Agriculture Committee on Dec. 8th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Welcome, everyone, to our Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.

Today we have with us the Advancing Women Conference for agriculture and Ms. Iris Meck. Also, with the National Farmers Union, we have Stewart Wells, past president. I will give them each a 10-minute opening statement.

I want to also welcome Matt DeCourcey. We'll make a farmer out of him yet. Also, we have Peter Fragiskatos. Welcome.

I think the rest of our committee is the same. Bienvenue tout le monde.

Ms. Meck, would you start with an up to 10-minute opening statement. Thank you.

[Iris Meck, Advancing Women in Agriculture Conference]

Thank you.

Thanks very much for the invitation. I'm Iris Meck and I'm the owner of Iris Meck Communications, and the host and creator of the Advancing Women in Agriculture Conference.

I was raised on a farm in Manitoba, went to the University of Manitoba, and with my agriculture degree and my management certificate, worked in the ag sector all of my career. I started Iris Meck Communications in 2000, specializing in agricultural conferences and marketing.

In 2013, a cohort of mine was asked the question, “Why are there no women in agriculture conferences at the podium?” I pondered on the question and thought back to my years of being the first woman hired into management at Cargill in 1978 from the University of Manitoba. I thought of the issues and challenges that I had during those time frames and realized that not very much has changed. Women still have a difficult time establishing themselves in positions in agriculture and are not being recognized to the extent that they should be for the contributions that they make.

In 2014, a group of women leaders were gathered from agriculture from across Canada and were brought together to discuss some of the opportunities and challenges that women face in the industry, and the skills and the tools needed to hone their leadership skills.

It became apparent to this group of women leaders that there would be a strong need for women in every sector of agriculture and food, and at every age and stage of their career, to hear and learn from the experiences of successful women, to network with women who share the common passion of agriculture, to grow life and career skills, and to prepare them for the best possible future. It was an opportunity to find out how we can have women invest in themselves and benefit their families, their businesses, their communities, and the agricultural industry.

With this as our guiding principle I held the first conference in Calgary in April 2014. We attracted over 400 women from across Canada, from six provinces, five U.S. states, representing 130 organizations. It was a huge risk for me—very little profit but very rewarding.

The program emphasizes key leadership skills and development opportunities that include communication, mentorship, coaching, networking, financial management and financial independence, physical and mental health and balance-of-life strategies, career planning, and setting goals in all of these areas. Over the last year we have enhanced the program to include workshops on networking, succession planning, coaching, financial management and working with your banker, and risk management.

The audience is farmers, producers, ranchers, ag retailers and dealers, corporate agribusiness, entrepreneurs, small and medium-sized business owners, university students, 4-H members and volunteers, a few government attendees, and academia.

This initiative is clearly filling a need as is represented by the number of women who attend, but also, as important, is the support that we receive from private industry. Initially, I took this initiative to the government and industry. Sadly, the government response was disappointing with no interest at all. Private industry embraced the idea, however, and supported not only financially but in their attendance.

Sponsors range from farm organizations, financial institutions, agribusiness, and a wide range of private ag and food stakeholders from across Canada. We receive no government funding, with the exception of sponsorship from ALMA, which no longer exists.

Our main goal is to bring an exceptional speaker program to the audience. To date, we have been true to our commitment, and according to our audience we have exceeded expectations. At every conference we ask the delegates to complete and submit an evaluation form with their feedback. Often the scores for speaker topics, speaker selection, and speaker performance are so high that it goes beyond the defined range.

We have been very proud to have deputy ministers of agriculture—Bev Yee, Alanna Koch, Dori Gingera-Beauchemin, Deb Stark—all speak at the conference, and we have accepted the request for an invitation to speak by Premier Wynne and Jeff Leal.

Our second goal is to make this conference series affordable for all women in agriculture, and to help accomplish this, we're not only grateful to our private industry sponsors but also the Ontario, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan governments that have classified Advancing Women as a training program and allow reimbursement of registration fees and expenses incurred by the producer-farmer delegates through government programming. We have spoken to every other province in Canada and to date have no success in funding for the producers.

To assist in building a stronger ag community and industry for the future, we also sponsor young women and women studying agriculture in Canadian universities and colleges. We cover their registration and their hotel accommodations.

These young women have tremendous opportunity to see that agriculture is a positive career choice, and to build a network of industry leaders who will not only act as future contacts but also become their mentors and coaches. I, myself, and the industry stakeholders sponsor over 50 students at the conference.

