Agriculture Committee on Jan. 31st, 2018

[Tony Straathof]

I appreciate it. Thanks.

When farmers are trying to do a plan, a lot of times there isn't quite enough knowledge. There is knowledge out there, but it's not in our hands. It's learning. However, if we have to learn something, we have to take time away from our operations; we have to travel. Even for me now, I'm travelling an hour and a half, two hours, and sometimes four hours to go to a session and then back home.

That's more of a stick than a carrot. We need to learn. We can't leave our operations, because there are repercussions to doing that.

When we're also talking about encouragement, even in my own operation I'm evolving into no-till. Most of my farm is no-till now. About seven years ago I was doing an awful lot of plowing. I was plowing almost exclusively. In a weather event, we'd see 25 millimetres, and I'd see grey creeks, with the water running into the creek.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Unfortunately, Mr. Straathof, I'm going to cut you off again. I'm sorry.

[Tony Straathof]

Yes. I know how it is.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

I want to make sure we give a chance to everyone.

Mr. Poissant, you have the floor for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all of our witnesses.

First of all, I want to congratulate producers. Reducing one's environmental footprint by 15% is quite a challenge. I know because I am a farmer myself. When we take steps to improve our farming operations, people often barely know about them, or they are not properly recognized.

Mr. Bonnett, you said earlier that we need some plans to support adaptation. That got my interest. Can you tell us more about that?

[Ron Bonnett]

I could give you several examples. It almost ties into Mr. MacGregor's question about how we adapt to where we're going.

The first thing we have to remember is that everything is local. What works in western Canada would not necessarily work where I am. Their issue may be drought. My issue this year was too much water.

What kinds of investments can we make? On our farm, we've tiled 300 acres in the last two or three years. It was the only ground I got crop off this year because it was so wet.

I mentioned the investments in solar water-pumping systems. By digging out old springs and having storage areas for the water that was there, we had water reserved and we put a solar pumping system in place to do that.

We're looking at experimenting with different types of crops. One of the things we've done for about the last six years is we've planted Sorghum Sudan grass, which is basically a tropical plant. It's a plant from which in the spring to mid-summer we get all kinds of forage, when we happen to get the dry periods, to carry over.

To answer your question about the types of supports, I think we need to have investments in research. We can look at some of the plants we can use. I think we need some support programs. People are going through environmental farm plans and doing some of the best management practices. Then we have assistance for the capital investments that sometimes take place. The other thing, which I think goes back to what Tony was talking about, is figuring out how we share best management practices between farmers.

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

Thank you very much.

My second question is for Ms. Brocklebank.

Climate change can provoke disasters from one day to the next that are due to Mother Nature, and we know that sometimes we will not be able to do anything. You spoke of the triggering factors for programs. Can you tell us more?

[Andrea Brocklebank]

The biggest challenge when a disaster happens, from a government perspective, is trying to envision what type of disaster and where it's going to happen, so I appreciate the difficulty. One of the challenges is that producers often have to make decisions very quickly, whether that's selling animals or adjusting feeding strategies, or fencing...you name it. That can be due to animal health and welfare, due to their own operation and their economics. In many cases, they have to put up cash very quickly. The challenge becomes uncertainty as to what's eligible for funding and what's going to be available; those types of questions make it very difficult. I don't want to bring it back, but that's the mental health stress producers have to deal with; it's right there.

What's needed is greater clarity as to the terms and reference materials available to producers—what they're eligible for, at least, as a starting point—as these programs are defined and as a disaster rolls out. Literally, producers have to make decisions in the days and weeks right after. Often, programs don't fully roll out for months.

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

Do I have a little time left, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

You have two minutes.

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

Mr. Bonnett, did you want to add something?

[Ron Bonnett]

I just have a brief comment on the idea of disaster. One of the things we've got to watch is that we don't necessarily always have to look at a disaster as a one-time event, whether it be a massive flood or a fire or something like that; sometimes it's a progression of events. Like I mentioned, this year, in many parts of Ontario, there was so much water I ended up going out and buying a bunch of different equipment so I could store feed that was wet, rather than normal dry hay. Sometimes a disaster is something that goes on gradually and you wouldn't have a disaster declaration. When you're looking at programs, there's a disaster side of it but there's also the investment side. How do you mitigate some of these changing conditions that come, whether it's a buildup of rainfall where you can't even drive on the fields, or a drought where you don't have anything to harvest?

We've got to watch that we don't get caught up in the notion that a disaster has to be a one-time event. It can be a progression of events.

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

I have one last question that may be a little off-topic.

You also spoke about the increase in the cost of farming inputs. Have producers gotten together to make bulk purchases in order to lessen the consequences? In certain provinces, there are purchasing co-operatives and things of that nature.

