Agriculture Committee on June 4th, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 39 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. Today’s meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders.

Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application. Before we continue, I'd like to ask all in-person participants to consult the guidelines written on the back of the cards on the table. These measures are in place to help prevent audio and feedback incidents and to protect the health and safety of all participants, including the interpreters. You will also notice a QR code on the card that links to a short awareness video.

I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of the witnesses and members.

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Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Thursday, September 18, 2025, the committee is resuming its study on food security in the face of global instability.

We have three witness joining us here today. From Marc Bercier Seed Cleaning Inc., Karine Bercier, farm manager, will be joining us. From the Prince Edward Island Federation of Agriculture, we have Donald Killorn, the executive director. From Strawberry Hill Farm, we have Tim Livingstone, who is the co-owner.

We have a few MPs who are substituting today for others. I think, for the first half, MP Al Soud will be substituting for MP Chatel. We also have MP Kronis, who is substituting for MP Gourde.

Welcome to our committee, and thank you for joining us here today.

For our witnesses, you'll have up to five minutes for opening remarks, and then we'll proceed with questions.

I'd like to invite Mr. Killorn from P.E.I.

Welcome to our committee. You have five minutes, sir.

[Donald Killorn, Executive Director, Prince Edward Island Federation of Agriculture]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair, for the invitation to join you today.

My name is Donald Killorn. I'm the executive director of the P.E.I. Federation of Agriculture. I'm here today to discuss food security in the face of global instability.

As I'm sure you know, 24% of people in Canada live in food-insecure households. That's about 10 million people, with 2.5 million being children. Those percentages are very similar to what we see on Prince Edward Island, which is remarkable since we grow so much food on Prince Edward Island.

Food security is not simply the ability to grow food. It is the outcome of a complex system that includes agricultural production, labour availability, transportation, processing, trade, land use, environmental stewardship and public policy. Disruptions in any of these areas can ripple through the entire food system, affecting affordability, availability and the resilience of that food system.

Our expertise at the P.E.I. Federation of Agriculture is at the grassroots. It's in the farmers' fields. In those fields, across Canada, there is a bottleneck. Information struggles to move between the field and the larger food system. Farmers are wary of how their data is handled. As Canada considers both its AI strategy and its food security strategy, we must take this opportunity in the space where these overlap to build intelligence for farmers that connects the food system to the farmers' field.

At the P.E.I. Federation of Agriculture, we developed a sovereign agricultural compute strategy that will strengthen food security by improving Canada's ability to understand, manage and respond to the complex system that produces, processes, transports and distributes food. Our efforts began by building AgIntel, a precision agriculture platform that runs on artificial intelligence.

We quickly learned that the future of precision agriculture is not the development of artificial intelligence that understands farming. Rather, it's the implementation of a national sovereign compute strategy that reduces the resources required to equip our Canadian farmers with the technology they need to drive improvements to our food security. By keeping agricultural data, models and computational capacity under Canadian control, a Canadian agricultural compute strategy would enable better decisions across the entire food system, from farm-level production to national food security planning. This would transform our sovereign compute from a technology initiative into a foundational piece of our food security infrastructure.

As agriculture becomes increasingly data-driven, decision-making capacity becomes infrastructure. The ability to model risk, optimize production, forecast disruption and support policy decisions depends on access to trusted compute infrastructure and sovereign agricultural data. Farmers demand it.

A Canadian agriculture compute strategy would provide the digital foundation required to strengthen national food security while maintaining ownership and control of agricultural data. Farmers grow the food, but many of the inputs required to support modern Canadian agriculture are sourced from other countries. Agricultural data faces the same challenge. While Canadian farms generate the data, the platforms and models that transform it into actionable intelligence are often foreign-owned. As a result, both the data and the value it creates are processed outside Canada's jurisdiction. This represents a growing sovereignty gap in a sector critical to national food security and economic resilience.

A $150-million investment in sovereign agricultural data infrastructure would turn Canada's farm data into a national strategic asset, strengthening food security, keeping the intelligence layer Canadian and returning multiples of the spend in farm-level value. By adopting a sovereign compute strategy, Canada would lower the electricity required to implement artificial intelligence in agriculture from 200 gigawatt hours to less than two. The system would spend full compute only when a farm record teaches the system something new. It would interpolate the rest.

Expanded nationally, this system would reduce the national compute load from 150 petaflops to 15 teraflops. This sounds like science fiction, but these are quickly becoming critical resources we must use efficiently in order to be competitive. On top of a significant reduction in resources, the system would also reward the farmer when they provide this novel data, giving them ownership over the platform and credit to use on the insights derived from their data.

In the near future, our farmers will utilize robust models to maximize their agronomic and economic performance. They will access most of this modelling locally. However, when something novel takes place, that information—

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you.

