Evidence of meeting #55 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 debt.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan
Thank you, Mr. Stordy. We're out of time.
We'll go to Mr. Peschisolido. I think we'll do two four-minute rounds, and I'll give Mr. Shipley one. With both being four minutes each, I think we're good.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Joe Peschisolido Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Thank you, witnesses, for coming.
I'm going to follow up on Ms. Lockhart's points on the hog industry. Out in British Columbia there's no debt problem because there are no hog farmers. However back in the 1950s and 1960s it was, I would say, bigger than Manitoba. That's changed.
To Mr. Kristensen or Mr. Stordy, is there a possibility to restart not a local hog industry, because there are some processors, but mainly for export? I believe Mr. Kristensen mentioned expanding markets to Japan and to China. There's a huge interest in B.C. for hogs, particularly from the Chinese community, and the Asian community as well. Is there a possibility to restart a hog industry in B.C.?
12:50 p.m.
Public Relations Manager, Canadian Pork Council
Absolutely. I will point out that some of the obstacles are the availability of land and the cost.
When a hog barn is constructed or contemplated, there are several processing steps involved, to be more precise. Essentially, you have the land; you place the barn. What are you going to do with some of the by-products that naturally occur from the animal? There are manure treatment plants, so you do need a certain land mass in an area to deal with that, to be environmentally responsible with the product. That is one aspect.
I would suggest it is possible to restart an industry. The hog industry in Manitoba has been relatively stunted in further development because of policies. They are trying to move forward in Manitoba with the construction of new barns. That model is something that can happen in other parts of Canada, even in B.C., frankly, because you have a federally registered processing facility that does process a number of innovative products to ship overseas to China and Japan.
There is the potential there, but it's just creating that groundswell of interest, and then the atmosphere and the environment to further develop it.
12:50 p.m.
Member, Board of Directors, Canadian Pork Council
Another aspect of that, too, is sometimes just putting the right players together. There are investors in production and export facilities in B.C. who would benefit from partnerships with the hog producers in the prairie provinces that want to expand. Sometimes, too, it's just an innovative pairing of people, but I absolutely think that British Columbia can certainly get back into this industry, because a lot of our exports are going to the Pacific Rim. We have good investors in B.C. We have processing plants in B.C. There's no reason other than will and networking that we can't do that.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Joe Peschisolido Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
We talked about labour. That is an issue for debt, because if you don't have the workers, you have issues.
My buddy and I grew up together, and his father raised a family of four. He worked at Canada Packers in Toronto. He didn't kill them at the slaughterhouse, because he couldn't do that, but he cut them up.
Is the issue of attracting workers a financial compensation part, or is it a sexiness part? Because we do need folks at the slaughterhouses if we want to have a very viable livestock industry.
12:55 p.m.
Public Relations Manager, Canadian Pork Council
Certainly, both in the processing plant and even on farms, we have to have an environment that generates interest, whether it's attracting people from the rural community, or attracting people from urban communities to work within that atmosphere. That is one of the challenges. I will state that it's not an easy job in a processing plant or on a hog farm to attract someone, just a neighbour or whatnot. They have to have some type of connection—
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan
Thank you, Mr. Stordy. We'll have to move on.
Mr. Shipley, for up to four minutes.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON
Thank you.
It's good to see you again, Mr. Kennes. My first question is, as a financial institution, what can you do? I know you do things to encourage people into succession planning. That seems to be a huge issue. It's one of the largest issues that we're challenged with here, with the debt.
What can financial institutions do to encourage the beginning of succession planning?
12:55 p.m.
Vice-President, Agriculture and Commercial, Libro Credit Union
We have annual reviews with all of our farmers. One of the topics on the agenda is always farm succession. We try to introduce it at an early time, talking about thinking about the plans. I mentioned life insurance earlier as one of the tools that some farmers use in order to finance that. To introduce the ideas of planning for this, we hold seminars where we have speakers from the industry—accountants especially, and lawyers who are experts in that whole area—to come out and talk about it. As I said, one of the biggest challenges is always that the farmers themselves are reluctant to talk about their own succession, but we do raise the issue all the time. I know other lenders like Farm Credit, and the other banks as well, are all raising it because we all see it as a major issue. We're going to keep doing that.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON
Mr. Kristensen, thank you for coming.
You mentioned two or three times the ability to attract new entrants into the industry, with the challenges. I think you and Mr. Stordy have talked about some of the reasons.
Why is that more of a challenge for that industry, which is in an open market, than it is for crop farming, for example, which is also in an open industry...very high innovation, very high tech, very capitalized? I just want to be clear on why it is so difficult to get new entrants into the hog industry than other free market ones?
12:55 p.m.
Member, Board of Directors, Canadian Pork Council
It's twofold. First, there is the perceived economic instability of our particular sector, especially if you're looking at it from an historical viewpoint. That's been a challenge. There's a difficulty in accepting what we call the new reality with export markets and a growing world protein consumption that's going to benefit our industry going forward. That's always been a challenge for us.
Second, the other issue we have in attracting new people to livestock is that we are under more and more pressure in the livestock industry from other special interest groups that are not in favour of livestock farming. There is public pressure there that can turn off new entrants.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON
You made a...and I'm asking if it's a recommendation, because it ties in with the first question I had about AgriInsurance, which you don't have. Is that a recommendation that you would like to see put forward, in terms of your comment that in the livestock sector that insurance is not available?
1 p.m.
Member, Board of Directors, Canadian Pork Council
Right now, we have AgriInsurance for crops. If there's a catastrophic event in a cropping scenario, the farmer has insurance to cover those production losses. We do not have that in the livestock sector. If we had production insurance the same way we have crop insurance, that would lend stability to our industry. In the case of a disease outbreak like PED, for example, that would help a farm deal with those losses. Production insurance would be very welcome.
1 p.m.
Conservative
Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON
You talked about the short-term health. You talked about AgriStability, for example, and we're going to get that. AgriInvest, is at 1.5%, and $15,000 is matched. Do you have some recommendations or thoughts on that?
1 p.m.
Public Relations Manager, Canadian Pork Council
We've had some discussion around the table on that. Some of our producers, a big group of them, would say that it's not worth applying for. It's basically one feed shipment that they would recover. On the flip side, there are perhaps some smaller producers or medium-sized producers who do take advantage of AgriInvest.
1 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan
Thank you, Mr. Stordy.
Thank you all, Mr. Martin, Mr. Kennes, Mr. Kristensen, and Mr. Stordy, for being here today. Have a good trip back.
Thank you to the members.
The meeting is adjourned.