Agriculture Committee on April 27th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

You're cutting it pretty close.

Thank you, Mr. Drouin.

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

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses for being with us today.

I'd like to ask a general question as we begin. I gather from your testimony that neither of you have any desire to depend on the government for a rebate, and that you would prefer to have a basic exemption, because that would allow you to retain the means to carry out innovation.

Mr. Drouin said something similar. In order for the transition to happen, you have to do research and development. Mr. Ammeter, if there were a transition partnership investment program, I would imagine that industry would be very happy to participate. Is that correct?

[Mike Ammeter]

The quick answer would be that I have to see what's available as an alternative. That is the challenge. If there is no alternative, an investment partnership or however you want to term it, it's a moot point. Like I said with my grain dryer, I've kind of reached peak efficiency from what I can find, so the number one challenge is different technology. If it's out there, then again, how quickly can I adopt it? That's the challenge. That's the big question.

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

I congratulate you on that, by the way. Not all producers have reached this point.

That was precisely the point of my question. There is no alternative right now. Now, if there was investment in research and development, if there were alternatives that could be developed and there was state support to put them in place, I think you would be pleasantly surprised and would want to participate.

A witness who appeared last week told us that the fact that Bill C-206 did not set a limit on how long the exemption would last was a deficiency. He was concerned that this exemption would continue when we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. What are your thoughts on this? What do you think about the possibility of the exemption being limited to five or 10 years and the government committing to support you in the transition?

[Mike Ammeter]

It would certainly accelerate any transitions we have, but I'll go back to my previous point. I need to see something that will do the job for me. That's going to be the key—to find an alternative. If there is an alternative, the faster we go, the better off we will be.

I hope I answered your question.

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

Yes, absolutely. Thank you very much.

Mr. Kelly, I imagine you take the same position. Would you like to receive support from the government to transition, and as a first step, develop the alternatives?

Surely that's more trouble for you. That's why I'm asking.

[Dan Kelly]

Part of the issue with our industry is getting people to understand who we are and what we do.

There's been a great deal of development and technological advances in the propane industry. When we look at the level of emissions that come from propane being burned today compared to what it was before.... When you take a look at the advancement in vehicle usage, you see that we now have school buses that are running on propane. We now have fleet buses that are running on propane. We have large courier companies that are using propane. There are great advancements that have been made.

The equipment that burns propane has been developing and advancing as time has gone on, and there has been a great deal of that. Where we see opportunities is for the government to look at new places for propane, such as northern communities, power generation. We're looking at power generation for small communities that may, perhaps, be off grid. In terms of replacing diesel in northern communities with propane, propane can be transported in exactly the same manner as diesel fuel for those communities. Those are the types of things we see as the opportunities of propane.

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

Basically, you see propane as part of the solution to replace diesel, among other things, but not part of the problem. Is that correct?

In your opinion, why didn't the government exempt propane and natural gas in the first draft of the legislation? What happened? Why do you think the legislators at the time wrote it that way?

[Dan Kelly]

I believe it was an oversight. I don't believe that it was any kind of intentional omission. It's the same as saying that gasoline and diesel can't be used for heating. There are very few people, if any, who use gasoline and diesel for heating now. It's just a space in the legislation that I don't believe was necessary. It's the same with the propane and natural gas emissions. I believe it was an oversight in the original legislation.

We've been meeting, as an association, with many different departments, members and administerial staff to tell our story, and we're very pleased to see some of the progress that's taken place lately.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Kelly and Mr. Perron.

Now we have Mr. MacGregor for six minutes.

Go ahead, Mr. MacGregor.

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

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses.

Mr. Ammeter, maybe I'll start with you.

Diesel is used for some grain-drying operations, is it not? I'm trying to get a sense of just how many farmers might be using diesel at the moment to dry their grain.

[Mike Ammeter]

To my understanding, I don't think so. I'm not aware of that. The dryer that I have was originally propane—and this is nothing against Mr. Kelly's product—but we have a pretty good natural gas distribution system, and I was able to tap into that. It's very close to our farm. It is very convenient because natural gas does not need to be delivered by truck. It just comes in the pipelines, so that's good.

I'll go back to your question about diesel fuel. I'm not aware.... That's not to say they don't exist. However, I would suggest that the vast majority are propane-powered, are propane-fired or use natural gas. I have heard of people trying to do grain drying using, well, straw—I guess it would come under the classification of a biomass—but I think it would just be a horrific amount of crop residue that you would have to burn in some kind of a container to contain the heat. I applaud the effort, but I don't think it would be very good.

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

Yes, I was wondering about that because I was doing a search, and I'm a complete layperson when it comes to understanding the dynamics of grain drying. There is a company that I did find called Triple Green Products. Here on their website they say they have a BioDryAir, which they think is superior because propane and natural gas both contain water vapour when you burn them, so you can actually be putting more water vapour into the grain. Their system does run on biomass.

Can you give me a sense of, when you're harvesting your canola and you've separated it—and I'm sure it's probably corn farmers who get the most residue because we all know cornstalks in relation to canola—how much crop residue you are left with at the end of the harvest?

[Mike Ammeter]

That's kind of tough. Arguably, if I were going to tell you, I'd try to give you a number for how many tonnes per acre. Quite frankly, I don't even know that. I couldn't tell you.

Something I will go back to is your comment about drying with biomass. That would be true, because natural gas and propane will have some moisture in them and that is something we have to account for when we're drying. That's just to know it's not a true.... It's not a dry heat. It's heat, but yes, you're correct on that.

