Thank you, Ashley.
I'm an organic farmer from Saskatchewan. Together with my family, I raise cattle and grow cereals, pulses, and forages—all organic—on 2,500 acres in Saskatchewan. We farmed conventionally for 21 years, and we are now almost finished our 19th organic harvest.
I'm proud to be representing today the Organic Federation of Canada, which oversees the maintenance of our national Canadian organic standards. The organic standards connect agriculture with the environment. It defines good agricultural practices that target productivity, profitability, and preservation of our environment.
Decades ago, producers from across the country came together because they wanted to change the way they farmed. They wanted to reduce their environmental footprint and become more sustainable. The Canadian organic standards provide a framework for their agricultural practices and allow them to define what they do as organic agriculture. The standards are not only a measure to ensure public trust in organic, but are also an industry benchmark for achieving and standardizing environmental sustainability on a farm. The standards are a public good, and all Canadians benefit from the practices organic farmers use on their land.
Our Canadian organic standards were established in law by the Government of Canada in 2009, and are referenced by Canadian federal regulations. However, the Canadian organic sector has been operating under the constant risk of losing the backbone of our industry, which is our standard, our assurance system, our standards, our brand, and our public trust. This is because, unlike our competitors, such as the U.S. and the European Union, whose governments fully and permanently fund the maintenance of their organic standards, the Government of Canada has yet to do the same for its own organic industry.
The Canadian organic standards, owned by the Canadian General Standards Board, require our industry to review and update organic standards on a five-year cycle. The price tag of this work is about $1 million, the majority of which goes to paying fees to the Canadian General Standards Board for overseeing the review and publishing of the revised standards. It also includes the cost of paying for national consultations to ensure that the standards reflect the needs of organic stakeholders.
Reviewing the standards is absolutely critical for maintaining not only the Canadian organic brand, but also all of our government-negotiated international organic trade arrangements, which we have with 90% of our major trading partners: the EU, Japan, and the United States.
The Canadian organic brand and the Canadian organic standards are all owned and backed by the government, so when the Government of Canada prepares budget 2018, with a national food policy and its 2025 agricultural export goal in mind, we strongly urge you to eliminate this competitive disadvantage that we suffer in Canada: get rid of the risk to our industry and include permanent funding for the Canadian organic standards. They will need to be fully revised and updated by the year 2020, and that work needs to begin in 2018.
To conclude, we remind the committee that organic agriculture is an example of a successful, clean-growth industry that offers a model for promoting climate-friendly food production. As the Government of Canada develops this national food policy, we hope it builds a policy that both incentivizes and rewards sustainable agricultural production, which we know contributes to food security in Canada. We also urge it to look for opportunities to eliminate competitive disadvantages for our organic producers. Permanently funding the Canadian organic standards would be the way to start.
Thank you for providing us the opportunity to speak on this topic today.