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Welcome back everyone. Welcome to meeting number 26 of the agriculture committee. We will be discussing innovation and competitiveness in agriculture.
I want to welcome to the committee today, from CropLife Canada, Dennis Prouse, vice-president of government affairs, and also Stephen Yarrow, vice-president, biotechnology. With us by video conference from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, is Genome Prairie, and I want to welcome Reno Pontarollo, president and chief executive officer, and Daniel Ramage, director of communications.
I want to thank you for taking the time to be with our committee today as we go through the witness list.
With that, I will start with the video conference from Saskatchewan. You have seven minutes.
Thank you.
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Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the members of the committee for allowing us to testify on the importance of innovation and competitiveness in Canadian agriculture.
Genome Prairie is one of six regional centres across Canada that develop, fund, and promote genomics across many economic sectors. Being located in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, Genome Prairie is very active in agricultural-based genomics, and supports university and private research entities in applying the approach to their challenges and opportunities. Public-private partnerships are a powerful model for Genome Prairie.
Suffice it to say that genomics is high-throughput, computer-powered genetics that accelerates research and development. Many believe it is the most important innovation biology has ever seen. Genomics is changing the way we think today and the way we will live tomorrow.
I will use a metaphor of wireless communications to highlight the impact and progress of genomics over the past few years. I will remind you of the two-way radio, the cellphone of a decade ago, and the smart phone of today, which is basically a hand-held computer that everybody uses.
The evolution of mobile communications from innovation to common tool took about 60 years. In the same way, genomics has evolved from a novel scientific approach to a common technology. One can say that this began with the human genome project in 1986. When the human genome was completed in 2003, the total public investment was estimated at $3 billion.
Today we are close to sequencing a human genome in hours, and at a cost of less than $1,000. Genomics technology and affordability have progressed more rapidly than telecommunications. This rapid evolution in genomics has taken it from an innovation used in health research to a competitive tool used in agriculture in less than 20 years.
Innovation in agriculture today largely depends not on genomics itself, but rather on how the genomics technology is applied. For example, Genome Prairie has supported genomics research projects on wheat, rye, canola, and flax—our major crops.
In our flax genomics project, we originally planned to sequence a single variety of flax as a reference. Four years later we had sequenced the entire critical collection of flax varieties in the world—all 400 strains—and this is being used to help flax breeders identify new traits for future varieties.
Our rye project led to the approval of hybrid varieties of rye to be planted in North America. These varieties yield 30% to 40% higher yield than previous varieties. This makes farmers more competitive.
The dairy industry in Canada is leading the way in applying genomics to their breeding programs. Canada's contribution to sequencing the bovine genome in 2004 has resulted in a revolutionary change in dairy cattle selection and doubling of their mating accuracy. In economic terms, genomics-based genetic evaluation in the dairy industry has increased revenues by $180 million annually. In 2010 Canada exported over $100 million in dairy genetics to 98 different countries, and Canada's share of the global bull semen market sits at 20%.
This innovative approach is being developed in the beef, swine, and poultry industries as well, and will soon become a standard competitive business practice.
I want to change gears now and speak a little bit about how we invest in research and development, and how it relates to unlocking innovation and competitiveness in Canadian agriculture.
An article published less than two weeks ago in The Western Producer was critical of how public funding for agriculture is delivered. Short-term, low-risk, milestone-oriented projects dominate the R and D landscape. We feel this model impairs innovation and impedes competitiveness in the long run.
In the 1970s when two independent visionary research teams began thinking creatively about new crops for the Canadian prairies, they were not trying to change the world. They were merely being innovative and thinking long term. The results of these decade-long projects are a $20 billion a year canola industry and the emergence of Saskatchewan as the world's largest producer and exporter of lentils.
Both of these major achievements were possible because these research teams had long-term, stable, programmatic funding. Accordingly, I submit to this committee that in order to accomplish strategic goals we need to revisit long-term public funding models for Canadian agriculture to achieve major breakthroughs and help us remain competitive on the international playing field.
Finally, reaching our full competitive potential takes an innovative ecosystem. I will let my colleague, Mr. Daniel Ramage, describe that and have the last word.
I'll just build on what Dr. Pontarollo has been saying about this innovation ecosystem. I'll touch on a few points about education and the importance of communication in agriculture.
From policy-makers and business leaders to the general public, people are really faced with tough decisions surrounding agricultural biotechnology. That's why education is so important—so that decisions can be based on scientific facts rather than myths, assumptions, or misinformation.
There was a recent public opinion survey developed by Ipsos Reid on behalf of the BioAccess Commercialization Centre in Saskatoon that highlighted some of the public perceptions regarding GM technologies. The survey really showcased the confusion and the high levels of misunderstanding among Canadian consumers regarding GM technologies.
