Evidence of meeting #53 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was farmers.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Tom Rosser  Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy Branch, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
Michael Hoffort  President and Chief Executive Officer, Farm Credit Canada
Jean-Philippe Gervais  Vice-President and Chief Agricultural Economist, Farm Credit Canada
Kara Beckles  Acting Director General, Research and Analysis Directorate, Strategic Policy Branch, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
Paul Glenn  Past Chair, Canadian Young Farmers' Forum
Justin Williams  Member, Board of Directors, Canadian Young Farmers' Forum
Brady Deaton  Professor and McCain Family Chair in Food Security, Department of Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Guelph, As an Individual

12:25 p.m.

Conservative

Gerry Ritz Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK

We actually have a good story to tell when it comes to the environment and agriculture. The footprint is 10% of what it was even two decades ago.

12:25 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

I'm going to have to end it there. Thank you.

Now we have Mr. Longfield for six minutes.

12:25 p.m.

Liberal

Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON

Thank you.

It's great to have Mr. Ritz at the table here with his experience and his input. I'd love to go down that top 10 list. We never have time, though. That's the problem.

Speaking of time, I'm looking at the age of farmers. Mr. Deaton, you told us that 10% are under 40. With SMEs, 12% are under 40. It's very comparable to what you would see in an urban environment. That's surprising to me.

12:25 p.m.

Prof. Brady Deaton

I guess I might have been a little surprised, too, when we started to look in the data and looked at 2011. Again, I want to get back to the point that whatever you do, you want to find a comparable, and it's kind of hard to find a comparable. In your footnotes you'll see some sensitivity analysis if you look at small enterprises versus medium enterprises.

What was interesting when we looked back was how it had changed over the last 10 years. There had been a fall—probably largely for demographic and economic reasons—in the under 40 categories in both small and medium-sized businesses and farming. Interestingly, though, the fall is again comparable between the two, so if you went from 2001 to 2011, the decline was similar in both industries.

12:25 p.m.

Liberal

Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON

I'm looking to Mr. Glenn and Mr. Williams on this. The average age of farmers, I believe, is still up around 56 years. There is a retirement wave that's going to be hitting the same as it's hitting in urban settings. Do you see the access to mentors and the opportunity that might come from these people retiring as a business opportunity that your network is looking at? Maybe you could describe, in terms of farm debt in this study, how that older mentorship to younger farmers works. Does it work?

12:30 p.m.

Past Chair, Canadian Young Farmers' Forum

Paul Glenn

Yes, something we are working on is creating a mentorship and exchange program for exiting farmers to mentor and having an exchange program for young farmers to go to those farms. There already are some programs out there now that are linking farmers looking to exit the industry with young farmers looking to get in. Again, it does come down to financing, and if you only own a pickup truck, sometimes it's tough to get into the market on an economy of scale size. That's why they're typically doing fruits and veggies and going to farmers' markets initially until they get their foot in the door.

12:30 p.m.

Liberal

Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON

When we look at the development of superclusters—and Dominic Barton said that agriculture should be a supercluster we consider—you have mentioned the University of Guelph. There's Saskatchewan. There are university mentorship opportunities across the country. Regarding the government's involvement in helping to establish these mentorship opportunities, in getting 12% of people under 40 to become farmers, and in having a good percentage of women and indigenous people being included, is that happening yet, or is it something still in the theory area?

12:30 p.m.

Past Chair, Canadian Young Farmers' Forum

Paul Glenn

I think it's probably still in the theory area. I don't have a lot of data for you on that. It's obviously on our minds that we need to get more young farmers excited about agriculture and interested in it, because fewer people know about it, so there are fewer people wanting to get into it, too.

12:30 p.m.

Liberal

Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON

I was hoping we weren't going to see the lights flashing. They said they weren't going to have a vote at 1:00, and now it looks like that's going to happen.

12:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Do you want to go 15 minutes? Are we good?

12:30 p.m.

Liberal

Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON

The role of universities across Canada to try to tie these mentorships—

12:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Just hang on, Mr. Longfield. I need consensus to continue. Do I have that for 15 minutes?

We're good.

12:30 p.m.

Liberal

Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON

Thank you very much.

Regarding this industry and academic collaboration, you graduate from college and university, you have ties to schools, and schools have ties to you. Is that something you draw on as you go through your farming, develop your farm, and develop your career in farming?

12:30 p.m.

Past Chair, Canadian Young Farmers' Forum

Paul Glenn

Education never stops when you're a farmer, that's for sure. A lot of your suppliers typically put on education for you. I don't know a lot of link going back to the universities, necessarily, once the farmers are on farm—and maybe you can speak a bit more to that, Mr. Deaton—but education never stops.