[Donald Killorn]

—should pass to a compute warehouse, ideally in a jurisdiction with clean electricity—

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

I'm going to have to stop you there. We've exhausted the five minutes. I've given you an extra 20 seconds.

[Donald Killorn]

Thank you so much. I appreciate your time and apologize for going over.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you so much. I'm sure that for anything else you want to say, we'll get to it in the questions.

Next, we'll go next to Mr. Livingstone.

[Tim Livingstone, Co-owner, Strawberry Hill Farm]

Thank you.

We're going to come at this from a very different angle, because my wife and I are first-generation farmers. We started this farm in 2011, with our first season in 2012. It has grown. We hire around 20 people at the maximum time. We're probably the largest organic farm producing vegetables in New Brunswick, and possibly even in the Maritimes. We're highly diversified and we do a lot of home delivery and local pickup, with 90% of our product going direct to the consumer. I would like to talk more about why that is. We'll see if I have time in my five minutes or if we have to do that later.

On the barriers to growth as a start-up farm, general bureaucracy comes to the top. Every time you add a layer. We're very diversified and grow over 50 crops, and we have beef, pork and pasture-raised chicken, but each thing is developed in a silo to our government. For example, we raise poultry and have to come under the quota system. This is pasture-raised poultry. I need a whole separate audit for the food safety side of our poultry operation. That's one of multiple streams. I fought to see if my organic certification would be enough. It wasn't.

All of these different aspects make it really challenging. There are the safe food for Canadians regulations. We're on the east coast. Our three provinces of New Brunswick, P.E.I. and Nova Scotia are roughly equivalent in population to the greater Montreal area. It's like taking Montreal, splitting it all up and saying you have to go through provincial borders just to get your stuff to market. I have a farmer who farms on the border of New Brunswick but sells into Halifax and Moncton—two different provinces. He has safe food for Canadians registration and is up for a multi-day series of audits in the middle of his busy season.

One of the challenges, and the reason we sell 90% direct, is getting into the chain stores. When we talk about food security, the reality is that over 80% of people still buy from the chain stores. We can talk about markets, direct sale and all of these other ways, but I feel we really need to look at the elephant in the room, which is how does a starting farm or a new farm get into the grocery chain system? Sobeys asked us to grow carrots for them. In the end, they couldn't give us a price, and there was no way we could build a business plan that would make sense to a bank for us to put up the warehouse Sobeys wanted. Anyway, logistically, it was a nightmare.

I know other farmers who have run into the same thing. There's no way to get from farmers' markets or local sales to the supermarkets that want you to supply 50.... There's a big gap there. A friend of mine started supplying carrots and, three years in, ended up going bankrupt.

Then we can look at the more obvious things like the cost of fuel, which has doubled. The carbon tax was taken off. As a farmer, we used to be able to get carbon tax-free fuel, but now that the carbon tax is built in upstream, we have to pay top dollar for our fuel. We're not getting a break there.

There are labour costs and a lot of audits around labour, especially our foreign workers. Out of our 20 employees, six are Canadian and year-round. We have five seasonal workers from Mexico. They come back every year. They love it. It means the world to their families, but to give you an idea, out of 20, we have five. We are under the impression—and I could be proven wrong—that the current government really dislikes that program. However, the reality is that if we didn't have those five, we would probably lay off all 20, because we need that surge of help during the six-month growing season. I can get into all the whys and wherefores, but I just want to convey the utter importance of that.

Another thing that's a challenge is all the government audits and surveys. We have probably 12 different surveys that we're hounded to do each year. I talked about the audits—

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

I'm going to have to stop you there, sir. You've exhausted the five minutes.

Thank you so much.

Next, we're going to go to Ms. Bercier for five minutes.

[Karine Bercier, Farm Manager, Ferme Agriber Inc., Marc Bercier Seed Cleaning Inc.]

I thank the committee for inviting me to testify today.

My name is Karine Bercier. I am a certified public accountant and a former agricultural tax specialist. For the past eight years, I have been a cash crop farmer, along with my spouse and my in-laws, near Saint-Isidore in eastern Ontario. We are also seed producers. We operate a seed-cleaning and bagging facility that processes seed for various Canadian companies. We distribute and sell the seed to farmers in eastern Ontario and western Quebec.

Today, I'm speaking to you as a farmer, an entrepreneur and someone who experiences the realities of food production first-hand. In my view, food security is often taken for granted in Canada. However, international conflicts, supply chain disruptions, inflation and weather events remind us that a country's ability to produce its own food is truly a strategic challenge.

This ability depends first and foremost on productive farmland and viable farms. As you know, Canada has a limited amount of highly productive farmland. In eastern Ontario, as in other parts of the country, this land supports family farms, livestock operations, agri-food businesses and regional food systems. Once farmland is taken out of production, it is rarely reclaimed.

