Agriculture Committee on May 7th, 2024

[Frank Stronach]

First of all, in industrial farms or large farms, a lot of chemicals are used, such as fungicides and pesticides, etc. Those are known facts. Everybody, every chef or most people....

Foods with lot of chemicals are not as healthy as organic food. You cannot grow organic food in huge, large.... You need greater varieties of crops. Nature will take care of itself.

As for anybody who is saying that we cannot afford organic food for kids, I think that's a very bad statement, because the medical costs are huge compared to whatever extra time we would have to spend on growing organic food. I think the future generation will not look too greatly on the people today who use a lot of chemicals in growing foods.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Stronach.

I know that you are in the farming business and that you have an organic farm. I'm wondering if you can talk about what the government can do to help with the transition. We know we can't just cut off all fertilizers or pesticides. There is a transition, as in the oil and gas sector, where we have to transition to renewable sources of energy.

We heard earlier from the founder of a company called Sustane, which is working on more organic fertilizers from food waste. We know there are a lot of approaches to controlling pests through natural mechanisms.

What do you think the government can do to provide leadership or to help make the transition from using more harmful chemicals to using more natural, organic methods?

[Frank Stronach]

I said earlier that a country should feed its people. Family farmers have always been the backbone of Canada.They could feed Canadians. It's very important.

Right now, family farms cannot compete with industrial farms; therefore, I think we could set up a family trust fund whereby family farms, if they farm organic, will get a subsidy. It's quite simple.

I think we should have great concern. There are sicknesses, and the rise of type 2 diabetes and autism is enormous. When you read most medical books, you can see what the problems are. Saying that we cannot afford it is the wrong statement, because we should do everything we can so that our kids have a chance to grow up healthy, and 50, 60, 70 and 80 years ago, they grew up healthy in Canada. Why can't we do that now?

Yes, there are more people living now, but we could utilize more farmland to grow organic food.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Stronach.

Regarding young people and keeping our farms in Canada, we've heard a lot in this committee about young people not getting into farming, not being able to afford it or not having interest in it, but I've noticed in my experience that there are a lot of young people who are interested in smaller farms, organic farms and local farms.

Have you seen that as well? How do you think we can encourage young people or support young people who want to start these kinds of farms?

[Frank Stronach]

Basically, we should have projects and programs to show that farming is cool, that farming is the most noble thing to do. With the right approach, we could interest a lot of young people to get into organic farming. There should be recognition when you do organic farming.

I'm not speaking for myself. I don't take any government money; I do my own thing. I have accumulated a lot of experiences, and I know how difficult it is. It takes a different approach to do organic farming. You have to have smaller varieties of foods to produce, and nature will take care of itself.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you, Ms. Taylor Roy. Thank you, Mr. Stronach.

The importance of regional and smaller farms is something this committee has focused on in terms of the backbone. I know Mr. Perron has been a great champion in that regard.

Go ahead.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses for being with us today. We appreciate their being here.

Ms. Grossenbacher, I have a lot of questions for you, so I'll try to be efficient.

You said that we need to improve our programs and that we can't wait until 2028. You say that in a recommendation. We have to sit down with people in the sector and review this on an urgent basis. Is that correct?

[Geneviève Grossenbacher]

Yes, it's really an emergency that's increasingly being brought to our attention. The losses in question here for farmers are calculated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, not the tens of thousands. A few months ago, an episode of La semaine verte, which I encourage you to watch, explained how horticulture producers are distressed as a result of the losses resulting from climate change. The programs don't currently support them, and many farmers are wondering if they can continue operating.

I actually forgot to tell you that I wear more than one hat. I am also president of Écoute agricole, an organization that provides mental health services to producers, the members of their families and their employees. Nearly every week since last summer, at least two farmers have come and told me that they don't know what to do or whether they can keep their farm. They wonder if they would be better off shutting down their operations now before they lose their shirts.

If we don't act now, I guarantee you we will be losing a lot of farms.