I'm not aware of the company you referred to, but I'm sure it would work. It's just that.... What volumes do you need to create the amount of heat you need to dry? I wish I had a picture of my grain dryer for you folks. It's not like your clothes dryer. Some of them are massive. They are very big. There's a lot of grain going through and a lot of air moving and a lot of fire. There's a very big fire inside my grain dryer.

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

I can believe it. I can see the size of the silos that you have to thrust that heat through. You need a massive amount of heat coming out of that.

Maybe I'll rephrase the question. If there were a system that had proven technology, was very efficient in operating on biomass and became commercially successful—because I don't know how well this company is doing—would there be an added burden to farmers in collecting that residue while you're harvesting? Is it easy for you now to collect the residue and put it one location? You would then have it in a viable form to be used as a fuel.

[Mike Ammeter]

Here's the challenge. For crop residue, if I were going to collect the residue off my crops—canola, wheat and barley—probably barley residue, barley straw, would be the superior one, I would think. I would need to have that collected the year prior and ready to use in my grain dryer for this fall. There's not a window of opportunity. When the grain is ready to be combined and I harvest it and it's in the bin, it needs to be dried. Because of weather conditions or whatever has happened, I need to dry it and I need to dry it now. I can't wait to go out and collect the straw, bail it, move it off the field, get it into the yard and start using that as a fuel source.

I would have to do that the year prior and be prepared for that, so there's an extra layer of complications, I guess you would call it. That's not to say it wouldn't work, but it would be complex and would be another pretty high level of management, and then to anticipate that.... How do I know?

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

The other thing, too, is that you're going to be losing all of that carbon on your fields, which of course serves a very important purpose for the next year's crop.

[Mike Ammeter]

That's a good point. In terms of the nutritional value of the straw and crop residue that comes off my crops, there is value to that. There are nutrients in that—you mentioned carbon—and now I've gone and I've burned that to make heat.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Ammeter and Mr. MacGregor.

Mr. Steinley, you will start the second round. You have five minutes. Go ahead.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

That's excellent. Thank you very much, and thank you to all the witnesses who have presented today, Dan, Mike and Dave.

I'm going to ask a few of my questions to the Canola Growers, because Regina has had a lot of influx of canola-crushing plants and a lot of good announcements lately, about 1.2 billion dollars' worth, so we are looking forward to being, as I said, the canola-crushing capital of Canada.

A question I'd like to walk through is that I don't think some of our colleagues realize how big these grain dryers are. Talking about biomass, I take Mr. MacGregor's point, but also then you don't calculate the machinery it takes to collect the biomass that's on the field and then transport that biomass to where the grain is actually located. These farms in western Canada aren't 1,000 and 2,000 acres. There are 30,000-acre and 40,000-acre farms, and they're trucking this product a long way.

As Mike said, you have the natural gas brought to the bins to be more innovative and to be more environmentally friendly.

Mike, I'd really just like you to walk us through the size of the bins, of these bushels that are being dried, and the size of the grain dryers. The fact is that they're not easily movable. You can't just decide one day you're going to pick up a 20,000-bushel bin and move it to a field closer to you.

Just walk us through a bit of how some of that infrastructure is permanent and not easily movable.

[Mike Ammeter]

You are correct. It is not movable. It is designed to sit in one spot.

Ours is not a big farm. You alluded to the size of some of the farms that would probably be in your area. Ours is like a hobby farm. Yes, all these things are permanent structures.

If I were to adopt a grain-drying system to collect my straw and my crop residue from the previous year, it would start with the previous year. I would bale the straw. I am going to use a tractor and a baler and I'm going to bale the straw. Then I have bales all over my field and I am going to collect them with my tractor or my bale truck, and I'm going to drive them into my yard and I'm going to stack them. When it's time to use them—and heaven forbid that I have a fire off season and they all go up in flames, which has happened....

You wouldn't want to talk about that, because now I'd have another problem.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

I have another point. If you're taking off a crop that's already damp, with the residue and the straw damp, if you bale it damp it's going to heat and maybe create one of those fires. If you're taking off canola that is already a bit wet and you need to dry it with the grain dryer, you can't use the residue, because that residue is going to be wet as well.

Am I correct in saying that?

[Mike Ammeter]

Yes. You're absolutely right.

Quite often, we use a grain dryer as a management tool. I will dry grain early in the season. It's a time-management thing. It's not because it has been raining for two weeks. It's that I want to get out there and get a jump on it because I have other things that I need to do.

It used to be a tool of last resort, and a lot of times it still is. In the last seven or eight years, we've had a number of years where it has snowed every third day in September and everything is wet.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

When you're using the grain dryer, it's not just the dryer. You're taking canola out of the bins and you're putting it into the bins, and it's not just static. There is other machinery that you're using at the same time as the dryer. That's also something that you have to take into consideration when you're setting up a farm, because you also have to have room for trucks coming in and out, for the movement of augers, and not just the dryer.

Could you walk some of my colleagues through that process as well? I really want them to get a good picture of what a big farm and this operation of drying grain really looks like.

[Mike Ammeter]

On a really big farm, you're going to have a farmyard that's probably, I don't know, 20 acres or maybe 30 acres. The grain bins are 30 feet in diameter and 50 feet tall, and you have a whole bunch of them. I'm talking about a really big farm.

You have big trucks coming in and out. You have a lot of space.