Agriculture Committee on May 7th, 2026

[Steven Bonk, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I'd like to ask a question of Mr. Shiels.

Organic farmers, by nature, are very concerned with soil health, working with nature, making sure that there's carbon in the soil, making sure that water infiltration is not an issue and these types of things.

Are you hearing from your clients that they are concerned about cross-compliance and added regulations that they have to follow when it comes to BRM management tools?

I've had experience of people ending up farming for subsidies or ending up farming for regulations rather than farming for production.

[Scott Shiels]

That's more of a concern from the conventional side of agriculture. We hear that more from those growers, but that, I think, is partly because a lot of organic producers aren't taking part in, say, Saskatchewan Crop Insurance, or the AgriStability program that is tied in with it. They talk about it because there are some other programs like the Saskatchewan watershed programs. There are acre premiums if you comply with certain things, such as planting some wetlands or leaving wetlands alone. It's those kinds of things.

I don't see the concern from them as much as I do from the other side, because there are so many more programs for the conventional producers to take part in. Then they do have to kind of farm for the programs, adding this so you can be part of that and a get a little more out of that one. It's those kinds of things.

[Steven Bonk, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I have a really quick question for Mr. Lee, and I just want to commend you on being the best-dressed witness we've ever had in this committee.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Steven Bonk, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

You mentioned that biohazards or pests would be the biggest concern to your entire industry. I'm not even sure which BRM product would best suit you. Would it be under AgriRecovery or AgriStability? Which program would be of concern to you?

[Richard Lee]

Thank you. I appreciate it. My mother dressed me this morning.

At the end of the day, some of these programs need to be reviewed to include controlled environment agriculture.

We've had several pests that have migrated in from competing jurisdictions and threatened our production base. We've made application under AgriRecovery, but the challenge is that you need to show that the risk has been eliminated, which is very difficult when pests have no borders.

You can look at the North American perimeter strategy. In it, we need alignment with our key trading partner. As I've indicated, 85% of our produce is exported. When that product hitches a ride on imported produce, whether it be greenhouse or not, it could find its way into a greenhouse, which is a controlled environment that can weather winters. You see that this government currently, with their climate change prerogatives, isn't willing to reassess those pest risk assessments. They continue to indicate that our cold climates will kill those pests, but they're not taking into account greenhouse production and—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Barlow]

I'm sorry, Mr. Lee. I hate to cut you off again, but I gave you a few extra seconds because you did give credit to your mom for dressing you.

We'll go to Mr. Connors for five minutes, please.

[Paul Connors, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses for coming out.

I want to go back to the BRM accessibility by some producers.

My knowledge of the organic industry is that there are small to medium-sized farms in the organic industry, and some larger ones.

Katie, I'll go to you first.

What's your understanding of the participation rate in the BRM programs? If it's low, what do you think of the low participation rates?

[Katie Fettes]

Thanks for the question, Mr. Connors.

You're absolutely right. The organic sector is a diverse sector across the country. On average, from what we know, farm sizes tend to be a bit smaller, but there is still a huge range, depending on the region of the country. The split is pretty even between grains and oilseeds, livestock production, horticulture and other crops. There are a lot of opportunities there.

There are certain access barriers to the BRM programs related to characteristics that you find commonly on an organic farm but are not necessarily limited to an organic farm. Those would be things such as diversification of the farm. That causes challenges in terms of accessing crop insurance, for example.

Horticulture farms experience this across the board: You're growing 40 to 50 types of crops. It's very difficult. You could look at such things as whole-farm crop insurance types of models for that. Small farm size is also a barrier, but also, something we hear quite often that is connected directly to organic production is about the price factor. A lot of producers would say, “It's simply not worth it for me. I'd rather save the money on the premiums than not have the market value reflected if there is a loss.”

In some cases, there are organic-specific programs in certain jurisdictions, which is a help, but those programs also need to be designed very well. That's where Tia's point about access to more data really comes in as well in terms of accurately designing the programs to reflect conditions on the ground.

[Paul Connors, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Mr. Shiels, do you want to add to that? I saw you nodding your head quite a bit.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Scott Shiels]

Yes. To go back to part of my presentation, it was information that we had to glean ourselves—and that I finally got last night—about the participation in the Sask Crop Insurance program for organic producers.

That program has been in place for about a decade. I've been there a little longer than that and I've watched it come in. It has changed so many times, and almost every year it's almost a wholesale change with how it's being administered. That, I think, is reducing the amount of producers who are taking part in it. They don't know what they're getting. They're not confident in getting good coverage for what they're paying.