12:30 p.m.

Liberal

Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON

Yes, and technology is always changing.

12:30 p.m.

Past Chair, Canadian Young Farmers' Forum

Paul Glenn

Absolutely.

12:30 p.m.

Prof. Brady Deaton

We're constantly interfacing with the public and with farmers, based on a variety of different research that is going on in our department. Our students are often involved in the research that's going on. We might be researching farm prices and rental rates, which is something I would research, and then we would have students involved in that, bringing both their on-farm knowledge but also extending that into the community.

If I can just dovetail back to what Mr. Ritz was talking about yesterday, we constantly have outreach material that is science based. For example, I do a podcast show where we talk about things like these...and neonics, and we talk about GM products.

That's a constant role of the outreach efforts in our department. I think the university is heavily involved in all of these.

12:30 p.m.

Liberal

Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON

Great opportunity.

Thanks, all of you, for the work you're doing.

Back to you, Mr. Chair.

12:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Are we done?

Okay.

Ms. Brosseau, you have six minutes.

12:30 p.m.

NDP

Ruth Ellen Brosseau NDP Berthier—Maskinongé, QC

Thank you, Chair.

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

I'm happy I get to ask a question and that we were able to hear from the two panels. I'm sorry it had to be cut short, but that's part of the business.

There was a bill that was put forward a little while ago. It was a private member's bill from my colleague, Guy Caron. It was a bill that proposed to make the transfer of family farms a little easier. Right now if you want to transfer your farm, it is more profitable to sell your business to a stranger than it is to keep it in your family.

This bill was based on many recommendations and a lot of consulting over quite a few years. Initially we thought we would have support, at least to send it to committee where it would be further studied. Sadly, there was some disinformation that went about. Recently there was a report from the parliamentary budget officer that said the costs weren't nearly as high as the information pushed about by the finance department.

Mr. Glenn and Mr. Williams, I know you mentioned in your presentations third generation and eighth generation. Could you speak about the importance of what a bill like that would be to transferring family farms?

We've talked a lot about the age of farmers now. A lot of them are going to be reaching the point where they're thinking about transferring their farm to their children or somebody else in the family. Can you speak about the importance of maybe fixing this tax injustice, please?

12:35 p.m.

Member, Board of Directors, Canadian Young Farmers' Forum

Justin Williams

As I mentioned in my presentation, I am the eighth generation working on becoming part of the farm. As of right now, there is no succession plan in the works, but the conversation has begun.

Generally, succession plans for farms take a minimum of 10 years to transition from the parents down to the children, and some farms can take even longer. I think it would have been very beneficial to be provided with some help in that sense, because it is a lot of money and a lot of debt for the next generations to be taking on.

Eight years ago, my parents were able to take over a partnership from my father and his grandfather, so they are servicing the debt from the previous generation. That's going to be passed on to me, as well as the tax implications, when that transfer takes place.

12:35 p.m.

NDP

Ruth Ellen Brosseau NDP Berthier—Maskinongé, QC

So if this piece of legislation were to be adopted, that would be potentially helpful to you and people like you in the same situation.

Mr. Glenn, do you have any comments on that bill?

12:35 p.m.

Past Chair, Canadian Young Farmers' Forum

Paul Glenn

In any of the data, we show there is a bit of a decrease in growth of the farm when there is a transition made. I can share that data with the chair later on. Basically, any time that the farm has to be completely bought out, there is a decrease in growth, at every stage.

If you can transition the farm, there is very little decrease in growth, if not increase in growth, to continue on the transfer. Even if it's not to a sibling or a child, transitioning the farm to continue on so you're not taking on that excess debt.... It just takes the five-year growth out of it.

12:35 p.m.

NDP

Ruth Ellen Brosseau NDP Berthier—Maskinongé, QC

Mr. Deaton, do you have any comments on that bill, or any other measures that the federal government could adopt to facilitate the transfer of family farms?

12:35 p.m.

Prof. Brady Deaton

I don't have any comments on the particular bill because I'm not familiar with the nuances of it.

I would say, as I indicated in the testimony, one of the challenges is really of wealth. You are there with a lot of assets that you're thinking about splitting among your kids equally, or, if you're going into retirement, treating yourself equitably. It is a very challenging situation. It's not necessarily in and of itself a bad thing; most farmers like the idea of having higher-valued land. However, it is a challenge to that intergenerational transfer.

To echo the point that was made earlier, planning for that, having a good conversation with the next generation, so they are operationally, managerially, and financially ready to take on that debt or buy a portion of the land for their siblings, is really important.