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

That's good. Thank you for that clear answer.

Some Quebec farmers filed a claim with the AgriRecovery program last November. Today's date is May 7, and they still haven't received a response. You heard what one of the witnesses from the previous panel said. The wait does nothing to improve the situation. The program has to be responsive. That witness concluded his remarks by saying that the programs have to be as effective and responsive as the farmers are. I'd like you to comment on that.

[Geneviève Grossenbacher]

I couldn't have said it better.

Yes, the programs have to be adjusted. I'm not just talking about AgriRecovery. The situation is the same for virtually every producer. Richard, the farmer from Nova Scotia whom you were discussing earlier, is in the same boat: He's still waiting for his $80,000 from AgriRecovery, whereas his losses amount to $320,000. To run his farm next season, he needs that money now, not a year from now.

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

He's now in trouble because he didn't have the money when he had to place his orders. We understand that. Thank you very much, Ms. Grossenbacher.

You also talked about how important it is to adopt low-emissions practices and to encourage good practices.

What do you think about the idea of a policy that would recognize positive environmental actions by rewarding producers specifically and financially? That would provide them with funding to make their next investments or simply to survive. What do you think of that?

[Geneviève Grossenbacher]

Yes, the programs have to be reviewed, but we especially believe that efforts must be made to determine how farmers can be better supported. The reality, especially in the horticulture sector, is that farmers aren't supported.

What we need is to find a way to reward good farming practices that develop and reinforce farms' climate resilience. That could be done through reward programs or in other ways, whatever they may be. A host of models could be considered, but we really have to focus on this. It's absolutely vital that farmers be better supported by developing on-farm climate resilience.

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

Do you think it would be fair to acknowledge what has already been done? For example, is it normal to provide support to farmers who are in transition but to offer nothing to their neighbours who've been engaged in organic farming for 25 years?

[Geneviève Grossenbacher]

That's another good question.

Recognizing what's been done by forerunners, those who have adopted these practices before any others, is a problem for all the programs. I know it can be costly, but we have to think of a way to support those individuals.

However, I'd like to emphasize that many programs don't currently apply to people who have already adopted good practices. That's often the case of diversified horticulture farms. In a way, those farmers are told that they don't need support because they face far fewer risks. Yes, we're exposed to fewer risks, but we suffer losses when a tornado hits. We therefore need that support. Something's lacking there.

Would you please remind me what your question was?

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

I was asking you if we should recognize what's been done in the past.

[Geneviève Grossenbacher]

Of course. The people who adopted these practices many years ago should get more recognition.

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

I sense that you have a lot to tell us about resilience, Ms. Grossenbacher.

During a meeting with some wine producers this morning, I cited the example of a vineyard in my riding where a lot of vines were destroyed by frost, but not the three rows of vines running along a line of trees. They survived thanks to those trees. That's a measure that could be introduced.

How could we increase farm resilience by taking these kinds of steps?

I would also like to know what you think about the current state of research and development in Canada, and especially about its funding.

[Geneviève Grossenbacher]

That's another good question. Allow me to answer it in English.

There's so much we can do to build resilience on the farm, and it can take different forms. Depending on what types of production you have and what you do and what you grow, there are different things you can do on your farm.

Definitely we need more research and development to see what works best, but at the same time, we already know. Farmers for Climate Solutions has done tons of work to look at the best practices to reduce emissions, but really, at the same time, to build climate resilience at the farm level. Things like cover cropping, nitrogen management and rotational grazing are all things that we already know now that we can do. For horticulture, diversifying is actually a great insurance policy.

I can give you an example of my farm. Over the past decade, we've had the worst two droughts and the worst two floods of the past 100 years. Also, last year was exceptional: Almost every week, we had something. We had early frost and early heatwaves, and then we had smog in June and August and crazy torrential rains in July, and we had five tornado warnings through it all. I don't know about you, but I've lived in this area for a long time and have never heard that we could have tornadoes. All this adds so much stress to the farm. As I said, if a tornado hits, I'm not protected.

