Agriculture committee  The research dollar should be largely public. Funding should direct research to the betterment of farmers and to the betterment of consumers. However, I can't stop private investment as well. They can develop whatever they want to develop, except—getting back to what Mr. Atamanen

Agriculture committee  Monsanto, okay. I use Roundup Ready canola from Monsanto. It used to be a $15-an-acre technology use agreement, now it's a little higher than that if I want to follow the recommended seed rates, because they moved off a per-acre basis onto a per-pound basis, so I'm paying closer

Agriculture committee  I've addressed that. They've made that research money back on Roundup Ready varieties years ago. Yes, we've got some choice, but the world is getting closer to a contractual obligation system rather than free enterprise and free choice. Everything is getting linked together. You

Agriculture committee  Do you still farm?

Agriculture committee  I saw your auction sale bill not long after we met--

Agriculture committee  I saw your sale bill. I thought you did.

Agriculture committee  The simplest basic proof, which I don't have to explain to anybody, is a 0.4% return to farmers and record profits for these ag input companies--not just record production and record sales, but record profits. They are making money. We're not. We are basically employees of the go

Agriculture committee  Fair enough. Let the National Farmers Union have access to Monsanto's books and we'll--

Agriculture committee  It's pretty damn easy to find. The most obvious proof is in the fertilizer industry. The price of fertilizer should be one reasonable margin of profit above the price of your inputs--natural gas and...well, air is free, but that's another constituent of nitrogen fertilizer. But i

Agriculture committee  Randy, it's good to see you again. I don't know if you remember the CIGI tour in Winnipeg. It was a wonderful tour of the Wheat Board offices, the Canadian International Grains Institute. We were there for four or five days. Unfortunately, while most of us were learning about w

Agriculture committee  I'm sorry, I was not at those meetings. I understood that was your intention, to try to open up the Wheat Board to get it to back off its regulations that protect Canadian farmers.

Agriculture committee  The Canadian Wheat Board works in the best interests of all farmers, not just separate little bits and pieces, and they will not fraction up their accounts to make farmers compete against each other. This is basically why we're here today, to talk about competitiveness. I don't w

Agriculture committee  Yes, thank you. I suppose I can take that. I'm a mixed farmer in Saskatchewan. I'm actually the coordinator for the NFU for the province of Saskatchewan. We raise grain and cattle, and I'm a bit familiar with the crisis report on livestock that the National Farmers Union put out