Agriculture committee  I'm happy to be here. Canada is one of the few countries that have the ability to grow more food than we will ever consume. We have the land, water and climate. We have the people and knowledge. We don't worry about hitting a landmine as we prepare the soil. We have markets, a g

Agriculture committee  I was speaking to a representative from Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers just today. They talk about the financial challenges right now, with the input costs rising significantly, whether those are carbon pricing, the tariff on fertilizer or just simple inputs. Labour prices h

Agriculture committee  Farmers have paid a lot of tariffs. That certainly is evident as we looked at bills this spring and as we look to the new season. I really think that there's an opportunity for government to take those tariffs and return them back to the farming community as a whole, to agricultu

Agriculture committee  We've had conversations and we certainly engaged in the process. I know people around the table here who I've spoken to on the issue and I appreciate the opportunity to do that.

Agriculture committee  Both domestic and international production are important. It doesn't matter if you're producing for global or for domestic consumption; both of them require the land, the soil and the best management practices, etc. I will go back to this: We actually really do need to protect f

Agriculture committee  We have approximately 50 federations across the province and we certainly work with each one. Part of that work is asking what it looks like in their area. Local food is a big component of our work. We certainly are engaged in promoting local food, such as the Source Local prog

Agriculture committee  When World War II happened, in Holland they had famine at a certain point because the war had destroyed so much land. For a long time, Holland had a pretty strong national food system. They cared about their food producers for quite a few years after the war happened, because the

Agriculture committee  I will also say that we can't envision ourselves as doing it only for Canada.

Agriculture committee  I will say two things about this. One, we should know and assess what our soils are across this county, and ensure we have the right labelling for everything. Two, we have to understand how soil works and understand that if we don't take care of it or feed it, we will see the

Agriculture committee  I think COVID highlighted the fact that there were challenges throughout the process line. I think it also highlights ways that we could certainly improve the process and reduce waste. We need to ensure at the farm gate we have the ability to have enough people on our farms to

Agriculture committee  I'm happy to be here in front of the committee again, this time to speak in favour of Bill C-234. The OFA and its 38,000 members strongly support this bill and the amendments to the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act. We are confident that expanding the list of qualifying farm

Agriculture committee  We would love to see a greater acknowledgement of the work that fields and farms do naturally, which is sequester carbon. That's part of the natural plant process. There's still work to be done. We would certainly support seeing that work happen in the future.

Agriculture committee  Yes.

Agriculture committee  When farmers look at an investment, they look at what will be the bottom dollar at the end of the day. This particular farmer, when he decided to do further insulation to his barn, saw a return on investment. He would have recouped the costs in his savings within a year and a hal

Agriculture committee  Borrowing costs are very significant to agriculture. In fact, many farmers have borrowed to their limit. There are several options in borrowing. With some of them, I'm not always sure they are the best plan, because sometimes farmers go too deep. I have significant concerns abo