Agriculture Committee on June 8th, 2021

[Wade Barnes]

We're not doing it for soil sampling at this time, but I will say that there is a significant movement around biologicals in mainstream agriculture across North America. They're going to use the application of biologics to help reduce the amount of nitrogen. I would say that the jury is still out on how effective that will be, but there's a lot of promise around that.

Again, a big part of the use of new technologies like that is being able to measure how effective they are. I can tell you that farmers like to call it pixie dust. Lots of salesmen come down the road, knock on the door, and try to sell a farmer a solution to a problem that he probably doesn't have. Then farmers will use it and believe that it works. How do you validate it?

It's no different from implementing management processes on the farm. How do you know what happened? You need to have a way to record that. It's no different with the use of these types of technologies. I can tell you that farmers are great business people. If there's a way to get more yields with less cost, they'll do it.

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

I was reading up on nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Is that what you're specifically referring to there?

[Wade Barnes]

Yes, absolutely.

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

That brings me to something that the Government of Canada can maybe play into. I've had the privilege of touring AAFC's research station in Summerland, British Columbia. They have a very dedicated team of scientists there.

In terms of maybe looking at what might be considered pixie dust at the moment, do you think the Government of Canada should be devoting more research dollars into those areas? Is that one of the recommendations we can make as a committee?

[Wade Barnes]

If I look at the biological market, the majority of those are start-ups, start-ups that have come from people who have worked in the industry in big fertilizer companies or big agriculture that have been funded by venture capitalists to go out and do the research to create these products.

No offence against government research, but if there was a path to enhance investment into private start-ups, I think you'd see much quicker movement towards solutions. We're seeing a lot of those come out of the U.S., where the U.S. investors have more courage when it comes to investing in start-ups.

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

I think that takes my time, Mr. Chair.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. MacGregor.

We'll start our second round.

Mr. Lehoux, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Richard Lehoux, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question will go first to Mr. Gilvesy.

Mr. Gilvesy, what could the federal government do to provide greater support to organizations like yours?

[Bryan Gilvesy]

There's a role for the government to obtain from organizations like ours the delivery of services that are important to Canadians. That delivery forms part and parcel of the funding envelope that drives an organization like ALUS.

We not only expect to deliver on behalf of Canadian, provincial and municipal governments, but we also work hard to unearth every possible marketplace to support our programming for maximum effect. That means reaching out to the philanthropic community for our developmental work and, indeed, making sure that we are the leaders in making relationships with corporate Canada to drive money to the farm gate. I think this is a proper role for the public and private to work together.

[Richard Lehoux, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

You mentioned [Technical difficulty—Editor] at the outset.

Do local co‑operatives work with local producer organizations? Does this collaboration need to be improved and enhanced if we really want to get the whole producer community on board?

[Bryan Gilvesy]

I think it's absolutely vital. The more people we can collaborate with in rural Canada, the better solutions we will find. Our program in Quebec, in Montérégie, for instance, is rooted with the UPA. They administer the program there, together with other partners, including the Port of Montreal and others, to bring programming to bear in that particular community.

Yes, it is the way to go forward. It's collaborative in a way we've not typically seen before, where we're working with communities on the landscape.

[Richard Lehoux, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

You anticipated my question, Mr. Gilvesy.

You answered it in part when you talked about your collaboration with the Union des producteurs agricoles au Québec in the Saint‑Hyacinthe area, which is already under way and which the Union is working to improve and expand.

Let me turn to you, Mr. Barnes. Have you approached the Union des producteurs agricoles au Québec or any other organizations?

[Wade Barnes]

We are currently in discussions with some very important agricultural players in the marketplace in Quebec. Hopefully, we will be able to form partnerships by this fall and start to implement some of our programs into that marketplace.

[Richard Lehoux, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

We are trying to follow the philosophy you are advocating, but what impact do you think it has on the import and export of agricultural products?

[Wade Barnes]

As I said before, I think Canada has a unique opportunity to take the world lead when it comes to sustainability and the growth of commodities that have a sustainability footprint. I have worked in the United States. I have worked in Latin America, eastern Europe and Australia. I think the Canadian farmer is unique. No other farmer in any other country has to work under the types of conditions we operate in to grow a crop, harvest it and get it to market. Our infrastructure here is set up to be a world leader. I think an investment in digitalization could be significant to place the farmer closer to the end-user.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Lehoux.

