Agriculture Committee on May 9th, 2022

[Dr. Mervin St. Luce]

For this question, I wouldn't be able to speak on the policy component.

In terms of regenerative agriculture, there are so many different definitions of this terminology. Basically, it's looking at food production within a natural system as much as possible. That includes both pesticide reduction and, depending more on the soil, building the soil diversity ecosystem to be able to produce food.

Within our current sustainable production systems, this is being encouraged. Diversifying crops and systems could be described as part of enhancing regenerative agriculture. We have different crops providing different carbon sources, different types of carbon, into the soil, encouraging different micro-organism abundance and activity. Each micro-organism has a different role to play, so our current production system in some way already includes regenerative agriculture. It's not, based on my understanding, an organic system entirely. It encompasses both a normal conventional system with some organic principles to be able to maintain the soil and produce food in a sustainable and clean way.

I can't speak to the other aspect of your question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you, Mr. MacGregor.

The bells haven't started, colleagues. I would like to ask for your indulgence for two or three minutes for a line of questioning. Once we're done, I'm happy to carry on as you see fit, whether or not there may be a couple of minutes for each party to finish up any final questions.

We have gone through four rounds, and I think the questions have been extensive, but as has been mentioned, we have folks who have a lot to offer, so I'll just quickly move forward.

Mr. Lemke, I'm particularly interested in asking you a couple of questions. You mentioned you're with the research station in Saskatoon. I had the opportunity to be there a couple of weeks ago. I was really impressed with the work that's happening.

Obviously, there is a tension right now in terms of the 30% reduction in emissions associated with fertilizer. It has been quoted as a 30% reduction of fertilizer, which is not the government's policy, but it is a 30% reduction in emissions.

How important is plant breeding going to be for the government to reach its goal, particularly the focus on perhaps certain varieties that can maintain yield but perhaps require less fertilizer? I know these are 10-year cycles, for example, but do you see aggressive plant breeding as an important public policy tool to close that gap, especially at a time when markets are signalling to perhaps use even more fertilizer to drive yields even higher with the food crisis right now globally?

[Dr. Reynald Lemke]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the question.

The short answer is that I think the selection of varieties moving towards the highest nitrogen use efficiency and water use efficiency that we can manage is certainly extremely important. It's a bit of a longer-term endeavour.

At the moment, from my perspective, we have technologies and management strategies that could achieve a considerable reduction of emissions from fertilizer use without impacting yield. There's a lot of work to do in terms of applying that to the landscape, but we have an understanding from the research and evidence from the research that would suggest that we have the tools we could apply and would be successful.

In the longer view, absolutely, moving towards varieties that have higher nitrogen use efficiency is extremely important for a number of reasons, not just for the greenhouse gas emissions but also for other environmental benefits, as well as in terms of economics.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

I don't want to test the patience of my colleagues. Quickly, on smaller versus larger crops, we hear that a lot in terms of research dollars. It's the way in which Government of Canada programs are designed sometimes for smaller crop varieties. Particularly in the prairie provinces, it's more difficult to be able to get that research in. You're involved with the research centre.

Is that a fair comment in terms of some of the difficulty in trying to balance the different propensities for these crops to be able to put forward the research dollars necessary to match government investment?

[Dr. Reynald Lemke]

I'm not sure if I'm understanding your question. Could you rephrase it?

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Sure.

As I understand it, the way in which Government of Canada programs for research funding work is that there's an expectation that the private sector matches what government will have on the table. There's been some feedback from stakeholders, particularly smaller ones, let's say oat growers—crops that are perhaps not as prevalent in terms of their abundance on the prairie, yet are still important for rotation—that they sometimes find difficulty in driving meaningful research projects.

Has that been your experience? Can you comment on that for the benefit of the committee?

[Dr. Reynald Lemke]

I would defer to Dr. Saindon to respond. I don't think I am equipped to reply to that.

[Dr. Gilles Saindon]

If I may, Mr. Chair, I could add a couple of comments here.

It's a good point. We have a number of mechanisms that we use to fund our research in partnership with industry. For the large commodities, often we refer to those, as we have the agriscience cluster in place to help them.

However, we do have another point of entry, which we call agriscience projects. They are usually much smaller in scale and in size and may be more focused on some of the lower-acreage crops or commodities. It's not only that we do research with crops; we could also do it with livestock and all of that.

