Agriculture committee  Thank you.

Agriculture committee  Yes. I just had a quick observation, Mr. Chairman—

Agriculture committee  I'm putting on my producer's hat regarding the dropping of R and D investment. It's no mystery. We've had negative net farming income in British Columbia for the past four years. Working capital is an issue for individuals, associations, and co-ops. One only has to look at the

Agriculture committee  Yes, I did. If we are having trouble filling the research positions that are being vacated by retiring researchers and scientists within Canada, then I think we have to look to outsourcing. Whether we can attract individuals from the United States or from Europe, if they have the

Agriculture committee  Well, that's part of it. When I'm talking about researchers who need to be replaced, it's usually those individuals who of course have their doctorate. We do have other researchers who are graduate students or whatever, but they do not have the credentials to replace the individu

Agriculture committee  The frustrating part is that you can't be throwing out changes to the program at the 11th hour. I'll give you an example from just this past August. The Canadian Horticultural Council was originally told that $3.6 million, I think it was, would flow to the edible hort cluster in

Agriculture committee  Thank you for that question. Certainly we do need a pathologist in Summerland, particularly because we do have such a horticultural focus at the Summerland Agricultural Research Centre site. The Okanagan is known not only for tree fruits but for wine grapes. It has built up q

Agriculture committee  In terms of the science cluster initiative?

Agriculture committee  There's more than one positive result. One was clearly that the five different commodity groups all came together as commodity groups, looked at their own provincial priorities, assessed what those research priorities were, and then looked at developing national priorities. That'

Agriculture committee  Personally, I think it's a bit of both. In terms of the Okanagan Plant Improvement Corporation, it is a wholly owned subsidiary of the BC Fruit Growers' Association. Clearly, their direction is to commercialize new varieties. It never was in their mandate to actually breed thos

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Alex. First of all, to go back to the science cluster initiative, I think it was a fantastic idea that was really allowing industry to lead things--developing and identifying priorities, developing project proposals, and then tapping into 75% government funding. That

Agriculture committee  This is Joe Sardinha here, president of the B.C. Fruit Growers' Association. Mr. Lucas is not with me, so I will be presenting alone.

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much for this opportunity. Through the miracle of modern technology we're able to participate in these consultations, something I would like to do in person, but unfortunately I'm still harvesting my apple crop here in B.C. It's a little bit late this year, so that

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thought all along, with the huge discussion that happened country-wide with Product of Canada labelling, that was mainly looking at the processing side, because when it came to apples or fresh vegetables, wherever they came from--it was already in our

Agriculture committee  Sure. Thanks, Alex. Certainly, I called them “sensitive products” for a reason. The apple industry has looked long and hard at what supply management has. When you have an element of certainty around your cost structure and then around your revenue, that looks very attractive.