The majority of respondents surveyed believed that our poultry and strawberries and other products are genetically modified, when that's not the case in reality. This underscores a key challenge that's at the heart of our ability to drive innovation and competitiveness, because the truth of the matter is that without public understanding of the value of biotechnology, our ability to achieve progress in innovation and competitiveness will be really hampered.
At Genome Prairie we invest a great deal in education and outreach, but it's clear that a lot more needs to be done. We need to strengthen the Canadian innovation system with stronger levels of public support and understanding. So we recommend that with stronger science-based communication and outreach initiatives, we can make sure that people have access to the information they need to make decisions based on facts rather than fiction. That's a major factor in ensuring that the power and promise of R and D is realized for improved innovation and improved competitiveness in Canadian agriculture.
Thank you.
We appreciate your invitation to be here today.
As I say, with me is Dr. Stephen Yarrow, our vice-president of biotechnology. Dr. Yarrow is here to answer all the difficult questions.
CropLife Canada is the trade association representing the manufacturers, developers, and distributors of plant science innovations, including pest control products and plant biotechnology, for use in agriculture, urban, and public health settings. We're committed to protecting human health and the environment. We believe in driving innovation through continuous research.
Our mission is to enable the plant science industry to bring the benefits of this technology to farmers and to the public. Those benefits manifest themselves in many different forms, including by driving agricultural exports and job creation, strengthening the rural economy, and increasing tax revenue for governments. Increased production due to crop protection products and plant biotechnology generates $7.9 billion worth of additional economic activity annually for farmers of field, vegetable, and fruit crops in Canada. Approximately 65% of Canada's food surplus can be directly attributed to increased yields as a result of modern farm practices, such as the use of crop protection products and biotechnology. Canada's canola industry, for instance, saw a 20% increase in yields between 2000 and 2009. This is largely due to improved genetics. The pace of innovation in the industry is increasing. Globally, CropLife Canada's member companies invest about 11% in research and development. About the same percentage is seen in the pharmaceutical sector.
This kind of innovation and growth, however, is entirely dependent on Canada maintaining its strong tradition of science-based regulation at the federal level. Canada relies on innovation and trade for prosperity and growth. Our members work in a regulated industry and they need the assurance that they are working in an environment where sound science, not political whim, is the final arbiter.
We are fortunate that at present the Department of Health's regulatory bodies, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Health Canada, and the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, are clearly science-based in their operations. We are pleased with the broader direction of science-based regulation at the federal level and see it as a model for other nations to follow. Science-based regulation is, however, under increased threat. Activist groups who do not like the results of science-based regulation would like to see it replaced with a more political, socio-economic lens. This would essentially be the model as seen in the European Union. Let us be perfectly clear: that is where this might lead Canada.
At present, Europe is the world's largest per capita food importer. European food production is decreasing as farmers are denied the tools they need to increase yields and grow new varieties. There are over 35 years of backlogs in approvals in plant biotechnology products that have received safety approval but are now awaiting political approval in the European Union. As one might expect, actions have consequences. In 2012 one of our member companies moved its entire plant sciences division out of Germany and over to the research triangle in Raleigh, North Carolina. Last year, another company announced it was withdrawing all pending approval requests to grow new varieties of genetically modified crops in Europe due to the dwindling prospects of these requests ever being heard.
However, it should be noted that Europe is one of world's major buyers of biotech grain, importing more than 30 million metric tonnes of mostly GM animal feed each year for its livestock industry. Therefore, Europe still embraces GM crops; they just don't receive the benefit of the innovation that goes into it. This is why it's so important that the federal government continue to defend science-based regulation both internationally and, increasingly, inside Canada's borders. It is the cornerstone of innovation and a vital component of modern agriculture. It is also key to our trade success.
Canada's economic prosperity is strongly tied to maintaining and growing export markets. There are exciting opportunities ahead for Canada to improve international trade in agriculture. As Canada looks for enhanced trade opportunities, it's important for all trade agreements to contain provisions for harmonized and science-based maximum residue limits of pesticides. This allows our farmers to use the latest pesticides without fear of a non-tariff trade barrier in the importing country.
CropLife Canada strongly supports the Canada-European Union trade agreement and we are encouraged by the provisions within the recently signed agreement on biotechnology. The global crop protection industry does, however, have concerns about the European Union's regulatory framework for plant protection products. Its approach moves the pesticide registration process away from a science-based regulatory system. This not only impacts trade and pesticides, current and future, but also the food, feed, and seed products produced using these pesticides. The import tolerance specified by the EU for these products is effectively zero, so even trace amounts of perfectly safe products could prevent the shipments from entering the EU countries.
The use of hazard-based cut-off criteria has the potential to have negative and far-reaching impacts on global commerce. This approach is not consistent with the World Trade Organization's sanitary and phytosanitary agreement, to which the EU is a signatory. We have concerns about the impacts of this action on Canadian farmers.