[Andrea Brocklebank]

Definitely there are efforts to do that. The specific reference I made was relative to forages. A lot of the forage insurance does not account for the fact that if you have to use forage insurance and then purchase forage because it's come into effect, it has a cap on it. It doesn't really allow for the fact that usually, when you're purchasing forage, prices become quite high because there's a shortage. That's where it becomes a challenge, when a producer is faced with being unable to use their pastures and having to purchase forage. There's no current trigger. There are caps that don't allow for any kind of compensation. Forage prices can escalate quite quickly in a drought.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Ms. Brocklebank.

Thank you, Mr. Poissant.

Mr. Longfield for six minutes.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thanks everybody for coming here in various snowshoes, snow machines, and other ways of getting here.

Mr. Bonnett, I wanted to pick up on the comments that you made around climate change research and genetics, and the adaptation working group at NRCan. There seems to be a funding gap that maybe we could address in our report as our recommendations come forward. On climate-smart agriculture, what could be done to help the governance, and the directions those types of groups could be bringing forward? There's very valuable information here. It sounds like there's a funding gap.

[Ron Bonnett]

Yes, there is a funding.... There are two things. First of all, I think, there's identifying what the research priorities are and fitting that into a climate-smart, agriculture-smart agenda identifying the priorities. We need to take a look as well commodity by commodity, because some of the research recommendations might be very different from the livestock sector than they would be from the crop sector. Identifying those priorities is critical. Even in the livestock sector there are new pests coming that we didn't see before, which are migrating north. We may not have the tools we need to address those pests, whether it's approval of pest control products or things like that. I think getting a clear identification of what the priorities are and then clearly identifying how we can flow that funding through some of the existing structures needs to be looked at.

The other thing I should mention is that the Canadian Federation of Agriculture is participating in a climate-smart agriculture initiative, North American-wide. Drew attended meetings in Washington earlier this year. Again, I was supposed to be there but snow kept me away. It seems to be a trend. I think it means looking at what is happening in other jurisdictions, tying in and making sure that there is adequate funding available, but also engaging the farm community in the discussion so that we really have a good handle on what the priorities should be.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I want to open up starting with you, Mr. Bonnett, and then maybe to the rest of the group. In 2013 we had a prairie shelterbelt program that was being run out of the prairie farm rehabilitation administration. It was cut off. Is that something we need to look? What types of programs have existed that we should maybe revisit, given the nature of climate change and the need to increase production and the pressure we have on pricing and carbon pricing?

[Ron Bonnett]

At the federal level, I think you'd likely have to leave some of the discussion and decision-making to the provincial level as to where the priorities might be. For instance, the prairie shelterbelt program might be one that works well, whereas in other areas of the country it might be something different. I think we have to recognize that with climate change and climate adaptation it's going to be different, depending on where you farm and what types of crops you are growing. There are a number of things that could be revisited. One of the things I would stress is that the environmental farm plan program, from what I've seen on our farms, was an excellent program. I know in the province of Ontario the funding has declined dramatically for that. I think more emphasis on cost-shared funding would help stimulate investment in mitigation measures and that would likely work across the country as well, but identifying the priorities should be very localized.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

It sounds more like a carrot.

Mr. Straathof, from the National Farmers Union.

[Tony Straathof]

You're asking about the shelterbelts in the Prairies. In Western Ontario now we are seeing that where there are shelterbelts, if there is not the aggressive removal of trees, which we see in the sand-plain, that helps reduce erosion and holds back water in the case of high-water events, and reduces the drying out of the soil.

Ron was talking about the environmental farm plan. Ontario does have a very good environmental farm plan. We've developed it over a number of years. It was developed to the soil and crop...but that environmental farm plan is not consistent across all the provinces. It really needs to be. It's really about farmer assessment. Farmers assess their own challenges and problems. If that environmental farm plan is not consistent across all the provinces with an oversight from the federal government—because it covers regions—with participation from the provinces, you're not going to have success, you're not going to implement the programs that you want. We really need to get it national.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you.

Finally I'll go over to Andrea to talk about how this might tie in with the native grass reseeding programs that your group has been advocating for to try to reclaim some of the land lost due to erosion.

[Andrea Brocklebank]

We have an amazing extension network going on across our country relative to grassland management and a lot of it is producers talking to producers. Research is really important, but getting application and producers sharing knowledge are really important. Grazing mentorship programs, verified beef production plus, which looks at environment and production practices, all those types of things, are the really important part in terms of trying to move things forward. Those are the ways we can encourage change—through cost-sharing and those types of incentives—and really allow producers to take leadership. As we talk east-west differentials, even commodity differentials mean that the incentives for one are not necessarily the same for another.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Terrific; thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you. This is all the time we have.

I want to thank the whole panel, Ms. Jackson, Ms. Brocklebank, Mr. Black, Mr. Bonnett, and Mr. Straathof, for joining us here today. It was a very interesting conversation. Thanks everyone. I'm sure we'll meet again.