Advancing Women is recognized in supporting, celebrating, and recognizing the contribution women make to the industry. Women leave the conference more confident, enthused, and motivated, and therefore, are more apt to be advocates for the industry and be involved in industry associations and boards.

This has also spurred regional and small local networks of women in agriculture in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Alberta. These networks each are of about 2,000 people.

Our overall goal is to have women involved in agriculture and food benefit from the Advancing Women's program not only through the speakers but from each other. Today we are considered to be the largest leadership conference for women in agriculture where women can join a community of their peers to listen, learn, network, and grow.

We have been asked on several occasions to connect women with certain needs due to their isolation in the rural areas, and from this have seen major networks develop. We have also been approached by two other industries—insurance and energy—to hold a similar conference, and have been invited to hold Advancing Women conferences in the United States and Africa.

To date, over the five conferences held over the last two and a half years, we have had over 2,500 women attend the conference. We anticipate that in 2017 at the two conferences we will have over 1,000 women from agriculture, and we are planning one in 2018.

Our audience is 40% producers and operators, 40% agribusiness and entrepreneurs, and then associations and a few from government equalling 20%. Our age range is 17 to 65-plus.

I'll now describe our sponsorship. Since its start and launch, our major sponsors include Cargill, Dow AgroSciences, John Deere, and Royal Bank, to name a few.

Since 2014, we've had 2,500 followers, over 8,000 in our database of women in agriculture in Canada, and have LinkedIn and message directly to over 9,000 women in agriculture. Our YouTube station has been watched over the entirety of North America. We have garnished over $200,000 in in-kind advertising from major agricultural publications across Canada to promote and to provide coverage on the conference.

I thank you very much for your interest in Advancing Women, and I hope the future government programming will recognize the Advancing Women in Agriculture Conference as a major training program and provide funding on a year-round basis for women in agriculture to attend.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you very much, Ms. Meck.

Now we go to Mr. Wells for up to 10 minutes.

[Stewart Wells, Past President, National Farmers Union]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks for the invitation to be here this morning. I'm appearing here today to relate the views of the National Farmers Union regarding one of the areas within the national policy framework that is under consideration, specifically the area of social licence or public trust.

A document called the Calgary statement, produced in July of this year, includes the following:

The NPF will continue to encourage and support collaborative sector efforts to enhance public trust by: Examining how government programming can help reinforce confidence and public trust in the sector;...and Sharing the story of the importance of the sector and the modern, responsible and sustainable practices it uses.

The NFU recommends that the Government of Canada be extremely cautious when interpreting these phrases, and even more cautious if considering spending taxpayers' dollars in such efforts. The NFU’s position is that it is better to build confidence and public trust by requiring more independent and government testing of products in order to provide real transparency. Proper regulation is desirable and necessary.

We do not believe it would be in the best interest of the government, farmers, or Canadians if the government were to end up funding efforts that are simply trying to maintain the status quo via public relations campaigns, issuing misleading statements, or undermining other production methods.

The NFU believes that the government has a major role to play in promoting confidence in our food system by providing proper regulation, transparency, and testing. Given, however, the history of groups that have been advocating for their particular version of social licence and the continuous change in what society understands to be best practices, there is an extreme risk that the Calgary statement regarding public trust could lead to the government's funding messages that are not always true and frequently exaggerated. Worse yet, it could lead to the government itself issuing false claims.

First, let’s look at the evolution of best practices.

Our farm in Saskatchewan has been operated by three generations of the same family since 1911. During that time, using what were the best practices of the day, our family has applied to the soil or to the crop many chemicals, including arsenic insecticide, mercury-based insecticide, dieldrin, and lindane, all of which have since been banned. A couple of weeks ago, Health Canada decided to ban one of the neonicotinoid insecticides.

I have included a photograph on page 3 of my submission of one of the best practices common during the 1960s and 1970s.

The reason for the evolution of the status of these chemicals from best practice to controversial to their subsequent banning has in every case been insufficient testing prior to their introduction. For instance, very little testing was done, and apparently done only by the corporate owner, on the recently banned neonicotinoid when it was introduced. With a spike in independent testing in the last couple of years, the insecticide's now documented negative impacts are sufficient for the product to be banned. In many cases, the notion of social licence or public trust is being promoted to blindly protect current practices instead of provide extra transparency and/or safety for the public and the environment.