Here at home, fair, effective, and modern regulations are critical to Canada's future competitiveness, not only between Canada and other countries' agricultural sectors but also within the multinational companies that choose to invest in Canada. Science-based, predictable, and efficient regulatory systems will support competitiveness and continue to attract investment in Canada. Improvements through CFIA's current regulatory modernization initiative, while maintaining Canada's reputation as having one of the safest food supplies in the world, will be critical to sustaining and attracting investment in Canada. If there is one aspect of the current Canadian regulatory landscape that is causing a lot of issues with our members, it is the overly onerous livestock animal feed regulatory program, as it pertains to plants with novel traits and to novel feeds—products of modern plant breeding.
Intellectual property protection is essential to rewarding innovation. It takes seven to thirteen years to get a novel trait or active pest control product ingredient from discovery in the laboratory to full registration and use in the field. The cost to companies for each new product can be up to $150 million for products of modern plant breeding, and $250 million or more for new pesticides. In order for the Canadian economy to continue to grow and for Canada to be a centre of excellence in the knowledge-based economy, the support of intellectual property, patent protection, and protection of regulatory data must be robust.
To conclude, Mr. Chair, Canada's plant science industry has a proud history of encouraging and facilitating innovation that has been immensely beneficial to farmers, consumers, and the environment. Canada's climate of innovation at present is a very good one relative to other nations. There are, however, a number of opportunities for the federal government to undertake regulatory review and to take action on harmonization in order to ensure that regulations are as minimally prescriptive as possible. We support the need for regulations that safeguard the public and give them confidence in the safety of our products. At the same time, it is vital for governments to understand the role of regulatory reform in building a climate for innovation and investment.
On a broader scale, we encourage the federal government to stand up forcefully for science-based regulation. Our industry's ability to act as an engine for innovation and growth is entirely dependent on it.
Thank you for the opportunity to express our views, Mr. Chair. I'd be happy to answer any questions committee members have.
I'd like to thank our witnesses for being here.
Mr. Prouse, and Mr. Yarrow, I think we've seen each other quite often. It's not the first time you've come to committee in recent weeks, I would say.
I have a few questions for Genome Prairie.
I think this is the first time I've seen you at committee. You talked a lot about the accomplishments, innovations, and work you've done to improve yields of wheat and rye—I think you said by 30% to 40%. You even talked about dairy genomics. I think it was two years ago that I had the chance to go to Centre d'insémination artificielle du Québec, and we talked a lot about Starbuck and all the work that was done with artificial insemination when it came to bovine genetics.
I was just wondering if you could maybe comment more on how you see the federal government fostering innovation, and what kind of things or recommendations you'd like to see come out of this committee work.
I don't know where to start, actually.
If you think about crop plants in Canada, if you think about the field crops such as canola, soy beans, and corn as a measure of success, these crops have definitely benefited from plant biotechnology research to the point where about 90% to 95%—depending on how you count them—of the varieties grown today have enjoyed the benefits of plant biotechnology. In other words, farmers are choosing these crops over other varieties. The reason is that these varieties perform at a better rate than the previous varieties in better controlling weeds—and if you don't get ahead of weeds in fields, they'll choke away the yields and so on from the crop plant you're trying to grow—and insects, particularly in corn, with the Bt corn varieties.
In that sense, we view that as a great success. And that success has been built on by combining these different traits in these particular crops—in the industry they call it “stacking” of traits—to provide farmers with even more choice.
In terms of success for the future—I know you didn't ask this, but just glimpsing into the future—this is, in our view, just the tip of the iceberg. Touching on what our colleagues from Genome Prairie are talking about in terms of genomics, and marker-assisted breeding and other ways of creating new characteristics in crops, we're going to see an acceleration in how varieties are developed and in the range of new traits going into different crops, way beyond just insect and weed control. I think fairly soon we're going to be seeing successes in drought tolerance, which is going to be particularly important in certain parts of the country for corn.
Further into the future, maybe in five to 10 years, we're going to start seeing some traits that are going to be of direct interest to consumers, like reduction in allergens, different oil profiles. In fact, we already see that in canola.
I hope I've answered your question.
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Yes, I do. We appreciate it. Thank you.
Genome Canada received $65 million to fund future projects. Of that they are allocating approximately $30 million to a call that's going to be launched in the next few days called “Feeding the Future.” It's going to fund agrifood, aquaculture, and fisheries. It's split; it's not all for agriculture and livestock. Fisheries and aquaculture are there too.
Some of that money is going towards a competition to be announced next year in primary resources—energy, mining, and forestry. Again, all of those projects will be three-to-five-year projects, with large consortiums. I think the largest size of any one project will be $10 million. Genome Canada will put $3 million towards that. The other $6 million has to come from a matching contribution either from the provinces or private industry, or some other form, including international partners, etc.
So that's the nature of that funding. It's very low-risk funding, for very low-risk projects, and it's milestone oriented. It's not as you would say “risky” in any sense or manner.
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The Liberals should get twice as much anyways because we have better questions.
Mr. Chair, thank you.
