Evidence of meeting #30 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was producers.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Dave Epp Conservative Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON
According to the Grain Growers, the Prime Minister has declared our relationship with the U.S. at the moment as a weakness, yet India and China tariff our grains.
What's the level of U.S. tariffs on our grains and grain sector?
Executive Director, Grain Growers of Canada
I'm not aware of any particular tariff that's affecting us.
Conservative
Dave Epp Conservative Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON
The crop insurance, or the AgriInsurance, seems to address the yield risks and the climate risks that are faced on the farm, yet there are still trade risks to the ag sector, not so much from our American cousins to the south but from overseas. Obviously, that has disrupted our pulses and other areas, so let's get to margin insurance and to AgriStability, where a lot of the issues seem to be.
That's where price is impacted. What improvements would you suggest?
Executive Director, Grain Growers of Canada
AgriInsurance is working well and should remain the foundation of our BRM programs; there is no question.
The tariff issue is a going-forward risk concern vis-à-vis the States.
Perhaps, Kate, you could talk about AgriStability.
Policy Manager, Grain Growers of Canada
I'll be quick.
I think BRM should be looked at as an economic strategy. We are a $45-billion export sector, so rather than support payments, it should be looked at more as an economic strategy to help mitigate those losses.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative John Barlow
Thank you very much.
Now we'll go to Mr. Connors for five minutes, please.
Liberal
Paul Connors Liberal Avalon, NL
Thank you very much.
Once again, welcome to all the witnesses. I'm glad you could participate.
I'm going to start by asking Cedric MacLeod a question, and I think I'll ask Mr. Burrows the same question.
Both of you mentioned proactive risk management, or proactively managing risk. Can you elaborate on that? You could probably bring in a bit about how AgriStability could be improved in this new suite of programs in order to address this issue.
Executive Director, Canadian Forage and Grassland Association
I think Mr. Audet's comments about forage excess and managing that come into play here. It is difficult to move forage around. It's a bulky product, especially for moving. Silage-type products are very heavy and very wet. It's hard to be efficient that way.
Incentivizing growers to look at risk management in terms of being able to tuck product away during good years so that it can be drawn on in lean years would be something to look at. Of course, there's a significant cost that goes along with that and maintaining that inventory, so that's something to be considered, but it has long been a risk management tool used by livestock producers in Canada, across North America and globally. Incorporating some of those inventory-based incentives into AgriStability may be something to look at.
The other thing to look at, from a proactive risk management strategy perspective, as has been mentioned before, is that a lot of our forage insurance programs in Canada are actually rainfall insurance. Depending on where the weather stations are reporting from, they may not be reporting accurately, because it is by region. An individual grower within that region may be short and may not have gotten that cloudburst, so it's really quite inconsistent.
Moving, as I said earlier, to some different models than others, we're looking at satellite imagery for biomass accumulation and understanding and reporting. We can see that over time, so we can be proactive as we see that the year isn't progressing as well as we would like it to. We can start to look at some of the strategies Mr. Audet mentioned about moving things around, as well as tracking moisture content, which has been shown to be an excellent indicator of forage yield.
These things are on the horizon. Including those predictive models in our thought process as well as looking at risk long term and inventory management are two things I would mention.
Executive Director, Grain Growers of Canada
As I indicated earlier, reforms to AgriStability are all essentially about a greater focus on accessibility, responsiveness and keeping a close eye on income changes; that's really what it comes down to.
Kate, do you have anything you want to add?
Policy Manager, Grain Growers of Canada
The main problem with AgriStability is that there isn't a huge amount of participation, and that's because the responsiveness level is quite low, so improving responsiveness would increase participation and show that AgriStability could cover trade loss for cash flow problems. Farmers can't always float over an 18-month payment when they're experiencing substantial losses on the farm.
Liberal
Paul Connors Liberal Avalon, NL
Thank you.
Mr. Audet, I think I have a minute or so. You spoke about your capacity to produce surpluses in good years, as Mr. MacLeod just mentioned.
Could you elaborate on exactly what that would mean and how the BRM program could help it?