Those misusing the concept of social licence or public trust make several common claims, such as, “I’m a farmer. I would never do anything that's going to hurt my land or the plants or animals on that land.” Our family would have stood by that claim on every banned substance that was used on our farm over the past 105 years. We trusted the regulations and companies selling them at the time.

Another common claim is, “I need to feed a hungry world.” That rationale has also been found wanting. Inadvertently destroying the natural world undermines our ability to produce in the long run. Currently we, meaning agriculture in general, are producing 3,200 calories per day per person—more than anyone can possibly eat—but we have 1.2 billion people around the world who are food-insecure and 1.5 billion people who are overfed, and too much of our food is nutritionally disfigured.

The third claim I have listed here is, “The current technology—crops and chemicals—allows us to use less chemicals overall.”

The September 29 issue of The Western Producer this year reported that:

A large American study has found genetically modified crops have dramatically increased the amount of herbicides applied to soybeans. As well, data from Alberta suggest that GM crops have had an even greater impact in Western Canada, as the amount of herbicide sold in the province nearly doubled from 2003 to 2013.

As well, at least one group, commonly called SaskCanola, which is the Saskatchewan Canola Development Commission, has already used Growing Forward 2, which is taxpayer money, to produce a video that makes false claims, pits farmers against other farmers, and criticizes consumers, all in the name of “social license”. Continuing or increasing the amount of taxpayer money used to fund these activities will not end well.

The government's role in testing, regulating, and ensuring transparency will be undermined, if it adopts a conflicting dual mandate. This dual mandate would mean on the one hand protecting the status quo, which could be the interpretation of the quote from the national policy framework statement from Calgary, “Sharing the story of...modern, responsible and sustainable practices”, while on the other hand trying to engage in meaningful testing and transparency.

I submit this respectfully, as past president of the National Farmers Union.

The picture that's on that last page says a lot, as pictures usually do. This is a common practice used in the 1960s and 1970s. You can see that the farmer is about to get drenched by whatever is coming out of that aircraft, and in the middle of that picture is a dog in the middle of that crop. I interpret that dog as the natural world. That dog doesn't know what's about to happen to him. The farmer does, and the farmer feels confident that everything is fine, but I look at that dog as being part of the natural world, and he's about to get drenched, too.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Wells.

Now we'll start our question segment of the hour with six-minute rounds.

Mr. Shipley, you have the floor.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses.

Ms. Meck, it's interesting that you've taken this initiative.

I just have a couple of things. I was interested when you were talking about your communication strategy. It looks like what you started with and what you developed, in encouraging young women to be involved in agriculture, has taken wings and has grown. I say congratulations to you for that.

The other night, I was at a reception put on by a great organization called CropLife, and I met a number of young people. There were five of them standing together, one young guy and four young women, and all of those five people were finishing their degrees in agriculture.

I had the opportunity to speak to them a bit about where they were heading. Not only were they finishing their degrees in financial management, political science, and agriculture in general with soil degrees, but they were all going to go back into agriculture. I had to question them, and I asked, “When you finish and when you're looking around, are there job opportunities?” Every one of them said, “Yes.”

I talk to a number of students in high school, at times. I ask them what they want to do, and when they tell me, I always ask them at the end, “Are there jobs available?” because often they're going into maybe some course that is their choice, but it's not job opportunity driven.

I think the point you're bringing forward—and you're doing this as an entrepreneur, and congratulations—speaks clearly that this industry of agriculture we have is one of the strongest industries in Canada. It's one of the leading industries in Canada for the transparency of it and for the success of it over the last number of years.

It's really encouraging to see, when we read articles in our paper and our agriculture magazines, how so often we see a husband and wife, or just a woman, who have left a job to come into agriculture.

In your position, what do you hear from these young women, as they're coming forward and talking to you, about their future in agriculture?

[Iris Meck]

Most of the women who come to Advancing Women are very forthright, very aggressive and assertive, and already at that point. The young women who are coming out of university feel that there's a tremendous opportunity. Although they don't want to leave home and don't want to leave the university community and take on another four years of education, they feel very positive. The range of jobs is very wide and broad, anything from financial management to actual agronomy and from production through to law, environment, and forestry. It's so broadly encompassing that they can go across Canada and find a very broad area in which to work.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Wells, when you were going through your presentation, I appreciated the commentary.

I'm from Ontario. One thing that has had a fair bit of discussion is the neonicotinoids and the pollinators. What we've also found is that over the past while there has been an increase in the bees and the beehive numbers and production. The interesting part is your mentioning that over the last number of years things have changed in agriculture in terms of the products we use, the application, and even the crops we grow in different regions, and that we are saying that there is insufficient testing prior to their introduction.

