Agriculture Committee on Oct. 17th, 2017

[Christina Franc]

Exactly. It goes back to the whole education component. People are coming to the fair and they're not just coming for the midways. Our studies show that they're coming to learn about food and farming as well. They have an ideal opportunity to do that at our event. If you want to focus on food waste, work with us, and we will develop educational packages and information that can be disseminated to the fairs for exhibits and interactive exhibits. We've seen a lot of those really good things already.

At the CNE, in particular, they have a farm building and people go in and they meet some animals. Dairy Farmers of Canada has a great display there on the different types of feed and things like that. It's putting the information in front of people and then giving them take-home tools. We could very easily work on a program like that. We have done programs like that across the nation before. That's the opportunity.

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

That's great. Thank you.

Casey, you mentioned an important word, “trade-offs”, and discussed whether consumers are aware of the trade-offs of eating a particular kind of beef. Should the government be playing a role in terms of the false marketing we see? I know one company, A&W, will say their beef has no hormones, while we know beef doesn't usually have any hormones. How do we counteract that particular false marketing out there that plays on consumers' feelings or demands?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Luc Berthold]

Mr. Vander Ploeg, please keep that question in mind. You are unlucky. You are always the one that I have to interrupt.

I'm sorry. Could you answer in 20 seconds?

[Casey Vander Ploeg]

I was hearing the French language here, so I apologize for that.

It is a bit of a sticky wicket, and it's certainly something that aggravates producers too. What I hear on a regular basis at different industry gatherings and so on is this deep misunderstanding about things like marketing campaigns that imply that a certain product is better than another when that's not necessarily the case.

There are trade-offs. The UN report—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Luc Berthold]

I would ask you to keep in mind this UN report. We will no doubt be given the opportunity to come back to it.

I will now turn over to Ms. Ruth Ellen Brosseau for her turn in this round.

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

Thank you, Vice-Chair.

I would like to thank all the witnesses for their statements and for helping us in our study.

I will let you finish, if you have anything. You wanted to talk about a report, Mr. Vander Ploeg? If you want to conclude, I'll give you 30 seconds because I know you've been cut off a lot.

[Casey Vander Ploeg]

Do you mean my answer to Mr. Drouin's question?

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

Yes.

[Casey Vander Ploeg]

I just wanted to say that it is a frustrating thing. There is this huge gulf of information for Canadians about how their food is grown and some of the decisions that have to be made. Is there a role for government there in helping to close that divide? Yes, I would think there is. In partnership with industry, I think there's actually a lot we could do in that area to help inform Canadians to make good choices.

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

Madam Elver, that was a great presentation. I love the fact that you talked about the health of people and the health of the planet. Could you maybe elaborate a bit more about what the correlation is between sustainable food production and the long-term security of food?

[Hilal Elver]

Of course, there's a strong correlation between the two. Sustainability, as we all know, is about using the resources, but what we need in agriculture is water, soil, and seeds. These are very valuable resources, and these resources are actually also in danger because of agriculture. Agriculture needs these, and these are also part of the problem and the environmental issues. In relation to climate change, our witnesses made very clear the kinds of foods we eat and how much greenhouse gas emissions we are producing. This is an extremely important issue.

When we talk about food security, long term, we have to first understand the way in which they produce the food. Sustainable food means more organic, more agro-ecological systems that many countries are using. I'm sure many Canadian farmers are also practising agroecology, but the problem is that government should really support these kinds of projects and these kinds of farming practices.

More and more, with the intensive agriculture direction that we are going in, we have more and more food production but our food system is broken. For instance, one of the members was talking about affordability. Nutritious food, frozen food, is a serious and important issue because that is where we have to put our money as a government. If we want to support small farmers or agroecology or sustainable food producers, this is the best money to do it, rather than giving some kind of incentive to big-time, export-oriented agriculture.

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

I know that my colleague on the other side talked about food waste. Food waste is something that I've been bringing up in the House since about 2012. Canada really hasn't taken any leadership on food waste. I realize that a lot of the food waste happens at home and we can't control what people do at home, but there are a lot of things that I think the federal government can do with respect to education.

Also, other countries have moved and legislated to ban food waste. I'm not talking about giving people trash or about making people sick, but there have been amazing projects in Quebec. In Montreal and in the regions of Mauricie and Lanaudière, there are amazing partnerships between supermarkets and food banks. I would love to see the day that in Canada we do not have food banks, that we do not have people living in poverty, but the federal government needs to make steps.

Could you maybe talk about food waste?

I don't know how much time I have, but if we have time, I would like to also have you talk about the importance of agroecology. We've heard about that a few times at committee during this study. Is the government doing enough to educate farmers and maybe move away from certain practices of overuse of pesticides here in Canada?

[Hilal Elver]

Agroecology is also in general connected with food waste. Agroecology means not producing more than we consume. We are talking about more responsible production activity.

In developed countries, food waste is at the consumer level. For instance, if you go to developing countries, again there is a significant amount of food waste but at a more local level because they don't have enough infrastructure. They cannot access the market. This is not the case for Canada.

The thing is, we can handle supermarkets. Maybe we should look at what kind of packaging we are using, because government can regulate this. For instance, we could look at the “best used by” dates. We can regulate this, because many false dates are given for products that are still easily consumable after that period. For instance, when we buy pasta in a supermarket, they say “best before 2018” but you can easily use it in 2020. I'm not talking about dairy products or meat, because those cases are very different.

