Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good evening to you and to members of the committee and speakers and guests. I'm certainly pleased to be in attendance to present to you on the importance of food safety.
I'm the Keystone Agricultural Producers vice-president. As well, I'm an active member on our livestock and traceability committee.
Keystone Agricultural Producers is a general farm policy organization representing the interests of a wide variety of agricultural producers. In relation to food safety, KAP sees its responsibility as aggregating the concerns common to all agricultural producers as well as specifically supporting and promoting the needs of all commodities, including the smaller sectors, in Manitoba.
Food safety remains a top priority for Canadian agricultural producers. We have a responsibility to deliver healthy and safe products to consumers. As well, our livelihoods depend on our ability to guarantee the safety and quality of our product to domestic and international consumers. Proper programs and systems need to be in place to deal with the realities of food-borne illness, animal disease outbreaks, and other food safety problems in order to maintain the confidence of our consumers.
My presentation today will focus on some of the general issues related to agriculture as a whole, what producers are doing to address these issues, and where the industry needs increased government support.
Producers address food safety through three broad and related systems: on-farm food safety programs, biosecurity programs, and tracking and traceability programs.
On-farm food safety programs are typically industry guarantees of product quality. Commodity groups are responsible for developing and administering these programs, and you've certainly had some of the commodity groups bringing that forward.
An example I want to give you is CQA. That's the Canadian quality assurance program throughout Canada. One of the things that happened with CQA was that when we did the CQA on-farm for pork, we had hoped that once we did this food safety program, there would be a premium, plus market access. We've had the market access, but unfortunately the premium has dried up.
Producers are willing to prove that the food they produce is safe through these programs, but government must know there is an economic cost to producers to do so. Safe food is a public good that government bears some responsibility for. While industry is willing to lead the way, there is a need for cost to be offset by government on behalf of society, possibly through tax credits or incentive-based programs.
Certain groups of consumers have shown that they're willing to pay for food that complies with specific certification, be it organic or locally grown. These foods are differentiated from non-certified foods and command a higher market price. Because there is the expectation that all food sold in Canada is safe, there is no price premium paid to Canadian producers who pay the costs associated with providing safe food, yet they compete with international producers who do not always pay the same costs. David did bring up that point.
One of the questions you have to ask is whether the imported food meets the same food safety, environmental, and labour standards as ours. My answer would be that it does not.
Further, smaller sectors such as sheep and goats, which do not have the financial resources of the much larger commodity groups, require additional help to develop on-farm food safety programs. The smaller livestock producers do not have the required human resources to develop the programs on their own, but they are no less important because of their smaller market share.
Biosecurity programs are again commodity group-led initiatives to protect animals and prevent the spread of disease. As has been highlighted through the H1N1 situation, the Canadian pork industry is a leader in biosecurity measures and disease control protocols, but government help is required in developing biosecurity programs for commodities that currently lack programs. These are commodities that do not commonly operate in controlled environments, as the pork and the supply-managed sectors do. Non-confined animals pose a much more difficult situation for biosecurity. Government must work with these commodities and organizations to ensure that proper biosecurity measures are developed.
Further, non-agricultural government organizations and the general public must be properly informed and trained about biosecurity and disease prevention. Some of us have heard of instances where people have entered a farm site without checking to see what biosecurity protocols are in place and without the consent of the farm owner. In Manitoba, Keystone Agricultural Producers acted quickly, working along with the provincial government to put together a workshop to train those government inspectors and others frequenting farms about the importance of biosecurity and what to expect when they do on-farm inspections.
Finally, tracking and traceability programs are intended to provide government and industry with a responsive capacity to deal with a disease outbreak when it occurs. Product can be traced back to the farm. When the origin is identified through a premise identification system, other products delivered from that source can be followed the other way through the chain and recalled. Further, in the event of a contagious animal disease, the origin can be isolated quickly and the incident dealt with.
The critical work that needs to be done with this system is to develop national standards for all commodities. Programs can be administered in partnership with provincial governments and commodity groups, which will interact with producers at the grassroots level. But national standards are crucial. If provinces have competing programs for market access, it will create a difficult situation for exporters in all provinces. Sellers would be unable to provide clear information about food safety programs to foreign buyers.
The federal government also bears responsibility to ensure there are national guidelines in place. When there is a failure in one province, it is the entire country that suffers from closed borders and lost market opportunities.
In summary, Canadian agricultural producers and government agencies have some of the tools and programs at their disposal to ensure that the food they produce is safe, their animals are healthy, and in the event of a food safety incident, the source can be isolated and dealt with in a timely manner. There are some gaps in these programs that need to be addressed. Some are commodity specific, where one industry lags behind another; some are universal to all commodities.
The federal government has three critical tasks in front of it. One, it has to develop national guidelines for tracking and tracing food safety and biosecurity, with enough flexibility to be adapted to each province without being compromised. Two, it has to ensure there's producer participation in these programs by providing proper incentives for voluntary participation. This will not only encourage active participation in the system, but compared to a regulatory regime, producers will be more likely to comply if their efforts are compensated. And three, a strategy needs to be developed by the federal government on how to move the entire food industry forward on the issue of food safety, with targeted resources to ensure that the Canadian industry remains and grows more competitive internationally.
The provision of safe food is the responsibility of all Canadians--producers, processors, retailers, consumers, and governments alike. We need to work together towards this common goal for the health and safety of Canadians and our foreign consumers, as well as for the economic well-being of our food production system.
Thank you.