Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First, I would like to thank the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food for this unique opportunity to introduce the work of the centres collégiaux de transfert de technologie, the CCTTs, the college centres for technology transfer, of which the Centre d'innovation sociale en agriculture, or CISA, is a part.
Forty years ago in Quebec, research at the college level was just beginning. Today there are more than 59 college centres for technology transfer located throughout Quebec. Our mission is to support industry in its innovation efforts in order to help it develop and be more profitable. The partners involved must contribute effectively to the complementarity of this mission.
CISA is linked to the Cégep de Victoriaville, which is located in the Centre-du-Québec region, a rich agricultural area. I would say it accounts for about about 15% of Quebec's production. We are funded by the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, since in Quebec, the CEGEPS are the first level of higher education. We also receive some core funding from the Ministry of Economy, Science and Innovation.
CISA is a young centre; its status was recognized in 2009. That year, Quebec and even Canada were getting over a crisis in the pork sector. In the Centre-du-Québec, several producers had been affected by the consequences of the crisis. At the psychological level, producers were dealing with fatigue, and the suicide rate among them was alarming. Social innovation allowed us to design innovative solutions.
What is social innovation, and what is our definition of it? It consists of any idea, approach, intervention, service, product, law or organization that provides an appropriate and sustainable response to a social, economic or environmental need. I'm talking here about a solution that has been adopted and provides a community with measurable advantages. It is a systemic solution with a transformative scope. It's a methodology that supports innovation. In our opinion, when people work with technological and social innovation right from the outset to develop programs and meet the needs of enterprises, those innovations allow the enterprises to acquire work methods that are much more productive, commercially. That is in fact one of our first recommendations.
According to Grand Challenges Canada, the joint work of organizations that specialize in social innovation, together with technological enterprises and commercialization firms, is likely to allow innovations to have a worldwide reach and viability, if, at the outset, organizations are developed in parallel with appropriate social and commercial innovations. In this regard, a good example is the iPhone. That is exactly what happened there, several years ago. At the social level, people are now even studying the impact of the iPhone on human beings.
I'll give you a concrete example. We are currently developing a self-driving, electrical weeder in co-operation with another CCTT, l'Institut du véhicule innovant, which is associated with the Saint-Jérôme CEGEP, as well as with the ELMEC company, from around Shawinigan, which specializes in the design and manufacture of electrical charging stations. The CEO of that company loves the Tesla model, and decided to ask a CCTT with a technological vocation to work with him in developing an innovative solution. We were contacted and we got together with this business as well as with that college centre for technology transfer in order to determine, with them, the social and technological needs of the agricultural producers, who will be using this technology in the near future.
Our project was funded in part by a small Ministry of Education and Higher Education program whose objective is to support transfer and social innovation. We received about $100,000 for a project that represents, in total, more than $3.5 million in the context of federal government technological programs. I'm referring here to NSERC and anything involving the CFI in connection with infrastructure.
Our work has now taken this project to the prototype phase. The Centre d'innovation sociale en agriculture is now an industrial partner, together with the Victoriaville CEGEP, in testing this product at the pre-commercial level on the land close to our research infrastructures. Consequently, we hope to see a strengthening of technological innovation capability through the contribution and joint efforts of social innovation from the very outset of the creative process.
I'd like to add a few brief words about the Cégep de Victoriaville. For 25 years, this CEGEP has been providing training to agricultural producers in the areas of traditional agriculture and organic farming. We have developed an organic farming diploma, with a new three-year technical program leading to a DCS in agriculture.
I'd simply like to add that the joint presence of research and college-level training has allowed us to attract a large number of students to our college. About 15 years ago, the Cégep de Victoriaville had about 15 students in its agriculture program. Now we expect to have 250 students by 2021. The federal and provincial governments provided $20 million in funding for our infrastructures, which were delivered this year.
Despite this, we still have some important challenges to meet regarding the functioning of these devices and infrastructure. We are constantly looking for funding from our partners, be they at the municipal, federal or provincial level. It's important to fund training to properly meet the short and medium-term needs of enterprises. We would like to see the federal and provincial governments make that one of their priorities.
We would like you to note the importance of supporting the Institut national d'agriculture biologique of the Cégep de Victoriaville, as well as other infrastructure needs in Quebec.
In closing, I would like to mention labour. In my opening remarks, I spoke about the psychological needs of producers. I'd also like to address the well-being of Quebec producers and processors. Currently, market pressures—