It has to be regulated by government, genuinely working together to educate consumers and of course working with farmers. Farmers' markets are basically a much better way to buy our food. Of course it's more expensive; we know that. But there's less consuming and less wasting of food because it's on a smaller scale, rather than going to the big supermarket and buying tomatoes for 10 families.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Luc Berthold]

Thank you very much, Ms. Elver.

Madame Brosseau, thank you. Your time has elapsed.

Mr. Poissant, the parliamentary secretary, has six minutes.

[Jean-Claude Poissant, Liberal, La Prairie, QC]

I would like to thank our witnesses.

I have a question for Ms. Elver.

Earlier, we were told that as of the middle of February, we will have finished paying for our food for the whole year. On the other hand, I also hear that as of the middle of September, the planet has used up its food resources and that it lives on credit up to Christmas.

Do you think there any solutions, and what lessons can we learn?

[Hilal Elver]

As far as I understand your question, this is about how much we pay for our food. Am I right about that?

[Jean-Claude Poissant, Liberal, La Prairie, QC]

No, that is not exactly what I was aiming at.

We want to put a food policy in place, but at the same time, we know that we will have finished paying for our food or our food basket on average in the middle of February. However, on a global scale, we know that as of mid-September, we will have consumed all that has been produced. Sooner or later, this problem will come back to haunt us.

Canada is of course a huge producer that exports much of its production, but one day, this global problem will catch up with us.

I was wondering if you could suggest any strategies or measures that we should include in our food policy to counter what is coming.

[Hilal Elver]

Again, if I understand correctly—I'm very sorry that maybe my distance doesn't allow me to understand—you're talking about what we produce and what we export or use locally. Am I right that you are asking this? Canada is a major food exporter. Canada also has no problems concerning the availability of food, but in certain areas Canada's food is very expensive and not affordable.

If we go to the more remote areas, Canadians spend extreme amounts of money on food you can easily get more cheaply. Of course, price is a market issue, based on demand and supply. If there is not much demand, sometimes the prices can go very high. If there's no available food, then the price goes high.

Of course, these things should not be completely dealt with by market forces, because food has become more of a global common good. I'm not saying government should be giving food away for free, but that they should be able to regulate to protect self-sufficient agricultural policy for Canadians while they are thinking about exports.

[Jean-Claude Poissant, Liberal, La Prairie, QC]

My next question is for the beef producers.

We have heard that there is a problem with the next generation. I wonder if there will be enough new blood in the beef industry to take on the coming challenges. I would like you to talk about the next generation.

[Casey Vander Ploeg]

There is concern right across agriculture with respect to getting the next generation of farmers into production. A lot of that has to do with the high capital costs. We're talking a lot of times about millions of dollars of investment required. Now we have new things happening with the tax system that some are saying may make it even more difficult.

It's an issue we continue to wrangle with as an industry, but definitely one we need to resolve—in short order, too. The average age of farmers is increasing, and that next generation has to ask to come on board to take over those operations. Hopefully, we'll be able to come up with more successful ways of doing that than we have in the past.

[Jean-Claude Poissant, Liberal, La Prairie, QC]

My final question is for Ms. Franc.

When I was a boy, we would go to fairs and eat candied apples and play whack-a-mole.

However, you spoke something that seems quite promising. You talked about perhaps including an educational component at fairs. How would you see that being done? What would be the target audience? Would all types of food production be included?

[Christina Franc]

Yes, absolutely.

It depends on the province. For example, in Quebec the provincial government allows funding towards agricultural initiatives, and education specifically. You can get $30,000 in funding if you are doing agricultural education on anything. It could be farmers, beef, dairy, or whatever. It's already happening. These are videos. These are interactive displays. They are having exhibitors animate sessions. There is a huge opportunity for educating in every sector.

I think I may follow up with the NCFA afterwards to see how we can work together on programs we can share. We're building relationships with agriculture more than ever, with agriculture in the classroom, and so on, to see how we can engage and what new education opportunities....

It's unending. The outreach is huge and there is a lot of potential there.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Luc Berthold]

On that fine offer of cooperation, I thank you.

Mr. Longfield, over to you.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. You are doing a great job. It's tough to keep us all on track.

Thank you to all the witnesses.

I want to start with Casey Vander Ploeg. Last Friday I was in Arkell, Ontario. We made an announcement, on behalf of Minister MacAulay, with the Canadian Animal Health Coalition, of $1.12 million to go to training and certification for livestock transportation. We looked at emergency management tools and animal care assessment, particularly for chicken farmers. We were working on this coalition that had farmers, producers, and transport people. In their coalition they also have civil society.

Do you have something similar out west that would help us? You said it was very important for ranchers or producers to be part of our discussions. Do you have organizations like that, which we should make sure we include as we go forward?

[Casey Vander Ploeg]

When we are talking about bodies like CAHC, for example, those are nationwide bodies. As a national industry association, we are already connected with them. When we're talking about certified livestock transport, we are connected there as well. Interestingly enough, it was the Alberta cattle feeders that got that started back in the day.

Across the agricultural industry there is a lot of that interconnectivity already in play, and I think we could use that to build on some of these things. With the increased government support and initiatives that come behind us, maybe we'll be able to do a much better job of educating Canadians about their food and even promoting best practices within industry as well, in conjunction with the industry standards and protocols that are being developed.