When you go back, one of the things Canada is recognized for—in fact, one of the concerns we have in Canada—is that we get behind the eight ball in the approval of inputs for our Canadian farmers. We often get behind what Europe is doing, but particularly we get behind our American friends, whom we're in direct competition with.

I'll also go back a number of years in the auto industry or the farm equipment industry. As evolution has happened, as research and technology have increased, we now have made an auto industry, for example, that has done an extraordinary job in its advancement against pollution. We look at the farm equipment industry, those who produce the combines and the tractors, but also those who produce within our greenhouse environments and within the—

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Mr. Shipley, I'm sorry, but time is up.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

All I'm saying is that a lot of improvements have happened over time.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Shipley.

Just to explain, there is six minutes, and that belongs to the person who asks the question. It's up to them. It's not for me to control anything.

Mrs. Lockhart is next, for six minutes.

[Alaina Lockhart, Liberal, Fundy Royal, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you both for being here.

Ms. Meck, I'm very interested in the work you're doing. We have been talking about different barriers for different folks and the tremendous potential there is in agriculture. What are you hearing from women? Where do they see the barriers, either to being more involved in agriculture or to advancing in agriculture? Are there hot spots right now that you're hearing about from women?

[Iris Meck]

I think it's both. Women who come to the conference talk about different areas of barriers. Women farmers find that it's different for them when they go to the bank without their husbands. I don't know what kind of barrier that is. It's the fact that they are not recognized for the contribution they make, as I said before, and therefore, there is automatically that obstacle in place. Men are used to dealing with men, on the business side, for farming.

Women in the rural areas find themselves very isolated, so it's difficult for them to say that they're going to join a board or become part of an association, because there's distance involved. There's the actual understanding of how they're going to work with that community.

Women in business find that they can get to a certain level, but of course, having their children between the ages of 22 and 35 takes them out of the workplace. Even for one month, one year, they find themselves losing step. They lose that ground.

The barriers, then, are there. We don't have the women leaders in place who will support and, as they call it, “sponsor” the women today who are coming up the ranks. We don't have women who feel confident enough to take on a position, and that could just be a role that women play without being in agriculture, in whatever industry you want to call it.

I think the barriers are there. Coming to a conference such as this provides the motivation and the aha moment of realizing that she made it to the podium, she made it to that place in her career, and there is an opportunity and a way for me to get there, too.

[Alaina Lockhart, Liberal, Fundy Royal, NB]

I think that's very interesting, especially that piece about women going to banks and that sort of thing. In my riding in New Brunswick, I know that women are an integral part of the business aspect of running farms. It's interesting that they're behind the scenes, but then when it comes to making the deals, you're saying they're not always at the table to make that final deal at the bank. I think that is a true barrier.

You mentioned peer-to-peer support. Can you think of a specific example of a success story that has come from that? You've been doing this for a few years. I'm really impressed with the number of women who have attended your conferences. Are there any success stories you can share with us?

[Iris Meck]

First is the development of all of the local, regional, little groups of women that have developed. In Alberta, just six months ago, a group of young women who attended Advancing Women went back to their locales, and they started gathering a group of women to be on social media, to be on Facebook, to use Twitter amongst each other, to meet at trade shows, and to hold special little events for each other just to talk about things like barriers, opportunities, and what's been happening. Today, six months later, there are over 2,000 young women between the ages of 21 and 35 who now belong to that network. It's the same in Saskatchewan and in Ontario. I think that the development of those types of networking groups at a local level has become very much spurred and motivated to discuss things like how to work better with our banks. How do we work better with farm implement groups and retailers? How do we deal better in our boards and associations?

On the other hand, a year ago I was approached by a woman by phone, and she said, “I'm recently a widow. I have three small children. I run a huge farming operation, cattle and crop. Can you introduce me to another woman who is in the same situation as me?” I knew of someone, and unbeknownst to both of them, I introduced them at the conference and sat them beside each other. Those two women were connected at the hip for two full days, and it was so inspiring and heart-wrenching, really, to see them share their stories about how, having lost their husbands, they still wanted to make that succession plan so their children could take over the farm.

Today there are over 25 women, crossing the border from Canada to the U.S., who have formed a network of widows. We just don't know what to call them because men are assuming that they're for sale to be wives, so we're not sure how to promote that.

