Agriculture committee  Traceability is even less my file, and I know there are a few individuals behind me itching to talk about this. I think the biggest thing in our focus on traceability is ensuring that our market continues to operate in a competitive manner. The way cattle are marketed will not c

Agriculture committee  Basically, genetically modified cattle have been developed to produce antibodies to help treat rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, and organ rejection in human medicine by drawing these antibodies out of the cattle and basically using them to assist. Using these types of things through

Agriculture committee  I think the biggest thing—and I'll focus more on the animal health side—is to have panels to test for things like bovine respiratory disease, which is the largest single animal-health issue in the feedlots. Previously, the tests were very time-consuming and they could only test f

Agriculture committee  I think the one interesting point, and I'll let Bryan speak a bit on this, is that when you look at genetically modified corn or some of the other products, in many cases you have to use far less pesticide and herbicide on that crop. You're actually improving the end product and

Agriculture committee  I think relative to genetic modification, it's ensuring that product approvals are timely and science-based and that they don't impede the use of those technologies. Any time we develop a new technology, if industry can't use it to achieve those outcomes, we've lost, especially

Agriculture committee  I'm not familiar with the study you specifically spoke of, the quality of life study. However, I think in terms of the negative impacts of GMO, we've invested in a lot of science as an industry along with government and universities, and we're seeing improved animal health outcom

Agriculture committee  I think the big thing there is, first of all, that genetically modified feed is safe. We eat it. We eat it as consumers when we're eating these things, when we eat corn, so there are no adverse effects. Of course, to deal with some of the public concerns, we look at whether there

Agriculture committee  I think it involves a combination of things. I think it's having the sound science to present to our negotiators to ensure they're very aware of it and to present to those countries. We've also found that it's even a matter of having our beef producers being active within those

Agriculture committee  We've seen various proposals. I can't speak specifically to that one, but we've heard this before. I think that's why, as an industry, we've invested a lot more heavily to demonstrate how we've been able to reduce our environmental footprint. We've been able to reduce water use,

Agriculture committee  That's a tough one. In our industry we export, in some cases, as much as 50% of our production, and we want to do that. A beef carcass has 300 parts, and we in Canada don't eat all of them. The value we get is from exporting those. Everybody here wants grind and loins. If we can

Agriculture committee  It's a delicate balance. We need market access. Absolutely we need to continue to grow that, but we need it to be based on science. To fundamentally alter production practices and to not have access to those technologies can severely hamper our industry. I go back to the fact tha

Agriculture committee  Yes.

Agriculture committee  We operate in a North American environment, and Bryan can speak to this from a feedlot perspective. If he can't be cost-competitive with his U.S. counterparts, cattle will move south of the border, whether that's to be fed down there, or slaughtered down there. This is a huge co

Agriculture committee  In terms of actual measurements, we spend a lot of time trying to demonstrate the value of our investments, not only to Ag Canada, who funds the science clusters, but also to our producers, who provide check-off. The biggest thing we've been able to see, through innovations in an

Agriculture committee  I think the biggest things are around funding and capacity. About 30% to 40% of Agriculture Canada researchers are set to retire in the next three years. You don't just hand over those programs. You need to ensure there is a transition and training. These things represent lifetim