Thank you, guests, for coming here.
Doctor, I'll go back to you. When you look at the opportunity Canada has to produce food for the world with climate change and with consumers in Asia especially liking our products and with an increasing population there, I think you mentioned your growing future. How do we capitalize on that? Others, whether Brazil or Argentina or Australia, are going to be competing with us, and I'm sure they're investing in their industries also.
I'm very interested in what you said about looking at this ten-year strategy, looking way ahead of the curve and investing in projects that will position us to be one of the leading suppliers of food for around the world, and also in Canada.
Can you expand a little bit on that? I don't know if you can talk about some of the projects you'd like to see, if you're looking through a ten-year lens, or about how you would structure those with partnerships for the ten years. If, say, we were embarking on certain crops, projecting for climate change, and for consumers, where would we want to be in ten years to be number one in the world?
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First, I'd just clean up a little myth about Canada feeding the world. The truth is that we produce a very low percentage of the amount of food produced in the world. Our significant advantage is that we export about 80% of the food we produce. That's probably always going to be the case even with our population growth, given the increase in yields that we're going to get in both our crop and our livestock production.
When you think about how we want to be positioned for the next few years, Dr. Yarrow talked about the increase in yields being attributed to genetics, and we can expect that incremental type of improvement for the next little while. He could probably talk more about some details with that.
When you're talking about the long ten-, fifteen-, twenty-, or twenty-five-year projects like canola—and the lentil industry was, because some thirty years ago there were no lentils planted in Saskatchewan, and now we're the world's leading producer—those types of projects are more game changers or game breakers.
Technologies like apomixis being brought into the fold, into the breeding systems, would be game breakers. Nitrogen-fixing wheat would be a game breaker. Some of this research is being done, but these things will take a long time to be fruitful. Those are the types of projects that I'm thinking about when you're talking about the long term.
We should partner appropriately, and we should partner with the best. In our flax and wheat projects we partner with entities in the United States and India. Partnering with India is very strategic because they are a significant trading partner for Saskatchewan. Almost all of the 50% of Canada's trade with India is done via Saskatchewan. You should do research with the people you are going to be trading with.
We're working right now on a partnership with Northern Ireland and with the Republic of Ireland. The expertise we will tap into there will primarily be in the livestock area, because that's what they do, and they also have good forage management as well. They also export 80% of their food, so there are a lot of similarities.
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I'll have a go, and I'm sure that my colleagues on the other side in Saskatchewan may want to help me out as well.
Selective breeding is the very basic level of plant breeding. If you were doing some sunflower breeding in your back garden, you would be crossing different types of sunflowers and then from the seed produced from those crosses you would be looking for improved sunflowers: be they higher yielding, or different colours, and all those sorts of thing.
At a more sophisticated level you can start doing that analysis using genomics and micro-assisted breeding and all sorts of other sophisticated laboratory-based techniques to understand what the variation is in the first place, and to understand how to select the traits that you're trying to extract from breeding. That's selective breeding.
Plant biotechnology short-circuits that for very specific traits, such as insect resistance, herbicide tolerance for weed control, drought tolerance, and things like that. But you have to think of the two together, if you're thinking about plant biotechnology in general.
I'm not sure if I've helped you there.
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It's kind of hard. I deal in the facts. I guess it's much easier for people to fear something they don't know. When you're dealing with superstitions, myths, and, in some cases, people would say, religion, you're dealing with faith and fear. Science has to be grounded in facts, so when a scientist speaks of whether something is safe, they speak in terms of “generally regarded” or “our evidence shows”. People coming from the other side of the argument will be more forceful with the words they use.
As my colleague Daniel here suggested, in a survey done by a very reputable firm, over 70% of people thought the meat they were eating in Canada was genetically modified, more so in poultry than in beef and pork. Over 60% of them thought the strawberries they were eating were genetically modified. These products do not exist in Canada.
As far as I know, they don't exist anywhere, but once these myths are perpetrated, published by non-scientific journals, and repeated in the newspapers or on news media—much like some celebrities would like us to believe things like “vaccination cause autism”—that credibility they carry is damaging to the actual scientific facts. These are the types of things we fight on a daily basis. We need to engage these people in their own environment, and that's in the Twitterverse and in social media.
Two weeks ago, there was a great example in Berkeley, California. A very well-known scientist, Pam Ronald, a colleague whom I know quite well, was speaking in a very open dialogue and an engaged environment, with 700-plus students watching, about genetic modification and the need for it to be incorporated into the food system. These are the types of things we need to do and that I think governments should be supporting it, particularly the Canadian government.
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We do have some good examples, not only just in the agriculture area, but in the oil and gas area as well.
