Agriculture Committee on Sept. 18th, 2018

[Tyler Hopson]

As far as export is concerned, or...?

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Yes. You said that 95% of our product is being exported.

[Tyler Hopson]

That's right.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I know we are competing against Russia, typically.

[Tyler Hopson]

Certainly there are a variety of potash-producing regions, but Russia and Belarus are the next largest ones after Canada. We have found it a challenge to keep our business costs, our production costs at a rate where we're still competitive, given the significant differences among the various environments we operate in. We've even seen cases where Russian and Belarusian producers are able to ship more cheaply, more affordably than Canadian producers, even into North America.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

That's been going on for many years. I know we have stockpiles when markets are bad, and we have mountains of potash on the prairies that we don't need on the prairies.

It looks like I'm out of time, but thank you very much for joining us. I'm sorry you couldn't join us earlier in the study. Your testimony was very helpful. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Longfield.

Now we have Mr. MacGregor, for six minutes.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I'll extend a welcome to all my colleagues. It's good to see everyone again.

I'll start with Colleges and Institutes Canada.

Arguably, the defining issue of the century is going to be climate change and our response to it. We have several paths open to us, which are going to lead to very different outcomes.

I know from a previous study that farmers are often on the front lines of climate change. They are the ones who are probably our best stewards of the land, but they suffer the most from weather patterns that are not the same: droughts, floods and so on.

In the context of our technology and innovation study, and the work going on at your various colleges and institutes across the country, are there any particular spots you can point us to where you're training students on how to adapt and mitigate? Are there any particular technologies you can underline that are going to help us meet this challenge?

[Christine Trauttmansdorff]

Maybe I'll respond to that with a general statement and then a specific example.

In general, the whole college system is designed to be responsive to the current needs of local industry. We do that through deep connections to those industries, particularly through program advisory committees. Twice a year, the people who are putting together the program meet with a group of people who work in the industry, who are employers in the sector, to ask what kind of curriculum they need, what they are looking for in their graduates, how the graduates they sent last year are working out, what their anticipated forthcoming labour market needs are, and, particularly in terms of technology or new demands on the industry, what they need to build in. That characterizes the whole college system.

I'll give you a specific example, coming back to the applied research work that we're talking about in particular today. In New Brunswick, at the Collège communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick, there is a research project that is helping farmers and producers do environmental assessments on how they can use the soil, the water, the resources, and the fertilizer more efficiently in order to mitigate the environmental footprint, as well as to work more effectively and deal with some of the situations that you are describing in terms of drought and unpredictable weather patterns.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Cullum, can you add anything from Olds College?

[Stuart Cullum]

I think there is a great leadership example in Canada of how we are continually producing more while reducing the effects on the environment. The whole concept of smart agriculture is the use of technology and science to increase economic and environmental sustainability. They do go hand in hand. I think our agriculture sector has demonstrated that track record for years and decades.

We are positioning Olds College to be a leader in smart agriculture. Our smart farm is intended to focus on the application of technology to increase the trend toward increased productivity and sustainability, and lessening the impact on the environment. Within our Technology Access Centre on livestock, that tack is specifically set up to help producers produce more efficiently, essentially increasing weight gains in their cattle while decreasing the amount of feed and water utilized to do that. We are addressing it through genetics, but also through technology. We are supporting companies in the introduction of technology in order to enhance that. We are also working closely with our university partners on greenhouse gas emission reduction in our cattle herds.

There are a lot of great examples of how our industry is leading and how our colleges are helping companies leverage technology in order to increasingly lead in this space.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Hopson, I'll continue along the same vein with you.

I think you very clearly laid out the challenges your industry has. It's a fairly energy-intensive area, but still one of Canada's strongest exports and one of the greatest economic engines we have. I know that our main competitors, Belarus and Russia, certainly don't have the same kind of standards we do. I think this is definitely a conversation that we need to continue having with your industry, on how we can best support it.

I'm interested in hearing something from you. Worldwide, there is a growing consumer consciousness of how our products are developed. Increasingly, people are concerned about how they are developed, and what kind of standards are put into place. Do you think there would be any value to your industry, to worldwide customers, in showing that Canadian potash was developed with certain standards in place and that we, by far, can outrank Russia and Belarus in these areas? Is it worth pursuing that kind of marketing strategy going forward?

[Tyler Hopson]

I think that's certainly a story that we should tell, and we should make others aware of our track record and the successes that we have, not just on environmental performance but also certainly when we look at other factors in the marketplace or in business around labour standards and community investment and engagement. I think Canada has a lot to be proud of on that front, and certainly we should make people aware.