Chair, Conseil québécois des plantes fourragères
Our producers' first line of defence is to have a minimum amount of forage available and to always have a little extra. That's what I mean when I talk about producing surpluses. It's a safety net that can be managed locally.
As Mr. MacLeod said, there are still costs associated with this. So, if we could support producers who adopt best practices and who always have a surplus available to manage times when there are shortages, that would be a big plus. It would also allow us to expand the capacity to use it elsewhere, not just locally.
It really is the first line of defence. However, there are costs associated with this, and not all producers are necessarily willing to bear the costs of these surpluses, of this unnecessary inventory.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative John Barlow
Thank you, Mr. Audet.
Colleagues, because we started about 15 minutes late, I want to make sure Mr. Lemire has his last two and a half minutes.
Are we okay to go another 12 or 13 minutes? Is that okay with our witnesses?
Okay, we'll be fine.
Mr. Lemire, you have two and a half minutes, please.
Bloc
Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for your leadership on the parity issue. It's important.
Mr. Burrows, I would like to hear your opinion on the challenge posed by transportation costs. For example, transporting 38 tonnes of grain will cost between $2,500 and $3,200 in Abitibi‑Témiscamingue, but between $700 and $800 in southern Quebec.
How can we provide better support for the work of grain producers and the associated efficiency in remote regions? I'm giving you an example from Quebec, but it applies to all the provinces.
Executive Director, Grain Growers of Canada
There is remote service and, in particular, remote pricing, which is what you're really focusing on. Service is perhaps not so much of a concern these days. I understand what you're saying about remote pricing.
One of the options that are being discussed a lot and will continue to be an issue is ensuring that we invoke and bring more competition into the rail system, and there are ways of doing that. Yes, you can potentially expand the interswitching zones to allow another carrier, and where you're in these remote locations.... By remote locations, you're really saying that there's only one rail provider.
That's where the concern is, and you want to invoke more competition. That's something we will continue, generally, to focus on. There's no question.
Bloc
Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
Do you have any recommendations along these lines or examples of how the new sustainable agricultural partnership can help meet these needs for equity in transportation costs in different regions?
Executive Director, Grain Growers of Canada
Our grain farmers in particular have been working closely with the railways. There's a pretty co-operative spirit of sharing information, data, and service responsiveness. We have, for a number of years, improved that dialogue as a result. There is better shared data about where the blocks are in the system. That really is the prime focus.
I'm taking a western perspective now in terms of the dialogue and the impacts on infrastructure. Where are the bottlenecks? At the port of Vancouver, we have a major project bottleneck with a bridge. That's really the burning transportation issue we're most focused on.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative John Barlow
Thank you, Mr. Burrows.
I'm going to have to keep everybody tight, as the bells are ringing now.
We will go to Mr. Bonk for five minutes.
I'm sorry. We need unanimous consent to get our last two questions in.
Is everybody okay with that?
Conservative
Conservative
Steven Bonk Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Thank you.
We've heard a lot today about business risk management in Canada and our agriculture sector, and the importance of research. Everyone's been mentioning research as far as genetics and how we can improve the crops that we have.
I'd like to talk more about the forage side. By increasing the amount of forage that we have on our land, we can basically double the carbon sink if we double the amount of forage we produce. It's one of the most climate-responsible things we can do.
I'm going to ask everyone the same question. You all represent organizations that represent on-the-ground farmers who are actually working in the field.
What are some of the positive things your members have said about the closure of the research centres?
That's for anyone, from any organization.
Conservative
Steven Bonk Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
That's exactly what we're hearing in this committee as well. The Prime Minister said, “A country that cannot feed itself...or defend itself has few options.” It's a funny way to try to feed this country. We're actually stopping the one thing that's going to help us increase production.
Let's talk a bit more about the forage side for the moment. Why do you think there's such a poor uptake of business risk management programs in the forage sector?
I'll start with Mr. Audet.
Chair, Conseil québécois des plantes fourragères
The main reason for the lack of uptake of the system stems from the fact that it's currently based on rainfall. People would like to be able to guarantee their yield. The yields of different companies vary enormously. I believe that today's entrepreneurs would like to be able to protect their company's yield.