Agriculture committee  In our firsthand experience, it's a bit of both. Definitely, if you read the words in the act and the regulations, there are teeth there. It's a matter so often in the interpretation and how it's actually administered. But there is some of both. But above that, it's having a po

Agriculture committee  Managing risk is one of the most important things for any business, especially a business like farming that carries a huge amount of risk on many different fronts. A producer has to improve his land. We have to be marketers, accountants. There are a lot of things that we have to

Agriculture committee  Thank you for the question. There is a tremendous amount of niche branding and individual initiatives on many of our farms doing all kinds of things, right from the organic sector to raising pumpkins—just lots of opportunity. Providing an environment that allows that to be stimu

Agriculture committee  If I may, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the comments and the questions. You've hit what I would say is probably the fundamental problem with farming. We are tremendous producers of wealth—absolutely, no question. In fairness, we don't get to keep nearly as much as we should, gi

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much, honourable Chairman Miller and caucus. It's my great pleasure to represent Farmers of North America at your session today. I think everybody's received a copy of the presentation that we put forward, and I want to hit the highlights in a few minutes and look

Agriculture committee  That's a good sense of the words. How do you put us on a level playing field with the U.S.? In the U.S., when a generic has passed the science, is proved equivalent, and is safe for health and the environment, there is a form called “Offer to Pay”, and they provide that form to

Agriculture committee  Absolutely. We should be able to go to market immediately upon passing the science review at the PMRA. I can give you some background behind the logic of the PMRA's thinking on this. There may be data compensation owing to an innovator here in Canada. PMRA thinks that a company

Agriculture committee  I have made some comments in what I'm going to submit to the clerk here. Fundamentally, I truly believe that there is a position within the Competition Bureau to lean on the side of larger corporations becoming more efficient in Canada as compared to the smaller, and decisions

Agriculture committee  There used to be two systems whereby you could bring.... One was to get a full registration for a product in Canada, passing the science review, ensuring that a product was off patent, and coming in and competing in the marketplace on a regular basis. When the registration proc

Agriculture committee  Actually, I'm quite glad you brought that question up, because we do have a financing source through John Deere with their AgLine program, which our members can get access to. It's somewhat higher than market, but it is a useful tool; it's not that much higher than market. It's a

Agriculture committee  Yes. We're quite a bit more complex than just a buyer for farmers. There are a lot of techniques that we use to bring competition into the marketplace. The group of companies, other than just Farmers of North America, now goes well beyond just negotiating on behalf of farmers.

Agriculture committee  If that were true, it would speak to how much collusion, if you wish, or how much lack of competitiveness there is in the U.S. market. Certainly if one were able to get an advantage over the other to the last dollar being saved in the acquisition of their stock to go to their aba

Agriculture committee  Thank you, honourable Chairman. I look forward to the opportunity to address this group on matters of utmost importance to most farmers across Canada. As we've seen, particularly in the last year, the competitive position of Canadian farmers relative to other farmers around the

Agriculture committee  I'd like to look to the future on two counts. On fertilizer, of course, we're going to look at every logistical possibility because we are dealing with a freight grain with fertilizer. Churchill was an excellent option--reducing rail freight, making use of a port that was close t

Agriculture committee  I would just comment on buying early and worrying about storage and environmental issues. In our program, at least, you can acquire the product without having to worry about storage, because you're buying it, and by the time it moves through the system--our fall purchases will