Agriculture Committee on June 13th, 2016

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

That's actually one of the points I've heard too, that the application process was really cumbersome on them, especially if they were applying for a small grant. They're spending a lot of money for little return. Is that something that we can look at in terms of standardizing applications online? I'm sure the applications repeat themselves. Do they have a portal online?

[Greg Meredith]

Yes, there are a number of innovations that my colleague on the program side has introduced, including online applications and online management of the interface with program officers and program applicants, including online payouts. The digitization of the process is proceeding. There are opportunities, I believe, going forward for standardizing, collecting information once and applying it to different areas if you have an applicant who's interested in different program slices. All of those opportunities are being looked at, both at the federal and provincial levels.

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

How much time do I have?

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

You have only five seconds left.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Merci, monsieur Drouin.

Thank you, Mr. Meredith.

Ms. Brosseau, you have the floor and you have six minutes.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses for their presentations and their participation in this study.

I remember when I first came to agriculture, I think it was in 2012, and we were studying Growing Forward; we were going through it. It's a really important framework that's going to be around for a few years, so we have to make sure that our farmers have good tools in the tool box. I know that you've explained a little bit the process of how this is going to be negotiated. The ministers are going to be meeting in July, then they'll agree on a policy statement, and after that there will be some more negotiation and feedback from industry. Then after that there will be a multilateral agreement. When exactly will this be finished?

I know we're doing a study, and we're going to continue on in the fall and hopefully submit recommendations. I'm just hoping that the work we're going to be doing at committee, our recommendations, can somehow fit in.

I don't know if this is a question that you can answer, Mr. Meredith, or maybe the chair, but will it be possible for the recommendations that we'll be making at committee to actually be part of helping to make the framework the best piece it could be?

[Greg Meredith]

I think you have the process exactly right. The multilateral agreement, which will begin to operationalize the framework, should be in place ideally in July 2017. One of the ways to avoid the gap between frameworks that was identified earlier is for governments to begin to immediately frame up, define, and begin to operationalize their programs, and not wait until April 1, 2018, which answers your question about when this framework would take place.

As to the committee's input, as governments we are very anxious to see it because you'll be talking to many of the same people that we'll be talking to, and maybe some new faces, and all of that impact will be valuable to us. In terms of the committee's engagement, the modality of involvement, I don't know.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

I know we have to terminate this exercise by the end of February. Maybe Mr. Poissant wants to comment on it, but definitely we would like some input, and we will discuss that.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

I don't want to use up my whole six minutes. I just want to make sure that the work and the testimony that we're getting...because from my experience on the agriculture committee and throughout the campaign, we all heard from our constituents and farmers of things that need to be done better in this new piece of agricultural framework. I know you highlighted some key areas that will hopefully be followed through with this new piece.

As you know very well, we have an aging population. Farmers are looking at transferring their farms. On average, I think, farmers are about 55 years old. What needs to be considered is how we transfer family farms, making sure that we support young farmers. I was wondering if you could explain what was done in Growing Forward 2, and maybe the things you would like to see moving forward in this new agricultural framework to support new farmers and the transfer of family farms.

[Andrew Goldstein, Director General, Policy, Planning and Integration Directorate, Strategic Policy Branch, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

In Growing Forward 2...and it's an issue we hear about a lot from the sector as well: rejuvenation of the sector, renewal of the sector, bringing in that next generation of farmers. I think farmers face a lot of those challenges. Their kids don't want to necessarily live on the farm; they want to move into the city.

We're working a lot with the the provinces. A lot of the programming which supports that happens at the provincial level through the Growing Forward 2 framework. Provinces have agriculture in the classroom. They want to raise awareness of the agriculture sector for a number of reasons. Part of it is to attract the next generation of farmers and gain interest in it, but it's also to connect the urban population to agriculture, because they often find there's a disconnect. People are interested in the food, but they're not as aware of how it's produced. I think there's a dual purpose to raising awareness of agriculture. It's partly to bring new entrants into the sector, but also to connect the general population to agriculture.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

More and more Canadians want to buy local. They want to know where their food comes from. There are a lot of questions being asked. There is a lot of support for truth in labelling. We could talk a lot about labelling, but I don't think we should get into that right now. There are more and more young farmers who get involved in organic farming and they want to sell their products at a local market.

I wonder if you could talk about the importance of this. Yes, there is an emphasis on Canada as an exporting country and we do export a lot and there are great markets in China and other places, but there's also a great want and need to buy local. There are foodies or people who say that they live in a city and they want to buy withing the 100-kilometre type of thing or they live in a rural community and support those types of productions. Could you speak about the importance of having and supporting types of programs that would help support local agriculture?