Is it possible to cover each and every commodity in the country? Probably not, but we're not the only science supplier. We have science that is done by universities as well, where we also have choice or an opportunity. We try to complement each other as best we can.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

I appreciate that. Thank you, colleagues.

We have about 20 minutes left.

Mr. Barlow indicated that the bells might start in about 10 minutes. Would you like me to proceed to five, five, two and a half and two and a half minutes, as we would have before?

[Some hon. members]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Okay. I'll turn it over to the Conservatives for five minutes.

[John Barlow]

Thanks. I'm going to share my time with Mr. Epp as well.

I want to pick up on some of the questions here, particularly on crop technology and gene editing. It's great when we have this technology, but the problem that we face right now is commercializing it. It sounds like Health Canada is sitting on a very important report on how they're going to regulate gene editing. There may be a bit of cold feet there.

I'm not going to ask you to comment on that, but maybe you can comment on how important gene editing is to environmentally sustainable crops, in terms of the impact it could have on yield and on reducing fertilizer use, disease prevention and those types of things. How important is gene editing to the future of agriculture?

[Dr. Gilles Saindon]

I think gene editing is a very important technology, like biotechnology in general. We've incorporated these technologies over the years in our breeding and activities at AAFC. That's an avenue we are exploring for ways to help us make advances in some of these genes that could be transferred quite readily using these technologies.

Of course, as you mentioned, we are in the process of having some input on the regulatory framework that is required before we can deploy. I think there is a lot of interest in the scientific community in using these technologies, as they will be very useful tools.

[John Barlow]

Thanks.

Can you maybe give me a quick answer on this, Dr. Saindon?

Do you have an idea when that regulatory framework will be announced? My understanding is that it was supposed to be announced very early this year. We're now into May, and it still has not been announced. Do you have any idea when that framework will be available?

[Dr. Gilles Saindon]

No. I'm afraid I don't have an answer for that question.

I know that we're consulting, but I don't have an answer.

[John Barlow]

I have one last really quick question before I pass it off to my colleague.

I would be remiss if I didn't ask this, and you may not have that expert here. However, with the influx of avian flu, and now that we have African swine fever in the Dominican Republic, which is very close to Canada, how big a priority is this for your team, and what steps are being taken to try to address this?

[Dr. Gilles Saindon]

I would say, from a departmental perspective, that these two diseases you mentioned are big items for the department to look at. From a science point of view, I think the science we do at AAFC is focused on animal husbandry. Animals that are sick, ill or affected by diseases are more in the realm of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the vet college in a university.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We've had a good discussion around plant breeding and how climate impacts are affecting agriculture.

We met recently with representatives of the eastern Ontario clean plant hub, the program up in New Liskeard. Again, with reference to the chair's comments earlier, they're concerned, because this an area that deals with the propagation through tissue culture of a number of crops and new incoming viruses on grapes, apples, asparagus, garlic, hops, tender fruit and potatoes.

The land for that program was sold in 2021. The research scientist, Dr. Becky Hughes, retired in 2012, and it has been maintained by technicians since then. The industry wants to know whether AAFC will continue that research position, because they believe that they can carry on that program elsewhere with an agreement between OMAFRA and the University of Guelph, but they are looking for AAFC to continue that research position. Can you comment?

[Dr. Gilles Saindon]

Thank you for the question.

I cannot really comment. That's a discussion at the provincial level between the University of Guelph and the producers, so I'm not privy to those discussions, and they should have—

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

It's actually the AAFC research scientist that they are looking for. Dr. Becky Hughes was one of yours.

[Dr. Gilles Saindon]

It's located in New Liskeard? I will have to check into this—

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Okay. Thank you.

Just to circle back quickly to our soil organics discussion, we've had an excellent discussion here.

Dr. Gregorich, you stated that some carbon could be cycled into the soil for the long term. Would it be fair to also state that the more biomass produced through our cropping production, the more the potential for sequestration and the better for both the environment and the crop production? Would it be a fair comment to do all production practices that enhance biomass growth without exceeding environmental limits on nitrogen application?

[Dr. Ed Gregorich]

Yes, that's exactly the point I was trying to make. I wasn't being too clear.

The point is that if you increase yield—increase biomass production in any way—it ultimately gets more carbon into the soil.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you, Mr. Epp. Thank you, Mr. Gregorich.

We'll now go to Mr. Turnbull, I believe, on the Liberal side, for five minutes.