Agriculture Committee on Feb. 27th, 2020

[Tom Rosser]

I'll maybe invite my colleagues to comment too, but I was remiss, in responding to the earlier question, not to mention that, as some members may be aware, several weeks ago Minister Bibeau did a call for interest in a youth council to get at exactly that, to hear directly from younger people involved in and interested in farming and agri-food what their perspectives and priorities are.

Marco may be able to offer greater precision. My understanding is that the hope is for an inaugural meeting of that council to take place in the coming weeks this spring.

[Marco Valicenti]

Thank you, Tom.

Yes, we're looking at having an inaugural meeting sometime this spring.

The intent is to allow the council to provide perspectives in the context of whether.... I should talk about how this council will be represented across the country. We'll look at it from a producer lens as well as a processing lens, and at the supply chain and the value-added perspectives. We are very much looking forward to hearing from them to see how we can engage with and define priorities from a youth perspective.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

One of the things I'm curious about as well across the department.... Again, I know you won't get into the specific suite of programs that are out there, but just for the benefit of the committee, can you give us a general sense of where the department funding goes in terms of things like BRM, research and some of the different programs out there so we can have a sense of that?

[Tom Rosser]

Off the top of my head, I would say that the BRM suite of programs, in terms of where dollars are allocated, I think would be the largest share of programs. In addition to that, we have two types of programming. We have the federal-only programming that's delivered by the department, and then there is cost-shared programming, where we have these five-year framework agreements with provinces. That programming is usually but not always delivered by provinces and territories but cost-shared on a sixty-forty basis between the federal and provincial governments.

In terms of some of the other areas of activity within programming, there is significant support for research and innovation and for markets, marketing and market development. Also, in the new framework agreement, we have programming to encourage diversity and a greater representation of under-represented groups in society in the agri-food sector.

Those are some of the main elements of the programming.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Rosser.

Thank you, Mr. Blois.

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

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My thanks to the witnesses for coming here to join us.

We have talked a lot about generalities so far and I would like to ask more specific questions.

If I understand correctly, business risk management programs are reviewed on a regular basis. With respect to AgriStability, has your department looked at increasing production margins to 85%, which was the rate prior to the 2013 budget cuts? In addition, have you considered removing the reference margin cap on allowable expenses?

I would also like to know whether you have assessed the effects of the budget cuts in the agricultural sector since 2013. People on the ground are telling us that the programs no longer meet the support needs since those cuts.

[Tom Rosser]

Thank you for the question. The colleagues who will be joining you shortly are the ones administering the risk management programs. They will be able to offer their perspective on those issues.

According to the mandate letter for the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, she is indeed responsible for assessing how to improve risk management programs, which are managed jointly with the provinces and territories. We are in discussions with the provinces to determine how to improve all of those programs, particularly AgriStability. For any changes or improvements to these risk management programs, we usually seek consensus with the provinces, because that's usually the most effective way to proceed.

A meeting between Minister Bibeau and provincial agriculture ministers was held in December. We have already reached consensus on some program changes, and the next meeting is scheduled for July in Guelph. In the meantime, we will come up with options to improve the programs.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Are all the programs reviewed in this analysis, or just AgriStability?

[Tom Rosser]

The mandate letter for the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food asks her to review all the programs, with a special focus on AgriStability. So that is the approach we have taken.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

If I understood your answer correctly, you say that it is possible to increase the production margin to more than 70%, perhaps even 85%.

Is it also possible to eliminate the reference margin cap?

[Tom Rosser]

Yes, we are looking at a number of options to improve the programs. We are having a lot of discussions with stakeholders to understand their priorities. To that effect, we have heard a number of ideas from producers. In addition, we are having proactive discussions with the provinces to understand their perspective on these issues and to come to a consensus on reforms. We are considering a number of options.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Let's now talk about climate change. The programs are supposed to help producers cope with it. Earlier, the issue was addressed briefly. What steps has your department taken? What is your view?

