Agriculture committee  It takes two years to review the standard. Every five years, the standard has to be revised and updated. That's partly the government's own regulation or demand but it's also in these trade agreements. Those standards have to be reviewed and viewed to be equivalent every five yea

Agriculture committee  The next completion of the review is 2020, so it has to be initiated in 2018.

Agriculture committee  Well, the organic sector is not currently well supplied with either research or extension of that research. There is an organic round table. There is an organic science cluster. That's all excellent. But in proportion to the size of our industry, I don't think we get the same res

Agriculture committee  There are national standards. In the case of the European Union, there is an international standard that is particular to that jurisdiction. Governments negotiate equivalency agreements. We have an equivalency agreement with the European Union. We have one with the United States.

Agriculture committee  Interprovincial trade is of interest to us, and of course, through the Canadian organic standards, I have that right. You're right that at a kill-plant level, there's a potential problem. At the moment, if I want to direct market to even family in Alberta, I have to do that thro

Agriculture committee  Obviously, the standards have to be comparable in that case.

Agriculture committee  Well, organic has a very heavy emphasis on local food production. The cattle that I market I do sell to kill plants, but we also direct market our beef. We do that by word of mouth, basically, in our friend group and in family. If you buy a quarter of beef, you have the right to

Agriculture committee  I'll start. Yes, I'm an organic cattle producer. I used to be a cow-calf producer, but now I finish all of our calves to market weight, which is possible to do organically in the prairie region. It's not difficult to do finishing. I was told when I started that it was an art for

Agriculture committee  Organic is usually more expensive at the store, but not always. That price difference varies. Primarily, it's more expensive because it's scarcer. It's as simple as that. I'm an organic farmer. I'm anxious to have the industry grow. Being anxious to have the industry grow means

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Ashley. I'm an organic farmer from Saskatchewan. Together with my family, I raise cattle and grow cereals, pulses, and forages—all organic—on 2,500 acres in Saskatchewan. We farmed conventionally for 21 years, and we are now almost finished our 19th organic harvest.