Thank you, Mr. Barnes.

[Richard Lehoux, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Before the chair calls me to order, I'll stop here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Everything is fine.

Mr. Louis, you're up for five minutes.

Go ahead please.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to both of our witnesses. I find it fascinating that you're both here. I believe it was Mr. Barnes who mentioned that agriculture and sustainability go hand in hand. The work that you're both doing, the agroecology and the agrotechnology, also go hand in hand. I find it very helpful today.

I will start my questions with you, Mr. Gilvesy. First, I want to say hello from rare Charitable Research Reserve. I am down the road from you in Kitchener—Conestoga, in the Waterloo region. They were very happy to know that you were here. They spoke highly of you, and I can certainly see why.

We were talking about these nature-based climate solutions, specifically flood mitigation and how municipalities and other levels of government can work together and actually save on infrastructure in terms of flood washouts and so on. Can you give some examples from your region, which is the same area as mine, of where we can protect our infrastructure with some climate solutions?

[Bryan Gilvesy]

The ecotype I will point to here is the tall grass prairie, which you're familiar with at rare. I think in my home county, tall grass prairie was the ecotype that was here at the beginning of time. It's a really unique, diverse set of grasses rooted extremely deeply, up to 16 feet, in the ground. They love drought and they love heat.

This plant has come to have maximum utility for us in providing erosion control, as you might imagine, and also in the research Andrew MacDougall has done at the University of Guelph outlining how much nutrient these plants take up during the summer season. Barely a nutrient gets past them and into the water courses. They provide an enormous impact in terms of erosion control, especially on highly erodible landscapes like those we have here in southern Ontario, where I live, and of course keeping the nutrient on the field, where it belongs.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

I also believe from research that some of the tall grass prairie buffer zones can be used to surround cornfields in some of the areas that might be shaded or next to woods or something.

Is that something that we can look into as well?

[Bryan Gilvesy]

Exactly.

Again, back in my home county, the county's largest farmers are active participants in our program. They use their yield monitors to identify lands that aren't particularly economic for them to farm. Invariably when we're working in and around the treed areas, that shaded area, the first few feet is often an opportunity to put those grasses back and increase the productivity of the whole farm so that it becomes more environmentally productive and more crop productive at the same time.

These are the types of perfect solutions that our farmers on our PACs come up with all the time.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

I look forward to hearing more and keeping in touch, because as I said, I'm just down the road.

With the amount of time I have, I thought I would switch gears and talk to Mr. Barnes. Here in the Waterloo region, Kitchener—Conestoga represents the agriculture sector, but at the same time we're basically the tech sector of Canada as well. Tech and agriculture seem to naturally go hand in hand. I'm down the road from the University of Guelph, and I'm down the road from the University of Waterloo.

You mentioned encouraging the next companies, start-ups in the industry. As I mention the universities, maybe I'm thinking now of some of our youth.

How can we encourage this next generation of farmers, who naturally seem to embrace some of these ideas, and help them enter a market and work with technology in ways that can help?

[Wade Barnes]

I could spend a whole hour discussing this, but in brief, when Farmers Edge started up, we had a terrible time seeking out capital specifically from the Canadian market.

Our first big capital injection came from Silicon Valley. At the time, that company was focused on moving Farmers Edge out of Winnipeg and into Silicon Valley. Luckily, we had a board of directors that was strong enough to hold us in this market and we were lucky enough to become a publicly traded company this year.

Once you create this ecosystem in technology and agriculture, it feeds off itself. At Farmers Edge, we're probably the first one to do an IPO, but with that, there are more and more companies that can play into it. We've see huge benefits out of the supercluster, specifically the protein cluster in Saskatchewan. They've been a huge supporter, not only of Farmers Edge but the splinter companies that will come out of that.

It's a change of culture and I'm seeing now much more focus on supporting these types of start-ups today than what there was when we started.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Barnes.

We'll continue to support our tech and our ag sector. I appreciate it.