I had a producer in my office just last week. They want to give him six bucks a bushel for his claim on his organic oats. That's not the market price, and it seems as though they're not even really looking into it. Guys are unsure about coverage, and they're not going to spend the thousands of dollars on premiums every year for a program that doesn't have any consistency.

That's what we really need to see out of these programs if they're going to be valuable to organic producers and valuable to producers in general. Organic producers want to see consistency and to make sure they're getting what they're paying for, essentially.

[Paul Connors, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Mr. Lee, you mentioned in your opening statement “non-traditional risks”. Can you elaborate a bit on that for me? Can you give us more detail on that?

[Richard Lee]

Yes. When you look at non-traditional risks such as energy volatility in pricing, we have members making a decision on whether they need to turn off the lights based on some of these spikes. We're looking at business risk, essentially, not just crop losses and weather conditions. If we're looking at revamping business risk management programs, this is an opportunity to identify what those true risks are, including trade volatility.

As we indicated earlier, labour is another issue we're facing. We try to promote the domestic workforce first, but ultimately, agriculture isn't sexy anymore. We need to have those programs farmers rely on to help support them through these difficult times or these volatilities and to ensure that investment stays here in Canada.

[Paul Connors, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Do you think those types of non-traditional risks can be covered under a business risk program?

[Richard Lee]

I don't know if they can be covered completely, but I think they should be considered when reviewing the business risk management suite.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Barlow]

Thank you very much, Mr. Connors.

We will now go to our final round. Then we'll have a little discussion about whether we want to sneak in a last couple of questions.

We will go to Mr. Lemire for two and a half minutes, please.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Ms. Fettes, from Canadian Organic Growers.

Earlier, we talked about the budget cuts at the Swift Current Research and Development Centre and how it was affected. At this committee, we've also talked a lot about cuts to research.

In practical terms, how can the government support a critical sector like yours, which involves a lot of trial and error in research?

[Katie Fettes]

It's critical, Monsieur Lemire, that public research is maintained.

Once again, it's really important for the organic sector in particular. This research is not likely going to be replaced or taken over by private institutions or universities. Maintained long-term direction and vision for research is critical.

This program has been helping producers experiment with new practices and take on practices that increase productivity, profitability and environmental and economic performance. These are things that they would have to do on their own and that would have taken a lot more time to do. It's really critical that this partnership continue.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

For organic farming, the United States has a database: the Organic Integrity Database. Quebec has its own portal that lists the different forms of organic production by region and by sector.

Do you find that Canada is behind in this respect? Is this a tool that would be useful to producers?

[Katie Fettes]

I will start and then maybe pass this to Ms. Loftsgard.

Yes, absolutely. Data is critical both for farmer decision-making and for processors who are looking to come here and set up processing facilities across the country. In some cases, they're not able to find production, and they are choosing not to set up in Canada. Those are lost opportunities for our producers.

Yes, it's a competitiveness issue. Directly to the south, there's a publicly available database. Our producers are oftentimes pretty close to the border, and we have examples of them finding partners to work with in the U.S. through that database and heading down to the northern states to make those partnerships. Those are obvious missed opportunities and information that we could be publishing, because we do collect it.

Maybe you could touch on that a bit more, Tia.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Barlow]

You only have a couple of seconds, Tia, but if you want to add to that, go ahead.

[Tia Loftsgard]

I'll make the point that we've met with the USDA multiple times, and they've offered the Canadian government the use of their portal. I think that really makes the point that we, as an industry, need that information, but our own government has not yet responded to that request.

We have it as a recommendation. We've been speaking about it for 10 years, and we hope to see it come to light one day.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Barlow]

Thank you very much.

We are over time, but I know that my colleague Ms. Harrison has a couple of questions, and I'm going to ask just one of Mr. Lee.

We've had a lot of witnesses in the study talk about cross-compliance and the concerns farmers are having in trying to meet these environmental standards to qualify for BRM programs. I know that a report done by CAPI showed that the BRM impact on the environment is negligible. Is this cross-compliance an issue for your members? If so, why is that a concern?

[Richard Lee]

The greenhouse operators already operate under pretty strict requirements. We have food safety certifications and environmental compliance, whether it be water use, nutrient management, emission controls or labour standards.

We would support cross-compliant principles. However, any type of framework needs to recognize the existing regulatory burdens, to avoid duplication, to be fair and achievable, and to be aligned with practical enforcement standards. Ultimately, cross-compliance can strengthen the public trust issues, support sustainability goals and ensure accountability is tied to public funding.