We had a specific project called Prairie Gold that looked at taking two specialty crops called camelina and carinata—these are relatives of canola—and developing the genomics base for those two crops to help two companies move developed crops with a product specification for industrial oils and biojet fuel. For instance, in the carinata project, we were working with Agrisoma and helped fund the development and production of biojet fuel for them as part of that. This was a $4.5 million project working with the University of Saskatchewan and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. So we helped them produce this biojet fuel and they flew a jet in Ottawa at the NRC facility on 100% biojet fuel. This was considered one of the top 25 science news stories in North America that year.
The other company that we're working with there is Linnaeus Plant Sciences. They were looking at taking the camelina oil and using it as a base for high quality, high value specialty biolubricants. With the meal from both of those projects, we were looking at trying to get them into feed studies. Dr. Yarrow referred to the difficulties we have in doing that. Interestingly enough, in the camelina project we had also partnered with Genome Atlantic. We were sharing the genomic information with that group and we were looking at trying to create a meal and oil that would help feed the aquaculture industry as well. So there were industry participants on that side.
These are the types of projects I find the most successful. They're driven by an industry need or a consumer pull, and if we have those, they are probably our best short-term projects. But the long-term projects I referred to before regarding apomixis and other pie-in-the-sky type projects would maybe not be as suitable for private-public partnerships. However, if industry wants to do them, then the public sector has to listen.
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Sure, I can speak to that.
What we mean by “ecosystems” is really the whole community that revolves around research and development, including all stakeholders from the general public to the business community to our research scientists.
What we're really looking to do is to increase the cohesiveness among these partners, to make sure that people share the same values, and to get our messaging straight.
Some of the things we do at Genome Prairie, in terms of education and outreach, look to bring these partners together, to encourage dialogue, to share information, to make sure that people are on the same page and that they have access to high-quality information so that they can make their decisions based on facts rather than on the myths we're referring to.
For instance, we partner with organizations like Agriculture in the Classroom Canada—with the local chapters in Saskatchewan and Manitoba—to reach out and go directly to classrooms and teach the basics of genomics and DNA, to complement the existing educational curriculum and bring a higher level of information to youth.
We also have other programs, for instance, that engage directly with scientists, that help them recognize the importance of communication because it's not all about working in a lab and making discoveries. Researchers need to understand that a big part of their role is going out into the public and communicating their findings in a way that people can relate to and understand.
Thank you for the question, Denis.
I absolutely do agree with that, yes. We still need project-oriented research. We still need short-term research projects, yes. But we still need to have a strong baseline in fundamental research that answers questions that maybe aren't important to industry or society now but could be important later on.
This is the type of research that was done as recently as 30 years ago, answering some fundamental questions about the science, about the biology, without necessarily having a commercial goal in mind.
So yes, I would absolutely support that, somehow, public funding goes towards that type of support for researchers. These are very creative people; they're highly intelligent, highly trained. We should let them have some free rein, to let their creativeness bear fruit for Canada.
Hello, I'm Andrea Brocklebank, the Executive Director of the Beef Cattle Research Council, Canada's national industry beef research funding agency. It is responsible for the successful delivery of the first and second beef science cluster. I am pleased to be here today to speak about the role of innovation in our industry.
In 2012 the Canadian cattle industry contributed approximately $26 billion to Canada's GDP. The industry has tremendous opportunities due to continued growth in global beef demand and record high beef and cattle prices. At the same time, our industry faces increased production costs and increased competition for land, water, and labour resources from other expanding agriculture sectors. These opportunities and challenges are expected to remain for the foreseeable future.
Innovation is crucial to ensure that Canada's beef industry successfully addresses these challenges. Innovation allows us to use limited resources more efficiently, while continuing to be a global leader in beef quality and safety. The benefits of research go far beyond simple productivity improvements. Research also supports the development of science-based regulations and trade agreements. It is critical to maintaining consumer confidence in our beef production system and the safety, quality, and nutritional attributes of the product we produce.
These additional benefits of research—that is, sound policy, regulation, consumer confidence, and international trade—provide broad benefits not only for industry, but also society as a whole. Consequently, research funding is viewed to be an essential industry and government investment that contributes to industry resiliency and reduced dependence on government's ad-hoc and business risk management programs.
Agriculture Canada has made considerable efforts to streamline and focus its research programs over the past several decades. Over the same time period, the beef industry has implemented a national check-off to support research and technology transfer programs. The industry has also developed and implemented a comprehensive national beef research strategy. The strategy informed the priority research outcomes targeted under the second beef science cluster and is working to guide and influence the funding decisions of other major research funding agencies across Canada. Significant industry effort has been placed on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of applied forage, cattle and beef research funding allocations with a focus on reducing duplication and facilitating co-operation among Canada's beef research funding community.
The industry has accepted the responsibility to develop and lead the beef science cluster and the national beef research strategy. This has and will continue to encourage greater industry investment in and adoption of research. By bringing together Canada's largest industry and public research funders, the science clusters program is significantly improving government-industry co-operation in research. The second beef science cluster is a $20 million investment, $15 million in government funding and $5 million in industry funding.
