technology was there, including connectivity. It's really cool. If you come to the smart farm, which is a field in the middle of our agricultural lands, you have full Wi-Fi connectivity. That's critically important, because you can create all the data you want within the various devices and monitoring and sensoring equipment, but if you can't connect to the devices, if you can't connect to your smart phone, you can't do anything with it.

Rural connectivity is a key challenge, and it's something we're working on in partnership with many companies. We're developing a great relationship with many of the telecoms in terms of how we can create wireless meshes and ensure that connectivity is enabled, along with the technology that's in the field.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

With the big data and big iron, of course, you would have a lot of equipment companies as well that would want to make sure they tie into this new technology, and they're bringing with them, as was mentioned, an entirely different type of workforce. People have this idea that there are certain kinds of people who work on a farm. That's completely not true. You need to have high-tech individuals who are safety-conscious and who understand how all of this multi-million dollar equipment works. I think that's a critical part as well.

Is there any discussion you could have on how the relationships between companies and the college are working out?

Then I'd like to give the last moment or so of my time to Mr. Godin.

[Stuart Cullum]

Yes. I talked about the development of a new program stream, a new school in agriculture technology. That's a response to industry asking us as a college to address this issue of technology and agriculture. Many of the folks around the table represented big iron, those companies. They are hiring people and need to train them themselves, and that's a challenge. It's important that, as an educational institution, we respond to that challenge and produce the skills and competencies needed so they have the talent required in order to support their companies and the customers they serve. I agree with you that it is an entirely different workforce that's emerging.

It's also important that we understand that there are a lot of folks within the sector already who are past the typical post-secondary stage and need reskilling. With our education programs, we are ensuring that we're developing programming so that producers and other folks within this industry can come back into our learning environments, into our smart farm, and get the skills they need in a rapidly changing workspace.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

There are a couple of seconds for Mr. Godin.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Agriculture is a major sector for my constituents in the riding of Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, where there are a lot of farmers.

Mr. Cullum, I want to validate what you said, to make sure I understood correctly. In your opening presentation, you said that the agriculture supercluster had not been a success. Is that what you said?

[Stuart Cullum]

There were two agriculture supercluster proposals in the final round. One was successful; one was not.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

My thanks to the panel of witnesses.

Thanks, Mr. Cullum and Christine, and also Mr. Tyler Hopson from Mosaic, for being here today. It was a very informative discussion.

We'll suspend and continue in a couple of minutes with the other group.