At the same time, throughout those years our farm has always been able to produce high-quality vegetables for our communities. Some of our farmers across the street, who do monoculture, have been hit really hard. Again, there are different things that we can all do, but on my farm, what has helped me for sure is the diversification. Sometimes, one year, one crop doesn't work—

Oh, I'm sorry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Yes, Mr. Perron's time is actually up.

Thank you very much, Ms. Grossenbacher and Mr. Perron.

Mr. MacGregor, the floor is yours for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Actually, I'll allow you to finish your answer, because I was interested in that same line. Perhaps you can expand on the interaction between how planting a diverse set of crops builds that resilience, but we don't have a BRM program that recognizes that or is even adapting to that.

[Geneviève Grossenbacher]

Thank you again for the question.

Maybe what I can say to finish the thought is that on our farm, we do a lot of things.

You mentioned BRM programs. I am currently paying $300 a year to participate in crop insurance, but I know very well that I will never benefit from that. The maximum that I would ever get from crop insurance on my farm is estimated at $32,000, which is only a fraction of what my diversified crops can sell for on the market. Because we have about 35 different crops, I would never have enough of one crop to actually trigger the compensation. That's been a real issue.

What we've done on our farm—and again, it's different strokes for different folks, depending on what you grow—is we've really focused on diversification. Our crop rotation is about 12 years, so it's 12 years for a crop to come back to the same place. About half of our land is always under green manure or cover crops. Because of that, over the past five years, we've been able to double our production on the same amount of land—double our production—with half of the resources. We've shrunk our team by two and have used less seed, but have produced twice as much output. Again, it has proven to be the best insurance policy we have on our farm, because we've always been able to fare.

That said, I will say that last year, the level of stress on our farm and on other farmers, with all the extreme weather events that we were hit with, was high. The stress was really palpable in the community.

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

On that note, I know from my six years on this committee that farmers are always wary of an “Ottawa knows best” approach, but your organization really prides itself on farmer-led solutions. These are practices that have been tried and have worked on farms because they're coming from your members, and your members are farmers.

Putting this in the context of a possible role that we could recommend to the federal government, I want to know what some of the big challenges are. When you look at how some climate adaptive practices have allowed farmers to withstand the ravages of extreme weather events and other farms have not done so well, there's a real difference in how different farming techniques can build in that resilience. What are some of the big challenges in spreading the word and trying to get more adaptation to happen?

[Geneviève Grossenbacher]

There are so many.

On one hand, there's the farmer-to-farmer learning that needs to happen. The government needs to support those types of exchanges, because farmers will only put in practice on their farms what they've seen works somewhere else. There are a lot of things we can do on the farm to scale up those practices.

At the same time, what we feel right now is lacking—and we are really appreciative of the study—is for the government to look at its programs and see where they can support and enhance the adoption of those practices. There are a lot of things that could be done with BRM—and again, I can circulate the study—through AgriStability, AgriInsurance and AgriInvest, small tweaks that could actually make sure that farmers are compensated for keeping grasslands intact and sequestering carbon and helping them when disaster strikes to retain more water, for instance, in their field, or when droughts and things like that happen.

I feel like I'm not answering fully, but there are so many things that can be done.

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

Totally.

For my next question, I want to turn to soil health.

A lot of us are eagerly awaiting the Senate agriculture committee's study into soil health. It's a very long and comprehensive one. I think they're hoping to table it by the end of this month. We know that other countries around the world, like Australia.... Australia has a very similar system of government and has put in a national policy framework around soil health. They have a national strategy on soil.

I'm going to put in a shameless plug for my bill, Bill C-203. Promoting those carbon sequestration practices allows soil not only to hold more water during a drought year but also to soak up more water during an excess moisture event. What more could Canada be doing to promote those practices? Should we be following the example of other countries like Australia, which has looked at its agricultural soils as something akin to a strategic asset?