[Andrew Goldstein]

When we look at the objectives of Growing Forward 2, and I assume it will continue on, it's really about supporting the economic prosperity of the sector. What we see is that there are a number of different business models and different ways to be profitable in agriculture. Some producers produce commodities on a large scale for export and others find it works for them to produce on a smaller scale, and some produce organic and others use the latest technology. We try to support all of them. It's up to the individual producer to decide what is the best business model for them to succeed in. If they see an opportunity to serve a more local market with organic produce and they can make a go of it, that's great, and we—

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Goldstein. We have to move along.

Mr. Peschisolido, you have six minutes.

[Joe Peschisolido, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Mr. Chair, thank you so much.

Gentlemen, thank you for attending. Mr. Meredith, welcome back, and Mr. Goldstein, it's good to see you.

I was struck by your comments, Mr. Goldstein, about connecting the urban sector to farming. In fact, at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in my riding there is a professor, Dr. Kent Mullinix, who has just put out a book called Agricultural Urbanism, where he is dealing with that, where you're connecting supply and demand.

Following up on that statement, I want to ask a question on how we can utilize the agricultural framework policy to create a different business model supporting farmers who don't have huge farms. In the greater Vancouver area we're looking at farms of 5, 10, 20 acres where, given the situation in B.C. with no frost and the wealth of the soil, it can be very profitable.

There are two parts to the question. Number one, in the existing framework are there policies that can be helpful in that area? If yes, great, how can we implement them? If no, or yes, how can we take that to our next framework, which I believe starts in 2018?

[Andrew Goldstein]

Thank you for the question.

One of the real benefits of the policy framework we have right now, as Mr. Meredith was saying, is it's a national framework with national objectives but each province has the flexibility to implement programs that meet those national objectives but are really tailored to the situations that are within their local areas. Agriculture is quite diverse from one end of the country to the other. What we see in British Columbia or in Nova Scotia in the Atlantic area is much smaller-scale farms, so the programs that those provinces implement are really geared toward their farms, which are often very different from the kinds of large farms you see on the Prairies, for example.

[Joe Peschisolido, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Mr. Goldstein, are the programs product specific? Are there programs dealing with potatoes, with legumes, with berries, or with livestock? Could you explain that a bit more?

[Andrew Goldstein]

The programs are much more designed along objectives, whether it's supporting innovation or market development or skills development, and then they accept applications from various commodity groups to support individual commodities. If they're helping, say, potato growers with innovation, they would do it through that. It's not necessarily geared toward a program for a particular commodity.

[Joe Peschisolido, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Could we do that? Do you think that would be helpful or not?

[Andrew Goldstein]

The way it works now allows them to say say they support objectives of increasing innovation and productivity, and each commodity can decide if that program is of interest to them and they can apply for it. That's up to the industry to come forward with what they are interested in.

[Joe Peschisolido, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Mr. Meredith, you talked about the growing demand and the differing tastes from Asia, and I see that every day. My riding is Steveston—Richmond East, so there are a lot of folks coming in from China, Korea, Japan, who are looking at our stuff.

One thing I find odd is that in B.C., we don't have a federally regulated slaughterhouse or an auction house, which makes it kind of hard, if not impossible, to export our stuff. Is that a historical anomaly, or can we change that?

[Greg Meredith]

For the sake of other committee members, the challenge being outlined is that, at the federal level, there's a certain standard to becoming a certified federally regulated slaughterhouse for, generally, red meats. Very often, provincial standards will differ from the federal standards. You have to meet the federal standards in order to export, so that's the challenge.

That's a challenge that has been recognized. Under the previous framework, there was some work done with provinces to do pilots to determine what it would take to bring a provincially certified plant up to a federal standard, to enable two things, interprovincial export or interprovincial trade of those commodities, but also export trade.

There's not a structural problem there. There is the challenge that it's expensive to retool your plant to get up to a federal standard if you're not already there. For a smaller scale slaughter plant, that could be prohibitive, and in the Peace region or elsewhere in British Columbia, there may not be the volumes to sustain a plant with the certification. I'm not aware of what the supply and demand conditions are there, but generally, the plants that do reach that export potential certification are fairly substantial in size.

[Joe Peschisolido, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

There's no structural issue.

If there were an increased demand, let's say from China or Japan for pork or beef, particularly in the organics sector—as you know there's a concern in Asia about pollution and we have some pretty good stuff that they want to buy—the only issue is capital. There's no underlying problem.

[Greg Meredith]

There's no policy or regulatory problem there.

I would add that CFIA, our former portfolio partner, has a program of voluntary organic certification that would help in that kind of export circumstance.

[Joe Peschisolido, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Whom would I speak with? How does that work?