Agriculture committee  Mr. Chair, I'm not specifically aware of discussions around that. I would say though that there is an awful lot of goodwill around this issue, whether with agricultural groups, governments, industry suppliers, or organizations like FCC, and there is a lot of momentum. We talked about the Do More Agriculture Foundation.

Agriculture committee  As Mike described and as the member described, there has been an evolution across society in thinking and openness about mental health, and we certainly are serious about doing our part to help to try to advance that in terms of the agriculture sector. Similar to what Mike described with FCC, we do that working through partnerships with industry.

Agriculture committee  Mr. Chair, I'd simply say I did make reference to a couple of studies. My own assessment is that although there have been a couple of important studies done in this field, which have yielded results which would suggest that relative to the general population there is a significant issue in agriculture, my impression of the literature is that this is not an area that has been exhaustively studied and that there very likely is scope for further research to better inform efforts to target resources.

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am pleased to be before the committee once again and, especially, to discuss an issue as important as mental health. As you noted at the outset, Mr. Chair, my name is Tom Rosser. I'm the assistant deputy minister of strategic policy at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

Agriculture committee  Mr. Chair, I promise that I'll be as brief as I can. The agricultural partnership is a five-year framework between the federal government and the provincial and territorial governments. The current framework expires at the end of this month, in a couple of days. It will be replaced by the partnership, which we have negotiated with the provinces and territories over the past year and a half or so.

Agriculture committee  I will begin answering your question, and my colleague Mr. Gray may give you more information.

Agriculture committee  We have planned funding for innovation and science in the public sector. Significant investments in agricultural research were included in the 2016 and 2017 budgets. In connection with the partnership we have just discussed, we are also funding a series of partnership clusters between universities, the private sector and public sector researchers, and these partnership clusters exist in different sectors based on different commodities.

Agriculture committee  I don't have in front of me the data to which the member refers, but I would note two things. One is that we did see in budgets 2016 and 2017—and also in budget 2018—significant investments in public sector research, some of it directed at our department. Brian could speak to the details of that.

Agriculture committee  I might invite my colleague Dr. Gray, who may be better placed than I to comment. To my layman's way of understanding it, modern combines can generate huge amounts of data, as can satellites and drone technology, to the point where it becomes difficult for a human to process them all.

Agriculture committee  The member's description of it is very consistent with my understanding of how it works.

Agriculture committee  The short answer from me would be no, it's not. Although we certainly have a relationship with the seed growers, it's not a perspective that they've shared with me before. Maybe Brian or Marco—

Agriculture committee  I'll just say that we certainly do have a robust partnership with the organics industry, but I can't speak to precise figures. Perhaps my colleagues can, but if not, we can certainly get back to you with a more quantitative answer. It is an industry where we see there being some growth opportunities.

Agriculture committee  I think blockchain has applications across the economy, but we are quite excited about the potential in agriculture. I think we're in the very early days of realizing that, but I know there is involvement with soybeans and other products. In fact, I know that the University of Guelph has been involved in some early projects.

Agriculture committee  It's something that we see having very significant potential. It's certainly not unique to agriculture, but we see it being very important in agriculture. Marco, do you have anything to add?

Agriculture committee  Again, Marco may have something to add, but in addition to China, Japan is the other market where often products can command a high premium if they're certified. Blockchain offers a potential to do that much more efficiently, credibly, and securely than traditional technologies.