My name is Todd Hames. My wife and I farm 4,700 acres in the Marwayne area. It's about three and a half hours northwest of Saskatoon.
I am representing tens of thousands of successful farmers for the Grain Growers of Canada, from Atlantic Canada to British Columbia. Today I will focus on public research and innovation.
I think most of you know that farmers are divided on many issues, but this is one issue that unites all the farmers across this country. We appreciate that the federal government has started putting more money into research in the last few years. We also recognize that there has been an effort to have actual commodity associations, like pulse and canola growers, have more influence on our research priorities through science clusters and DIAPs.
The public sector does research on agronomics and diseases where there may not be an immediate commercial return, but the private sector doesn't always do this. Bayer, Syngenta, BASF, Dow, and others are huge investors in our research and innovation in Canada, but mostly just in three crops: corn, soybeans, and canola. Obviously, you see some big crops missing out of there--wheat and barley.
As farmers we see the need for both sectors, public and private. The United Nations forum on food has said that farmers will need to produce as much food in the next 50 years as has been produced in the last 10,000 years. The world's population will expand to 9.1 billion from the current 6.7 billion or 7 billion, depending on what number you're using, and yet Agriculture Canada's core research funding is far lower today than it was in 1994. Allowing for inflation, it would take an increase of $26 million per year for the next 10 years--that is, each and every year the government would have to add $26 million--to take us back to 1994 public research levels.
Farmers know the reality of trying to achieve a balanced budget on our farms, and we appreciate the same budgeting for the government, so the Grain Growers of Canada have proposed for you changes in the accounting for the royalty income within Agriculture Canada. Currently, income royalties from successful innovation that comes to Agriculture Canada go into the departmental budget. But--and this is important--it simply displaces government funding; it does not add to it. So all the royalties just come out of the funding. For example, if Agriculture Canada develops a new variety of wheat that earns millions of dollars a year in royalties, the next year the government simply reduces its budget. We suggest that in the absence of increased direct federal contributions, at a minimum, the federal government should lock in the current Agriculture Canada research budget as it is today and then tie it to inflation.
Next, the government should allow all royalty streams generated by Agriculture Canada discoveries to be added onto the current research budgets. This is a simple way to increase the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada research budget because it is the royalties paid by the private sector that will increase funding.
The other important effect of this change would be to send a strong signal to Agriculture Canada scientists that if your projects and your research align with what farmers or food processors or end-use customers are looking for, then more money would flow back into their programs. Today, this would put between $5 million and $6 million into additional research each year. And we predict that this incentive would easily double or triple the new money annually within 10 years.
It is a win-win situation. The government only needs to match inflation, and the scientists who do good work see their programs grow. It's one way to start getting back to those needed research levels.
Thank you, and I look forward to your comments and questions.