Agriculture committee  Obviously we don't have GE technology in organics. We always refer to GE and not just to GMO because it needs to be a more extensive definition. If the goal of GE technology is to reduce inputs, this is where organic comes in. We have techniques and methods that reduce input, tha

Agriculture committee  There are a couple of different national associations that work on this, such as the Canadian Organic Growers, as well as ourselves. There are all of the regional provincial associations. Each province has an association, and UPA has a specialist on organic. We, as an industry, a

Agriculture committee  Absolutely. Every time that something comes up around consumer health, etc., and organics I would say that we shy away from that because it's so conditional on what product and where it's grown, etc. We want to make sure that there are never over-claims, and be sure to be very

Agriculture committee  I can tell you that in the organic sector in 1989, I believe there were only 600 organic farms. Now it's very high; I've told you the numbers. The approach from the organic sector is that every farmer out there is a potential organic farmer. The more that we can all work together

Agriculture committee  Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you this morning. My name is Tia Loftsgard, and I am the Executive Director of the Canada Organic Trade Association. Our membership is national and consists of organic stakeholders from across the value chain, representing everyone

Agriculture committee  Yes. I think the contamination issue is a huge trade barrier for our industry unfortunately. When we get zero tolerance happening, they're testing it at the border. They're saying, “Ship back that you're an organic product, because we won't take that as organic in XYZ country” or

Agriculture committee  I'll answer this question. I did a presentation to AFC staff this morning. The standards development process was voluntary up until 2009, and then our trading partners said we couldn't trade to Japan, the EU, and the U.S. if we didn't actually standardize the definition and get

Agriculture committee  No. It's since 2009.

Agriculture committee  No. You would submit it to a certification body, which is a third party provider overseen by the CFIA. The CFIA manages the certification bodies to make sure they are performing their role, which comprises annual inspections, paper trail, traceability, sourcing all-organic, and m

Agriculture committee  They'll do the inspections, but ultimately, they'll report to CFIA anybody who is becoming suspended or decertified, and that's listed on the CFIA website.

Agriculture committee  Yes. We work to represent the Canada organic brand internationally. There is a heck of a lot of export going on. I would say most of our trading partners have a more rigid regime than ours on zero tolerance of glyphosate or—

Agriculture committee  Europe, Japan, South Korea. Some of them won't enter into equivalency arrangements with us because we don't have enough rigour in our system. Ninety percent of our organic trading partners do, and that's been the success of our Canadian regime. When it comes to the opportunity,

Agriculture committee  We currently are great with those trading partners. The problem is that if our standards don't get reviewed every five years.... That is the million dollars that we were talking about, which right now we've been told industry should fund—except for the $250,000 we just got.

Agriculture committee  That's a good question.

Agriculture committee  I'll answer in regard to what attracts people to go into any type of career. It's money. There was a study done by Statistics Canada on the net operating income of organic farmers from gross farm receipts. This is your data that I'm sharing. There's a 68% higher income for people