Investments under the second beef science cluster have increased substantially and not only include the national check-off, but also additional funding from five provincial organizations. We are convinced that the beef science cluster is a very co-ordinated and efficient research model. However, the system can be refined further, beyond administrative details that can be addressed elsewhere.
Allocating research funding in discrete five-year blocks creates challenges for long-term projects. Research in animal breeding, perennial forages, and environmental field studies requires a much longer time frame in order to achieve meaningful results. Enhanced industry-government collaboration could also make research programming even more effective. More direct engagement of industry in the federal government's planning processes would ensure that Agriculture Canada's internal research infrastructure, staffing, and other programming decisions were aligned with the outcomes identified in the national beef research strategy.
Industry engagement is particularly important to ensuring that Agriculture Canada research staffing decisions are aligned with both industry and government priorities, and cuts are not made by attrition. Cuts through attrition gradually erode research programs. There is also benefit in working to transition the new replacement scientists prior to the retirement of the older, retiring scientists, thereby providing an opportunity for mentorship and ensuring that research momentum is not lost.
To take full advantage of the potential that research promises, we need to emphasize a few additional points. First, stable and, ideally, increased funding for federal research facilities, together with staff and programs, is essential to maintain the integrity of Canada's internationally renowned agricultural research system. Second, the federal government has a clear responsibility to continue supporting long-term, basic, high-risk research. This is the knowledge pipeline that ultimately leads to applied research that benefits industry and broader society. The fire station analogy is apt here: Fostering innovation and maintaining core research programs ensures that we have the physical and scientific capacity to respond to issues as they emerge, not when they become emergencies.
Industry has made considerable investments in “public good” areas of research. Research supported by the beef science clusters is providing science-based information to inform the beef cattle code of practice, as well as the work under way at the global round table for sustainable beef, to confidently and factually address ongoing questions regarding antimicrobial resistance and food safety. However, this does not diminish the federal government role in these areas.
Social license issues, which pertain to the public's perception of industry, are increasingly important. In many cases, research generates the facts that can effectively address social licence issues. Environment, antimicrobial resistance, and animal welfare are prime examples. However, in order to be viewed as credible, relevant research data must be collected and evaluated by an independent, impartial body.
In closing, I would like to summarize our three main recommendations. First, continued federal government support of both basic and applied research programming is critical to supporting industry advancement in a sustainable manner. Second, further enhancing engagement of industry in Agriculture Canada's decision-making regarding critical research infrastructure, staffing, and programming will help to ensure the most efficient use of resources. Third, meaningful progress in both basic and applied research streams is contingent on long-term, predictable, meaningful funding commitments that are preferably 10 years in length.
I would be pleased to elaborate further on any of these points or to answer any questions you may have.
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Good afternoon, and thank you very much for allowing the Canadian Livestock Genetics Association to make a presentation today.
For those of you who don't know, the Canadian Livestock Genetics Association looks into exporting live animal semen and embryos.
I'm going to outline some of the key challenges facing the Canadian genetics industry.
Basically, the loss of export markets for live animals is one of the key struggles we have been dealing with since BSE hit Canada. Of the live markets that are out there, Canada is no longer getting its share. The United States has really come ahead in marketing a lot of cattle, a lot more than we are in Canada have, percentage-wise.
With that comes a loss of the genetic and exporting infrastructure. We no longer have heifer growers. We no longer have exporters that do the marketing. Should we get a large market, we would be struggling to fulfill some of these markets with cattle, or otherwise
Canada is facing a high logistical cost for exporting live animals. We're not close to the markets anymore. The big market used to be the United States. It's no longer in North America, and it's very expensive to get cattle from Canada to other countries.
High-risk markets are becoming the norm. Those are markets like Kazakhstan, where they don't understand some of the current and modern animal health technologies—it's high risk for exporters doing business there—to working with countries like India, where they are developing also the same lines.
We see decreasing market development support, and that's becoming critical. We need to work hand in hand with our government to develop these markets. Industry is quite prepared to move forward in that direction, but we do need ongoing support from the government.
Capacity of the government agencies to accomplish technical negotiations in a timely manner is becoming very critical, and there are difficulties in negotiating health protocols to some of these emerging markets.
Those are some of the issue that we're facing.
I'm going to hit a couple of things to clarify and dig into them a little further, research being one of them. Research is a key to the long-term viability and seeing Canada as a leader in these markets. If we want to retain and regain that leadership role, we need to focus on research. We need a long-term commitment for funding to focus on genetic research and innovation. Our world-wide recognition that Canada is leadership is disappearing. The leading geneticists from Canada are now leaving the country. Where Canada used to be a magnet for genetic researchers, we're now seeing them move to other countries, like New Zealand and over to Europe. We're acutely aware of this and how it's going to affect our long-term viability. Other countries are basically building their research capacity using our best-trained people.
Moving to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, we're seeing a growing lack of capacity to develop export certificates. Again, this is going to be critical in the future, as we work on new free trade agreements with countries. We seem to have a lack of capacity, less and less people to work on the details of some of these agreements.
