Agriculture committee  Yes, this is where I think technology is going to be a huge factor, and it could enhance Canada's lead. The consumer today wants to have more connectivity to who's growing their food. Historically, there have been multiple different parties between the consumer and the farmer. Te

Agriculture committee  I could spend a whole hour discussing this, but in brief, when Farmers Edge started up, we had a terrible time seeking out capital specifically from the Canadian market. Our first big capital injection came from Silicon Valley. At the time, that company was focused on moving Fa

Agriculture committee  We are currently in discussions with some very important agricultural players in the marketplace in Quebec. Hopefully, we will be able to form partnerships by this fall and start to implement some of our programs into that marketplace.

Agriculture committee  As I said before, I think Canada has a unique opportunity to take the world lead when it comes to sustainability and the growth of commodities that have a sustainability footprint. I have worked in the United States. I have worked in Latin America, eastern Europe and Australia. I

Agriculture committee  Yes, absolutely.

Agriculture committee  If I look at the biological market, the majority of those are start-ups, start-ups that have come from people who have worked in the industry in big fertilizer companies or big agriculture that have been funded by venture capitalists to go out and do the research to create these

Agriculture committee  We're not doing it for soil sampling at this time, but I will say that there is a significant movement around biologicals in mainstream agriculture across North America. They're going to use the application of biologics to help reduce the amount of nitrogen. I would say that the

Agriculture committee  If I can look back to my history, when our company was first founded, the government came out with what they called environmental farm plans. As part of that, there was an incentive for farmers to utilize GPS equipment, variable rate application equipment and private consultants

Agriculture committee  I think the reality of it is that there might be a short window to look back. You're not going to be able to, most likely, provide value to the time that the grower started these processes, but I think we should at least look forward and incentivize on an ongoing basis. Again, s

Agriculture committee  We've had experience in both the regulatory market in Alberta and now the voluntary market. In both cases, you need an independent verifier in order to ensure that these credits are credible. Government can play a role to ensure that a third party is verifying it. That would be

Agriculture committee  It depends on how you look at it. One, the investment on the farm, to be able to digitalize that, to get that data so that data is verifiable, is critical and Canada can play a huge role in that. The question is that our friends south of the border are essentially using crop in

Agriculture committee  Yes, absolutely, the ability of digitalization, using data. Right now, we have reinsurers who are looking to go to work directly with growers, because they can actually do a better job of risk management at a lower cost for the grower than the grower utilizing subsidized insura

Agriculture committee  Is that directed towards me, sir?

Agriculture committee  Look, I'm a farmer. I'm also the CEO now of a publicly traded company. The way that we look at data and information is similar to the way my grandfather would have looked at oil. If the oil stays in the ground, you can't create value out of it. Data's no different on the farm. We

Agriculture committee  Look, my view on greenhouse gases, based on farmers that are utilizing the 4R approach, would be that I don't think they'll go up. I think that the more efficiency you can create, the less you'll see an increase in greenhouse gases. I think technology will only enhance this in o