Those are two examples of peers working with peers.

[Alaina Lockhart, Liberal, Fundy Royal, NB]

We don't have very much time, but you did touch on succession planning. Some things we've been talking about are gaps in the workforce and succession planning. By bringing more women to the table in agriculture, I assume that's addressing some of those issues as well. Do you have any comment on that?

[Iris Meck]

Yes, it is. We find it's very important to talk about succession planning. That's why at every conference we have been talking about succession planning, not only on the farm but in agribusiness, people who are shareholders in retail outlets and people who run businesses in food. Also, in multinational corporations, succession planning is a major force, and we would like to see more women come up that stream.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Ms. Meck.

Thank you, Ms. Lockhart.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses for their presentations today.

Ms. Meck, I really want to thank you for the work that you're doing. I would love to attend one of your conferences. I think that what you're doing is really important. I was just wondering if you could elaborate a little bit more on the importance of how you see the federal government investing in and supporting more women getting involved in agriculture.

I know you said the conferences you hold right now are privately funded. You said in your presentation that you had funding before from ALMA. What is that?

[Iris Meck]

It's the Alberta Livestock and Meat Agency, which is no longer in existence.

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

Okay.

Could you elaborate a little more on how you could maybe see, in this next policy framework, potential funding or some policies on how the federal government could really encourage women to get involved in politics? Oh, politics. Well, that's important, too, right? We're only 88 women in the House of Commons out of 338.

I imagine a lot more women are taking over farms and taking more leadership roles in farms. Maybe you could elaborate a little more on how the federal government could take a leadership role to encourage women to get involved in agriculture.

[Iris Meck]

Yes, thank you very much.

First off, I invite all the women and men to come to an Advancing Women conference. I think it's a really eye-opening experience. Perhaps if more government members, employees, and people who work in the government agencies attended a conference such as this, they would really get the true feeling of what the issues and opportunities are.

As for the funding opportunities, because I'm in the private sector, an entrepreneur, I am not eligible for government funding. However, I have appreciated the support that the government has provided to the farmers and producers who have attended the conference.

One thing I have heard, a critique, is that the farmers feel that it is very difficult to apply. There are a lot of criteria that you have to meet to make an application. The timing of an application is very difficult. Oftentimes, while our conferences are held in March, April, and October, potential applicants find that by the time they realize about the conference and want to apply to register for it, the funding date has closed. It seems odd to me that a date would close for people who want to continue their education and go to a conference such as Advancing Women.

That would be one suggestion.

I think it's important that the government does get involved in not only funding the women who attend this conference from the farmer and rancher perspective or group, but the government should also take the opportunity to fund speakers at a conference such as this. I don't see why that would make such a horrid circumstance if the government were to support an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs are doing a lot in this industry, and more as the years go on. I find it very frustrating being an entrepreneur when a government association can get funding to hold six meetings across the province to write a report, while I have 2,500 women coming to conferences, 500 at every conference, which is basically unheard of today, and I don't get one dollar.

Sponsor a speaker. Do something to show your involvement and support of the women who come to this conference.

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

Thank you very much.

Mr. Wells, I really appreciated the meeting we had earlier this week. It's always great talking with you and working with you.

I know we talked a bit about the agri-stability program. Over the last few years, we know that fewer and fewer farmers are using that program. In Growing Forward 2, there were a lot of cuts by the last government. Now I think we have a chance to do the study, meet with witnesses, take their expertise, and try to make sure that in the next framework we arm farmers with the tools necessary.

We talked a little about crops in Saskatchewan having some challenges this year. I wonder if you could explain to us the importance of programs such as agri-stability, getting them right and making sure that they fit the actual needs of farmers and the climate we're in presently.

[Stewart Wells]

Sure. Thanks very much for the question.

I think most people understand that this year in Saskatchewan there's a serious situation with a disease of not just wheat but grain, called fusarium, and a related disease that comes about because of fusarium. It may well be the first year, since serious damage was done to the agri-stability program by the previous government, that farmers are going to really need to rely on the agri-stability program.

It would take too long to try to explain the changes that were made by the previous government, but I would say that the changes that were made, the detrimental changes to the program, were made without any consultation with the farmers, without any consultation with provincial agricultural ministers, and in fact, the agriculture minister from Saskatchewan was livid and actually went out in public railing against the federal government for making the change at the time. The net result has been to rip away support that should have been there in the safety net programs.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Wells. That's all the time we have for that.

Mr. Longfield, you have six minutes.