Agriculture committee  I'm so glad you asked that question because it was one of my points. We have very innovative farmers, so it is actual people who are moving the edges. We actually have, in our system, disincentives for change. I agree with crop insurance, and I agree with advance payments, particularly with high fertilizer costs and things like that, but the guy who is putting in a crop like switchgrass or miscanthus, who is actually moving the bar forward for a whole new realm of crops, has to wait two and a half years before he'll get cashflow, because it takes that long to get up on these perennial crops.

Agriculture committee  In my opinion, it's moving the bar forward. Let me say two key things. This is, in a nutshell, the food versus fuel debate. Really, that's what you're talking about. First of all, hunger is not a production issue, globally. Hunger is a distribution of wealth issue, and I want to really emphasize that component.

Agriculture committee  To me there are two kinds of markets. One is the local market, and to me that's the purview of the provinces. For example, in Ontario, Foodland Ontario is one of the most recognized signs out there. In the city of Toronto, for example, where our small farms are getting smaller and are surrounded because of the cost of the land, and the way we produce is being challenged, we have created the Greater Toronto Area Agricultural Action Committee, and they're working with co-ops, stores and things like that.

Agriculture committee  On business risk management, I have been in agriculture all my life and I leave that to the farmers and the farm associations. I know very well that it's a touchy area to get into. I think the best thing we can do for business risk management is give our farmers access to more markets.

Agriculture committee  First of all, I want to give the current government credit. Mr. Ritz has been going around the world helping to create these bilateral trade agreements. I try to be totally non-partisan, but that has helped a lot. The other key thing that really helps us in getting access to new markets, and it's something I was hammering away at last night at the rural-urban night in Chatham, Ontario, is that we have a wonderful ethnic community in Canada.

Agriculture committee  I live by a quote: research is global; implementation is local. I totally agree that we have to have what I call fundamental discovery research, but as we do so, we should be looking at research around the world, too, and saying, can we take that and implement that in Canada and be first to market with somebody else's research?

Agriculture committee  That's absolutely right.

Agriculture committee  If you want, I can start on a concept that we're working on. In new markets where we don't have history, as I will call it—because in agriculture there's a lot of history and people don't get along—different groups have put different kinds of investments into a project. So we're working on one right now, for example, to create the inside wheel-well coverings for Volkswagen, and that's a combination of recycled plastic, etc.

Agriculture committee  Yes, I have one last thing. One of the things I do want to emphasize, if you look at that graph, is optimization of program delivery. When government announces a $10 million program, it's $2 million, $2 million, $2 million, $2 million, $2 million. Well, that's not effective use of money, because it takes about a year to get the customers and projects in.

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on innovation, some suggestions on Growing Forward 2, and what I think should happen. I'm president of Ontario Agri-Food Technologies. It's a consortium of farm associations, industry, academia, and regional governments. I emphasize that we get some money through Growing Forward 1, but we put it all back out the door, and I'll show you how effective it is.

Agriculture committee  Using your example of wheat, if we had a technology, whether it's by genetic engineering or mutation, that would eliminate nitrogen costs in the production of wheat, we would significantly reduce the input costs of producers. If people wanted to invest, I'm pretty sure they would pick it up.

Agriculture committee  I would emphasize that humankind has been deliberately doing mutational breeding. We expose genomes, plant material, to radiation or to chemicals that cause lots of mutations. Then you try to “till” it, as we say, and find something that has better.... But you don't know nearly as much about that, which is mutational breeding, as you would from genetic engineering.

Agriculture committee  It was indicated that we'd never had genomes move between species. We have them move between closely related species all the time. Triticale is a classic example of that. We took wheat and rye and we created a crop called triticale. A mule is an example of that. Strawberries are an example; we've taken a variety of species from the west and a species from the east to get bigger strawberries that taste better.

Agriculture committee  It's a very complex question, I would emphasize. Working with other nations is absolutely critical. Communications is absolutely critical as well. But I have to emphasize this: to stay on the cutting edge, investors and people who are going to go into this area need to know the rules, and to know that the rules they start the process with aren't going to be changing every year.

Agriculture committee  I can't guarantee it one way or the other, but I can tell you that we should try. At the end of the day, there may be certain areas that we agree on and certain areas that we agree to disagree on. But a face-to-face conversation and working on these things is always better. You both come out better than you went in.