I'm specifically referring to the fact that lands have been less arable since the major floods of 2017 and 2019 and the fact that harvesting is difficult because of early or late snow. Climate change and global warming are very much here.

Can you comment on that?

[Tom Rosser]

Scientifically, our department is conducting research to try to predict and better understand the impacts of climate change on the agricultural sector. We are trying to predict temperature and precipitation for the next few years and decades to help the agricultural sector adapt to the changes we have seen to date and will likely continue to see in the future.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Are concrete measures being considered?

Farms are in great financial difficulty. I'm not sure whether this is the case everywhere, but I imagine it is.

[Tom Rosser]

We are trying to encourage producers to improve their environmental performance. We specifically have programs to help them reduce their environmental footprint.

In addition, we are looking for better ways to encourage carbon sequestration to reduce emission levels in the sector and to increase the number of carbon sinks on farms.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Mr. MacGregor, for six minutes.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming today. It's good to see you back.

I also want to talk about the economic costs associated with climate change, specifically with regard to the agricultural sector.

I'd like to know whether the department has done an economic analysis of the impacts of climate change on agriculture. I'm putting that in the context of trying to game out what we may need in terms of our business risk management programs. Have you done an analysis of what governments could be on the hook for in trying to deal with the economic impacts of climate change going into the future?

If not, why not, and are there plans to do so?

[Tom Rosser]

We have come at this issue in a number of different ways. One recent example is that when the CAP framework agreement came into being, it was agreed that we get an external panel of experts to review our business risk management programs, which was done and a report was sent went back to ministers, I think about a year and a half ago now.

One of the questions they asked themselves was what is the changing nature of risk facing the agricultural sector, and what does that mean for our suite of BRM programs, in particular, AgriInsurance? It may not be the only example of our looking at what a changing climate may mean for the economics of agricultural production, but it's certainly a recent one that comes to mind.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you.

I have another question. We've started to hear a bit more chatter from stakeholders about a review of the Canada Grain Act.

Can you provide this committee with an update on how that review is proceeding; what particular aspects you may be looking at to modernize; and whether we should expect some legislative action on this during this Parliament?

[Tom Rosser]

It is true that as part of some regulatory reform initiatives, the Treasury Board Secretariat called for stakeholders to identify priorities for regulatory reform. Reform of the Grain Act was one of the more frequently identified priorities coming from the agri-food sector.

Budget 2019 committed to undertaking a review of the Grain Act. Since that time, we have engaged with grain stakeholders in a fairly informal way about reform priorities. It's hard to definitively say at this stage what that reform will look like and whether the reforms would entail legislative changes, but we are in active discussions with stakeholders and with provinces and territories that have expressed an interest in the issue of what a reform of the Grain Act might look like.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Am I right in saying that at this point the review is fairly open-ended and that the department is not really giving itself a closed end date for the end of the review?

[Tom Rosser]

I would characterize that as fair. We are moving forward and will be, but no, I would not say we're working under a definitive timeline for the process at this stage.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you.

My next question is with regard to the royalties that are paid to seed companies and the varieties that research money goes to. Can you provide us with an overview of what the trend has been for the federal government's research dollars being put into developing new varieties? I've heard some concern that the pendulum is swinging a little too far towards private companies doing this research. Some stakeholders would like to see more public dollars put into research so that more farmers can benefit from it.

Can you can provide any kind of an overview of where we are with research dollars being put into developing new varieties?

[Tom Rosser]

In terms of specific dollar figures, we'll need to get back to the committee.

We have had dialogue and discussion over time of the appropriate role of the public sector vis-à-vis the private sector in variety research. It's really more a question of where we position public research efforts and how we best attract private research dollars into this space to complement public investments.

Again, we can probably get more precise data for the committee, but certainly we have not, to my knowledge, in any meaningful way tried to withdraw any of our research funding from variety development.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Valicenti, you mentioned in your statement that we could be doing a little better with value-added development. In British Columbia, Minister Popham announced some money for local food processing.

Is there any further detail you can provide us on what the federal government is planning to do to develop more value-added processing here in Canada?