Agriculture committee  One of the things is the transition, if you will, and the confidence in a transition. I'm thinking of discussions around using different types of material for my grain dryer. Currently, I use natural gas and it's a bit of a challenge when I'm taxed on it. It takes away my ability

Agriculture committee  I think the demonstration of that is that back in the day—I know that in my early career in farming we did some summer fallow—that was the technique that we used probably for weed control, weed management and all of that. We have much superior methods to use now, so summer fallow

Agriculture committee  Yes: certainly not with the technology we have today. In my comments, I referred to the fact that the Liberal government has identified agri-food and agriproducts as a growth sector. If you tell me that I need to reduce my fertilizer emissions and that comes as a result of a dire

Agriculture committee  Yes, absolutely, I think. One of the things we talk about, if we can participate at the levels we're looking at, is that it's like having the size of Japan for exports—the amount of canola that Japan takes—and that's basically what that industry could require. Yes, I think it's a

Agriculture committee  The short answer is no. I do not have that number. I don't know if Dave does.

Agriculture committee  I don't know enough about eastern agriculture to suggest, and won't, how farmers run their operations. For us, it's very important. We follow fairly tight crop rotation guidelines. As I mentioned in my opening comments about wheat, canola, barley, peas and fava beans, that means

Agriculture committee  I think I would say yes, I agree with that, and the short answer is borne out by the fact that currently AgriStability's enrolment level is still very, very low. Even the changes that were brought in a year, or year and a half, ago haven't been enough to entice producers to bring

Agriculture committee  The first thing that pops into my mind is.... I think, perhaps, a number of you, if not all, have had a chance to go a regional farm show where equipment was being showcased. It's a little bit of a problem for farmers. It's worse than a candy store for children. We go there and w

Agriculture committee  We look to science all the time. I'll take the very simplest thing I can think of, which is soil testing. If I don't know what I'm doing, then I'm guessing. When it applies to seed technology and innovations like that, I need the science that backs that up and to trust the scienc

Agriculture committee  Offhand, John, I can't think, of any. Some of the details of how these things get done get a little bit lost in the woods. I am a farmer, so I see the effect of it and I know what's going on. I know it's a drag by regulation. I don't always understand the intricacies or the nua

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for the invitation to speak today. My name is Mike Ammeter and I'm the chair of the Canadian Canola Growers Association. I farm at Sylvan Lake, Alberta, which is an hour and half north of Calgary. I grow canola, pulses, wheat and barley on approx

Agriculture committee  That's true.

Agriculture committee  If we are expected to absorb our share of the carbon tax that's put on to our grain drying and our irrigation pumps, ultimately, I have less money. The only place I get my money is from the crops that I sell, so if one of my priorities is to do upgrades on my grain-drying equipme

Agriculture committee  It would make it tougher on them. Smaller producers don't have as much capacity to absorb any hits of that nature. It's probably tougher on them than the larger ones.

Agriculture committee  I don't know if I could comment on the costs per se. It's such a variable. I've mentioned before that one of the things we do see in agriculture as well is weather cycles. We've had, I'd say, 10 to 15 tough years and it's quite possible that could turn around. I know one of the