We need to strengthen our focus on animal health issues and programs to lower disease prevalence. This is one of the key things. We have to be innovative in how we're going to do this, and we have to be out of the gate a lot faster than we have been.
Again, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency needs to be a partner with industry, and we need to make sure that our domestic animal health programs do not put our domestic industry at a global disadvantage. We can't make them too stringent, too tough, too hard for producers and exporters to be part of, and that's a concern.
We have to be able to utilize new technologies for disease testing and for export. These technologies are out there, but it seems slow to be adapted into government regulations.
We need a government that is ready to support industry by creating flexible programs to enhance our competitiveness through partnering and funding. I mentioned that earlier, and it's a big part of market development, but we need to be really innovative. Some of these smaller companies don't have access to the capital, so another item might be capital access for companies wanting to develop genetic exports.
We need to see our key negotiators travel to markets to support industry. Whether it's negotiating an animal health certificate, we need to be able to get them there to finalize these negotiations and get them completed.
We need a government that actively supports exporters in conflict resolution and defending its trade rules. We see that happening, and we need that to continue.
We need access to specialized funds and insurance programs for exporters that are now taking unparalleled risks. Some of these programs, through capital and insurance, can really make the difference in how we can see competitively around the world what we're going up against.
We would like to see the expanding of the much-needed funding in the AgriMarketing program—we have seen that decrease a bit over the years—and possibly more participants in it. It's a key program that our exporting industry uses to develop markets, so we have to be innovative in those new market developments and how we're going to get our share, how we're going to be the first in and get that market share.
We need supportive, innovative, leading research and development that focuses on improving the Canadian genetic products that other countries demand. I mentioned earlier that it's getting to the point where we're seeing our leading geneticists leave our country, so we need a long-term strategy for research.
Also, we need to reinvest in these key research platforms. Universities that want to cut leading researchers or not refill the positions when they retire are part of the problem. We need a long-term strategy on how to keep these key people.
We have to co-develop demonstration farms in key markets. I think this is a big part of what can really set Canada apart from other countries. We need to show our innovation and our genetics, but we need to profile them in the foreign country's conditions.
That kind of co-developing of a Canadian farm or of Canadian genetics benefits more than just the genetic industry. It also supports a broad group of Canadian agribusinesses that are involved in farm production. We see a lot of countries beating us out of the gate in these development strategies in other countries. Canada needs to be a little more innovative and a little quicker to get involved in some of these types of ventures.
All in all, the Canadian livestock genetics industry applauds the hard work done by the various governmental departments and Minister in aggressively opening new markets and promoting Canadian genetics around the world. The genetics industry has made excellent use of the AgriMarketing program for developing new markets and we would like to see this program strengthened. We also would like to see a long-term strategy to keep research in Canada and to regain our position as world leaders.
Again, the CLGA would like to thank the committee for letting us have this time.
Thank you.
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High risk research is research where you're looking at things that don't necessarily derive value to industry immediately. So industry struggles to sometimes invest in it.
But on the food safety file, for example, it's the long-term evolution of food safety issues—something like E. coli, where you need constant investment—which really speaks to having that capacity available as things emerge, so that you're not trying to address them reactively but proactively.
Basic research also includes things like feed grain and genetic development, and all of those types of investments. To some extent, especially in the beef industry and in western Canada, the profiles of the feed grains that we use are not easily integrated into private research programs, because of the fact that you can save seed on the farm. So public investment is necessary when you speak about barley, wheat, and those types of things. Those are long-term programs, 10 years plus, to get results.
Speaking to the second part of that question, you need continual funding. One of the things we see with the current programming of five years is gaps in funding, which is when you lose capacity because they're looking for that long-term funding to attract graduate students to their programs. It's that difference between project-based funding and program-based funding. Sometimes it doesn't always need to be 10 years in length, but sometimes for certain stuff it does. When you have gaps, that's when you see issues and the departure of individuals.
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The leverage under the cluster is 3:1, so it's industry putting up $5 million, and then government putting up $15 million. The majority of that is from Ag Canada, but there is a small amount of other government funding.
In terms of how we leverage it further, I think it's very important to point out that in the beef industry it's cash on the table. We count no incoming contributions, or any of those things, and there are significant amounts in there. It's just easier from an accounting standpoint for us.
But, obviously, that specific program is underneath, and those researchers have much larger programs so they're getting investments from all of the other provinces. It's those types of things.
In terms of how we allocate the research, the clusters and the process and some of the issues that we saw absolutely revolutionized how we approached research. Previously we'd look at programs on an annual basis; we'd fund some proposals, and there we would go. What happened is that we weren't looking at a portfolio of research, so it was often the trend of the day that was addressed to the greatest extent. However, that's where you see the departure of research, because if food safety wasn't the highest priority, it didn't get money that year. That sent a signal to government that we weren't interested—and that's very much not the case.
