Agriculture Committee on April 4th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you, Mr. Wanger.

I'm sorry, Mr. MacGregor. We might have to shave a little bit of time off on the back side, but I wanted to let that line of questioning go. Of course, you're always welcome to come to Nova Scotia to visit Mr. Wanger or me.

Mr. Falk, I believe we're going over to you now.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for your testimony at committee this morning. It's very informative and very useful for our study.

Mr. Marshall, I'd like to start with you.

You've had a very impressive resumé over the the years regarding chemical issues. I know you have your eye on a lot of balls when it comes to innovation techniques and technology.

Does any technology or technique really stand out to you that's going to meet our climate and environmental objectives while increasing yields for agriculture?

[A. J. (Sandy) Marshall]

I don't think there's going to be any single answer here on this.

There's one that is very interesting to me. There's a lot of move afoot around thermal conversion technologies now. People may call it pyrolysis, so I'll just use the term pyrolysis. It's the ability to take materials and basically convert them into fuels and then also to take those materials and convert them into what I'll call biocarbon, which then can be an excellent soil amendment.

I'm finding that right now a number of companies are putting a lot of focus on this area. I think there's real opportunity for taking low-value excess residues, converting them and then putting that carbon back into the soil. In essence, this is speeding up the process of what nature does itself. It's a little bit like what the Incas and Aztecs did 10,000 years ago, where they burned stuff and then buried it to increase carbon in the soil.

By doing that, you also have the opportunity to trap in and collect the nutrients that are there. Nutrient loss is one of the biggest issues farmers have when we talk about this. By incorporating it into these sorts of approaches, the nutrients are locked in and then returned back, so you actually get the fertilizer value.

If there's one little topic I would highlight right now that's popping a lot today, it is that area. I really believe that what's happening now around carbon credits and the price on carbon is actually creating some of the policy drivers to have those economics potentially accelerate and work.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Marshall.

Mr. Ammeter, you've talked about the importance of crop rotation for the soils. When I was growing up, summer fallow was a very popular thing. That seems to have gone by the wayside. Has the science changed? Is that still happening? Why or why not? Is that something we need to be considering?

[Mike Ammeter]

I think the demonstration of that is that back in the day—I know that in my early career in farming we did some summer fallow—that was the technique that we used probably for weed control, weed management and all of that. We have much superior methods to use now, so summer fallow is really as dead as a dodo, if you want to use that term. It still exists, but it's very limited, and I think we've demonstrated that there are far better ways than summer fallow to manage our crops and our fields.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

You also mentioned that fertilizer emissions reduction will not improve yields. Can you expand on that a little more?

[Mike Ammeter]

Yes: certainly not with the technology we have today. In my comments, I referred to the fact that the Liberal government has identified agri-food and agriproducts as a growth sector. If you tell me that I need to reduce my fertilizer emissions and that comes as a result of a direct reduction in fertilizer, those two things are diametrically opposed, and I can't do that with today's technology.

Having said that, with investment—somebody referred to it earlier today—and probably investment in canola breeding, where we have a canola that fixes some of its own nitrogen, like some of the other crops.... We don't have that today, but is that possible? Perhaps, with the right amount of investment.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Chair, do I still have some time left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

You have about 10 seconds, so if you want to be a gentleman and cede it to the committee, that would be great.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

I might not have given you much choice.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Mr. Drouin, you have five minutes.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all the witnesses for being here.

I'll start with the folks from the canola association.

Last week, I met with Federated Co-op. They were talking about the opportunity that exists for canola farmers with regard to biofuels.

Mike, are your members talking about this at all? Are they fully on board to participate when we discuss the clean fuel standard and their participation?

[Mike Ammeter]

Yes, absolutely, I think. One of the things we talk about, if we can participate at the levels we're looking at, is that it's like having the size of Japan for exports—the amount of canola that Japan takes—and that's basically what that industry could require. Yes, I think it's an exciting opportunity for canola.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Yes, and what they're working on is quite neat. They would extract the oil for biofuel and continue using the feed for other purposes, but they've also talked about a potential natural fertilizer that they can create as a bioproduct, which would technically return to your farm. We're talking about using this product 100%, and I think that's neat.

You've mentioned precision agriculture. Do you have a percentage...? I don't know if you know the number of your members who currently use this practice. I know that it requires a significant amount of investment on the farm to do that, and that's why I ask the question. Do you know what amount of canola farmers currently use that practice?

[Mike Ammeter]

The short answer is no. I do not have that number.

I don't know if Dave does.

[Dave Carey]

Thanks for the question.

We don't know the exact number, but it would be quite high, Mr. Drouin and Mr. Chair, given that canola is one of the most expensive crops to grow. It does require a significant investment from farmers, both for planting equipment and for the costs of seed and input, so the amount of precision agriculture as an option for canola farmers would be very high, just given the economic intensity that is required to grow the crop.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Okay. Thank you.

I'll move on to BioIndustrial Innovation Canada.

Mr. Marshall, since the inception of that, have you seen more interest from private capital with regard to what you guys are doing?

[A. J. (Sandy) Marshall]

I think what continues to be a bit of a challenge in Canada is access to private capital. What we do find, because we also participate within the operations of the companies we're working with and so on, is that our investment wing has been able to attract capital partners to go along with us.

Although the capital is not as readily available as we'd like it to be, we do find that we have a number of VC partners that work with us, share due diligence with us and find these groups that are investing with us. These include groups like BDC and EDC as well, so it's not just private equity, but it's also other investment vehicles we have available to us here in Canada.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I asked the question because I know it's not an issue just in the sector that you're working with, but it seems to be a broad-based issue in Canada. We lose talent and we lose potential high-growth companies down south because of the availability of capital.

From what you're saying, because you have created that group, you have created an easy access for VCs to come to you. You provide that expertise for them to invest in biocompanies here?

[A. J. (Sandy) Marshall]

Absolutely. I would say that for us, because we're working a lot with the earlier stage companies, our sweet spot sits in the up to $20-million range of investment rounds.

I find the biggest challenge that our companies and VCs face here in Canada is that when you're dealing with the industrial bioeconomy, you're dealing with large capital assets that need to be built to produce things like biofuels, biochemicals and biomaterials. When you start requiring capital in excess of $100 million to execute a project, it's way beyond the capability of a group like ours to do that, and it does require a significant consortia of groups.

I think that's where you find the biggest problem here. We need to find those levels of funding to tackle those sorts of projects, and this is requiring us to attract international funds into our projects.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you. Sorry, but I'm out of time.

Mr. Wanger, I'm really interested in your frass product. Would you be able to provide some data on how you could see that being applied on the farm and what tools you lack to do that? Does that make sense?

[Dr. Greg Wanger]

I think it makes sense. Yes, I will try to answer your question as I understood it.

One of the things—

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Mr. Wanger, sorry, but Mr. Drouin is out of time. We can certainly work this out; I have your coordinates. I think the idea is that we would table some of that information for the benefit of the committee, notwithstanding the challenge we have with timing.

Mr. Perron, the floor is now yours for two and a half minutes.