As it stands today, I wouldn't say we are rewarded for those aspects, as far as the price that we're able to get on the international market goes. It is a global, competitive marketplace, so we take the price we're able to get. Unfortunately, today, I wouldn't say that those other factors you talked about are factored into the price of potash on the international market. That could change, and probably will change, as you pointed out, but as things stand, it's not something we're necessarily rewarded for.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Now we have Mr. Jean-Claude Poissant for six minutes.

[Jean-Claude Poissant, Liberal, La Prairie, QC]

Welcome to the committee, everyone.

My first questions are about education and the workforce.

Last summer, I visited farms, but I also replaced my son on the farm. I hadn't done so in three years. I saw the new technology being used now there, and it's taken me a long time to learn how to use it. That's why I'm asking a lot of questions about the new technologies, which are rapidly changing. How will they evolve over time? Are our young people able to keep up with this very rapid evolution?

[Christine Trauttmansdorff]

That is a good question. I will say more or less the same thing I said in response to one of Mr. MacGregor's questions. What matters is how we train people. What matters is not so much the details they are learning during their studies, but how they learn.

If young people are exposed to problem-solving and challenged to look at problems in an innovative way, to work in the workplace, and to understand how small-business people, farmers, or producers are tackling the problems, their way of learning becomes different. I think that's probably the thing that we need to focus on most—not learning the specifics of a technology but how to think in a creative, innovative way. We're very focused on that.

That said, there is a huge demand to learn about new technologies, so the equipment, the facilities, and the faculty we employ in the colleges are hugely important. At a minimum, we need to be training people on the technology that is present in the industry today—and hopefully we're a step ahead, so that the graduates are importing new ideas, new technology and new skills into the workplace, providing leadership for the existing workforce, and showing them some of the new things that can be done. That requires a constant investment in the infrastructure that post-secondary institutions enjoy. It isn't cheap to keep up with technology, but I think that if we don't do that, we're failing our young people.

[Stuart Cullum]

I'd like to speak to that quickly as well, because I think it's really important that we recognize the convergence of technology and agriculture. In fact, at Olds College we've just launched a new school in agriculture technology. We've just hired a new dean, and we will be developing a new degree in this space. We expect that we're going to attract faculty from technology sectors in order to address this.

Many of the partners we are now working with in our applied research are not agriculture companies; they're technology companies. They come to us for two reasons. First, they see their technology, which is applied in one industry, as being very applicable to agriculture. Second, they don't understand agriculture, so they come to institutions like ours because they want an access point to agriculture. We're creating learning environments through our campuses to support our students in addressing new technology. Ultimately, our intent at Olds College is to provide a learning environment that represents the future of agriculture.

[Jean-Claude Poissant, Liberal, La Prairie, QC]

Thank you.

That brings me to my next question.

What percentage of young people who don't come from farms enrol in a course? Is there a follow-up to see whether people from the farming community are doing better than those who did not come from agriculture?

[Christine Trauttmansdorff]

I don't have those numbers, but I will follow up to answer your question.

[Jean-Claude Poissant, Liberal, La Prairie, QC]

Okay.

My next question is for Mr. Hopson. We talked about the fertilizers spread on lands across the country. Do you have any idea how much land is covered by organic fertilizers? I know there could be more, but do you have any idea of what that might mean?

[Tyler Hopson]

That's not something I have at hand right now, but if you're interested, we could certainly look into that, find out some numbers on that front, and follow up.

[Jean-Claude Poissant, Liberal, La Prairie, QC]

Thank you. We would be grateful.

I would like to go back to the training. As you know, there's a labour shortage in agriculture. I have previously participated in the workplace apprenticeship program. Have you heard of this program? If so, what do you think?

[Christine Trauttmansdorff]

As we said earlier, it is very important to maintain the skills of the current workforce in addition to training the people who are coming into the industry.

I think the partnership with industries and companies, to have a conversation and help companies and industries understand what technology is emerging and what the future workforce is going to need and to then develop training—to either access the training that is already available or to tailor-make it so that it can be delivered to employees in the workplace—is an area of tremendous opportunity.

[Jean-Claude Poissant, Liberal, La Prairie, QC]

In closing, I would like to know whether you see a difference in how many of the next generation of young people enrol in supply management production and those who choose another program?

Are more of them opting for the training on supply management production or is the number relatively balanced?