In fact, this is why I got involved in the Alto high-speed rail project in eastern Ontario. Regardless of one's position on this project, it raises a fundamentally important question: Do we place enough importance on protecting farmland when making decisions that will have consequences for many generations?

Of course, food security doesn't stop at farmland. It starts with farmland and continues with seeds. As a seed producer and processor, I can tell you that every improvement in yield, disease resistance and drought tolerance starts with genetics.

Today's crops are the result of investments made in research decades ago. The investments we make today will determine our ability to feed future generations.

People in this sector are increasingly talking about a loss of confidence. Farmers invest when they have confidence. They invest when they believe their business will still be around in 10, 30 or 50 years.

The committee's motion speaks about investment, innovation, automation and strengthening local food production. Farmers support all of those objectives, but investment, like I said, follows confidence. Today, farm margins are under tremendous pressure. Fuel, fertilizer, financing, labour, insurance, machinery and repair costs have all increased significantly.

Many family farms are, yes, asset rich, but very much cash flow constrained. Rising land values may strengthen a balance sheet, but they do not necessarily generate the cash flow needed to invest in innovation, productivity or succession. Government also has a role to play in removing barriers to investment. Programs intended to encourage investment and innovation must work not only in urban Canada but also in rural Canada.

Consumers increasingly want food that is local, traceable and produced closer to home. To meet that demand, we need strong farms, strong processing capacity and continued investment throughout the food chain. Canadian farmers are among the hardest-working people in this country. They're not asking government to eliminate risk. They are asking for the opportunity to farm. They're asking for the opportunity to compete. They're asking for the opportunity to invest in their businesses and succeed through their hard work, their innovation and their ability to manage risk.

My message today is simple. If Canada wants stronger food security, we must protect productive farmland, invest in seed genetics and innovation, support domestic processing capacity and create the conditions that encourage long-term investment.

Food security starts with productive farmland and continues with seed. Food security depends on profitable farms, not simply productive farms, and investment follows confidence.

Increasingly, in an uncertain world, food security is national security, and a country that cannot feed itself is a country that is very vulnerable.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you very much.

We will now turn it over to the Conservatives for six minutes.

Mr. Bragdon.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses today. I am honoured and glad to have you here, bringing the perspectives that are needed at this time.

I will be directing most, if not all, of my questions to Mr. Livingstone today, who happens to be from New Brunswick, a province I happen to be from as well.

Mr. Livingstone, you mentioned a lot about the bureaucratic barriers that are inhibiting the ability of farms to maximize their potential and to help lead us in a direction towards more food security in Canada.

What would be some suggestions that you would have to help alleviate those barriers at a national and localized level? I just wanted to start off by asking that.

[Tim Livingstone]

It's quite challenging when you're talking to government because I've just about never heard of government getting rid of stuff, which is maybe needed here, or maybe some amalgamation.

I want to start this though by saying we're all for safe food. It's a really difficult discussion to have because of all these different rules and regulations, be it CanadaGAP or SFFCR. There are other organic certifications and standards around poultry production. All of these things came out of, presumably, a need. None of us are against that, but it's when you pile them all together that it becomes burdensome, to the point where it it can be hard to have the will to keep going and to fight it.

Just as a simple case in point—I wrote my notes before this happened—yesterday I got stuck at the border trying to get some sweet potato cuttings from the States into Canada to start our sweet potato production for the year. We're in an ideal spot in New Brunswick, one of the few places in the Maritimes where we can grow really nice sweet potatoes. I was stuck for about six hours waiting for the right stamp on the document so that I could cross with them back across the border.

That's just one example of the challenges where I should be in the field planting and a logistical bureaucratic thing holds me up. It took them five hours to recognize that I had actually paid the invoice so they could release it. Helping to speed up the process and make the things that are there work better would certainly be an asset.

Then I wish there was a way to have more cross-communication. The organic certification that we do deals with almost all of the same things that the chicken board has in their regulations, but because the chicken farmers are all under this umbrella, they don't want to allow us to provide our organic certificate as enough. Now I need yet another audit in order to raise 5,000 birds on pasture. It's these kinds of things.

If I had a $2-million or $3-million business and I could hire somebody full time—we're getting close to that, close to being able to hire somebody full time—it becomes a full-time job just to manage the logistics around these governmental departments. I have a friend who grows about half the annual volume that we do. He's strapped in this middle management crisis where he can't do everything, nor can he afford to pay somebody to do everything for him.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Okay.

[Tim Livingstone]

This is all part of growth that's necessary if we're going to have new farmers supply the system.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you. It was very insightful.

I just wanted to follow up with a couple of little questions here that coincide with this.