We've made strategic allocations. Basically, we have beef quality and food safety getting a portion of investment. For feeds and forages, animal health and welfare, we've tried to identify very clear outcomes over the five years and develop priorities underneath. The exciting part about that is we're also working with the other funders to ensure that their programs are addressing the ones that the cluster isn't.
And I thank the witnesses for coming.
What we've been hearing quite a few times, as we've embarked on this study, is that there's a shortage of long-term vision and long-term planning and strategizing for our industries to grow and prosper in technology and innovation. You see, not just with agriculture but any industries that have done well in the world, that government has played a key role. When you see in Israel all the technology that they're coming out with, or Germany, or wherever, and that it starts in schools or at very young ages and that it goes all the way through, you understand that this environment has to be there.
It's very disturbing to see that we spend a lot of time and have our brightest and best leaving us to go to other countries where they see that their skills can be used. They probably see that there is some commitment there. That said, if we as government at present are funding innovation and technology in an ad hoc way without really working with the industries and looking at the bigger picture, we'll keep falling behind.
Let's compare some of these other countries. What are they doing better than we are to foster better scientists, better research, better synergy between all stakeholders? How can we change what we're doing here? Is it that we should be working better with the provinces and other stakeholders within the government circles?
I'll start off with you, Mr. Hall.
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The beef industry understood that they had some work to do and, frankly, the clusters helped their becoming more coordinated by having that consistent strategy. But now it's also about getting not only participation beyond.... The cluster is part of it, but so are other AgCanada programming, other Government of Canada programming, and also our provincial research programming.
I remember talking to one researcher about the fact that he had a really strong program and he had adequate funding, but it was coming from 15 to 20 different funding sources, each of which has an annual report and a final report. Researchers become inundated by that administration, and they are not allowed to do their research to the greatest effectiveness.
That's where we've tried to work as an industry, so we'll say to another funder, “If you're going to play in that arena, we'll focus here”, knowing that as long as the work is being done, that's the objective. We're trying to give our researchers a bit more time to do research and not to have to grapple with finding adequate funding for their programming. So we're trying to be more strategic with our allocations.
I think there's some continued work to be done in terms of the federal-provincial arrangements, because each province has its own research funding and possibly several pots of it. That's one of the challenges. Adequate funding is part of it, but so are the consistency and number of funders that you have to access.
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Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I will go into some of the discussion and the things we've talked about.
A few moments ago, Mr. Hoback talked about the difference as far as being able to get researchers into certain areas goes. As he was suggesting, in the grain sector, where it looks as though there are many different opportunities, for various reasons, for the products we're looking at, I think that's an issue. Of course, if you're looking at being able to bring industry in, you can bring in these researchers we were talking about. I see the dilemma we're in under the circumstances there.
One of the other things that were discussed was how wheat research is able to move forward, but in one of your answers earlier, you spoke about a concern or an issue with feed barley and the profiles that were expected from there. You said one of the issues was with farm saved seed. I'm just wondering if you could expand on where you were going with that, so that we can see how we can maybe fit this into some of our discussions.
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I guess one of the other things, too, when we were speaking earlier...and I believe Michael was talking about it as well. I certainly lived through this as well with BSE and so on, and of course with the SRMs. There are the concerns that we have here, if we have one market in Canada, and the issues that are related to what we have in our neighbours to the south. A lot of this has been blown out of proportion.
Of course the Canadian agriculture industry and the beef producers have had to suffer with this for a long, long time. It was a case of someone taking an issue, which of course was significant, and looking at all the potential negatives they could find from it to, in my opinion, make a good news story. Unfortunately, it devastated the industry.
I know that Michael talked about this and about the health protocols in emerging markets and expanding in that particular area, and also about some of the concerns we have with high-risk markets and how they are becoming the norm. Do you have something you could comment on in that regard?
I see that Michael is back again, but perhaps you could just comment on that and then Michael could address my question on health protocols with emerging markets.
Andrea, perhaps you wouldn't mind going first.
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Absolutely. Although a lot of our research, you could say, is directed towards improving productivity for producers, ultimately, if they're using less water and are more feed efficient, there are fewer days on feed and they produce less manure. All of those things are ultimately part of your sustainability as well.
Because I've been around these discussions before, I think it's important to point out that often the beef industry is the first that's sought to go, but over 50% of land in Canada cannot be sewn into crops at this current point, and if water is an issue, that's likely to continue.
Frankly, there we have an advantage as to some of the other protein sectors, but that's where we need to look at how we extend grazing so that we can keep those animals, because it's currently about 80%. How do you do those things, how do you improve water use? We're doing sustainability assessments right now to establish those benchmarks, to figure out where we are relative to the global framework, but then also how we move forward to identify opportunities for improvement.
It's very much positioning ourselves with benchmarks, but also then optimizing that through improved feed efficiency, water use, manure management, and those types of things.