Agriculture committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. There are a lot of differences between the farms and the types of data presented here, so let me start with Mr. Kielstra first. You have a poultry farm in Alberta. You mentioned that today you're paying, as Ms. Gladu pointed out, $106,000. What percentage is that of your overall operating costs?

Agriculture committee  Just take a guess. What are your overall operating costs?

Agriculture committee  All right, so it's a relatively low percentage.

Agriculture committee  You mentioned that it's going up to $480,000, but that's not until 2030. Is that correct?

Agriculture committee  I believe next year it's going up to about $125,000. Is that correct?

Agriculture committee  I understand. I just wanted to clarify that. We were talking about the crunch right now because of the supply chain, etc., on farmers, and I just wanted to ensure that we had on the record that it wasn't next year's cost. It was far out into the future. As well, with regard to the carbon tax, when you were asked here if you had alternatives, you said, “Not really.”

Agriculture committee  Have you improved insulation in all your barns?

Agriculture committee  What percentage do you think you have actually fully insulated to improve efficiencies as much as you can?

Agriculture committee  That's fantastic. What percentage efficiency did you find when you did that? How much did your fuel costs drop?

Agriculture committee  That's great—15% to 20%. It's more than the price that's put on pollution, then, which is good. It shows that.... We were talking about returns on investment. I think it was Ms. Brekveld who was talking about that. I'd like to talk about it in this context. When we're looking at the price on pollution, which is obviously a cost that's added or put on the emissions, not on farmers but on the emissions they've emitted into the environment, I'm just wondering....

Agriculture committee  —so the price on pollution, rather than being a misguided policy, was actually one that was done intentionally, to try to capture the true costs of pollution. It's internalizing externality, if you will. When you do that, that allows you to look at your investments from a holistic perspective and see how much you save, if in fact we are looking at what pollution costs us, as well as what you're going to save in immediate costs.

Agriculture committee  Thank you. I have a quick question for you, Mr. Greuel, but I wanted to start by saying that I consider myself a full-belly activist. However, I fill my belly on plant-based proteins, which, as I'm sure most people here recognize, since we're all concerned about farmland preservation and use, use 47% to 99% less land than conventional protein and are much more effective at addressing world hunger.

Agriculture committee  That's fantastic. Thank you so much. I have a half a minute left, so I have just one follow-up question. How important do you think plant-based proteins are in solving the world hunger problems in places like Kenya or South America, where I did visit in international development and looked at farms in those areas, as well as here?

Agriculture committee  Thank you.

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much. I'm also wondering about the barn heating, not the grain drying. It seems that with the grain drying, we need perhaps more time. What would you suggest in terms of barn heating for livestock agricultural purposes? Do you feel the alternatives are there now and that we we don't need to include that in this bill, that just further assistance from the government in making the transitions would be sufficient, or do you believe that we still need some time to make that transition?