We know research is a big and important component of agriculture as is being able to have access to research. I'm sure you're aware that recently there was announced the closure of a research centre in Swift Current. As it relates to organic farming, organic farming in Canada is around an $11-billion industry and growing. Shutting down this program may save, I think it's estimated about $1 million, but the long-term cost of this could be extremely high.

Do you have any comments around that and the importance of research as it relates to organic farming and the business that you're in?

[Tim Livingstone]

Yes, I've learned a lot of what I've learned by being at conferences and being on national boards. I have visited some of the research stations across the country. It is really important, especially in organics, because a lot of the systems we use in organics do not provide a lot of income to a chemical manufacturer, or there's a lot less of an incentive to find, let's say, mechanical weeding solutions or solutions other than a chemical. That's not to badmouth anything or say that one's right or one's wrong, but I believe that a lot of what we do in organics is for the greater good, with fewer chemicals in the environment and in food. It's part of a whole system, but it's very hard to get that looked at, and it's very hard to get investment in that. However, it's really important, as new weeds come up and as new systems come up, that we stay competitive.

There is a model that I think could potentially help. This is not to say we should close research centres—I would never go there—but on-farm research is something that is supported a lot in the States. Actually, they had a grant in Maine, which is the state next to me, where the government bought a whole bunch of different cultivation equipment and then loaned it out to farmers all over. I actually imported some of that myself, because I'm friends with a researcher, and I go down to visit their meetings. I had to pay taxes as though I bought it, but I imported some of that to try it on the farm. Then I was able to say, “Okay, I'll buy a $10,000 unit.”

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you so much.

Next, we'll go to the Liberals for six minutes.

Ms. Mingarelli, are you next?

[Giovanna Mingarelli, Liberal, Prescott—Russell—Cumberland, ON]

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here today.

My questions are for Ms. Bercier, a farmer from my part of the country, the riding of Prescott—Russell—Cumberland. I welcome her to our committee.

As Canada's largest supplier of certified seeds, how would you rate the resilience of the Canadian seed system in light of recent international conflicts?

[Karine Bercier]

It's not an easy situation to deal with. We had some great years in 2020, 2021 and 2022, when market prices were on the rise. Things were going very well for cash crop farms, in that we were able to invest more in our infrastructure and purchase additional farmland.

Nowadays, it's getting harder to stay competitive in the seed industry. We offer Canadian products, of course, but we're competing against major players—multinational corporations. Speaking of seeds, I'd say that the grain we buy to sell as seed accounts for a very small percentage of the total value of a bag of seed. There are so many other factors to consider. There are seed premiums, which are paid to producers to encourage them to continue production. There are royalties we have to pay for genetic development. There's screening, cleaning, screening losses and treatments, among other things. The grain accounts for less than one-third of the value.

There are so many other factors to consider when producing a bag of seed locally for customers. Convenience comes at a price. When prices are high, it's good for large-scale growers, but it gets hard for us to compete when we sell seed to our customers. Profit margins are very tight, so the price of seed is important to customers. The big players produce large volumes, so they're able to sell their product at our cost of production. This makes it very difficult for companies like ours to compete against them. In today's market, our margins are very tight.

[Giovanna Mingarelli, Liberal, Prescott—Russell—Cumberland, ON]

Thank you very much.

Have local producers experienced delays or price increases because of supply chain disruptions?

[Karine Bercier]

Absolutely. We've certainly seen this with our seeds in recent months.

On the farm, compared to last year, we've seen a 60% increase in fuel costs alone. Fertilizer costs have also risen sharply. We're definitely very focused on our cash flow, so we bought our fertilizer in advance. Our fertilizer costs have gone up, but not as much as for some other farmers.

Obviously, all of those factors put pressure on margins that were tight to begin with. Market prices are more or less back to normal. Prices also fluctuate. We all agree that it's very difficult to predict what will happen. Sometimes prices go up a bit, then drop back down again fairly quickly. This situation definitely has a major impact on the farm's bottom line. In situations like this, it's hard to plan investments because there's so much instability—not only due to input costs but also because of market prices.

[Giovanna Mingarelli, Liberal, Prescott—Russell—Cumberland, ON]

Thank you.

In your view, what is the most urgent measure the government should implement to secure the seed supply and protect Canada's long-term food security?

[Karine Bercier]

My answer to that is two-fold.

First, protecting our farmland is crucial. We can't add much more of it. Our biodiversity is very rich. We have to protect our forests. Of course, we also have a housing crisis, so homes will have to be built. What it comes down to is that we have to protect the farmland we have.

Second, the government has launched infrastructure projects. If these projects are necessary, that's fine, but I need proof that it's truly necessary to give up productive farmland that contributes to food security.

I think we need something like an environmental impact assessment—a food security impact assessment for every infrastructure project, the goal being to protect our highly fertile land. Furthermore, I think it's important to safeguard the viability of our businesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you.