Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Agriculture and Forestry
Issue 28 - Evidence - Meeting of February 7, 2013
OTTAWA, Thursday, February 7, 2013
The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry met this day at 8:05 a.m. to examine and report on research and innovation efforts in the agricultural sector (topics: innovation in the agriculture and agri-food sector from the producers' perspective; and the impact of investment at the federal level on industry players from an academic perspective); and for the consideration of a draft budget.
Senator Percy Mockler (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: I welcome all senators and witnesses to the meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry. My name is Percy Mockler, senator from New Brunswick and chair of the committee. I would like to start by asking each senator to introduce themselves.
Senator Mercer: Senator Terry Mercer, from Halifax.
[Translation]
Senator Robichaud: Good morning. I am Fernand Robichaud, from St-Louis-de-Kent in New Brunswick.
[English]
Senator Callbeck: Senator Callbeck, Prince Edward Island.
Senator Merchant: Pana Merchant, from Saskatchewan.
Senator Buth: JoAnne Buth, from Manitoba.
Senator Eaton: Welcome. Nicole Eaton, Ontario.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: Welcome. Ghislain Maltais, from Quebec.
[English]
Senator Oh: Victor Oh. I am the new senator from Ontario.
[Translation]
Senator Rivard: Senator Michel Rivard, from the Laurentides in Quebec.
The Chair: Thank you very much, honourable senators.
The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry is continuing its study on innovation efforts in the agricultural sector.
[English]
Today we will have two witnesses. For the first hour, we will be hearing about innovation in the agriculture and agri-food sector from the producers' perspective. The second hour will be focusing on the impact of investment, at the federal level, on the industry players from an academic point of view.
The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry was authorized to examine and report on research and innovation efforts in the agricultural sector in particular. The committee was authorized to examine research and development efforts in the context of developing new markets, domestically and internationally, enhancing agricultural sustainability and improving food diversity and security.
Mr. William Zylmans is the Owner/Operator of W & A Farms Inc. Thank you for accepting our invitation. I now invite you to make your presentation, which will be followed by questions from the senators.
William (Bill) Zylmans, Owner/Operator, W & A Farms Inc.: Thank you very much. It is an honour and pleasure to be here today representing W & A Farms. My wife and I, who own W & A Farms, are really proud to be able to come to speak to you. To begin, I will tell you a little bit about myself and my operation.
I am a lifetime farmer in Richmond, British Columbia. I operate a diverse farm consisting of seed potatoes, strawberries, a variety of vegetables et cetera. We have a direct farming market where we sell directly to the public. I have a commercial seed potato brokering and buying operation, providing seed potatoes to local farmers across the Prairie provinces and into the United States, right down to the Mexican border. I have a small Aberdeen Angus herd for beef production.
I am married with two children, both currently in university, one in Eastern Canada and one in British Columbia. Neither of them at this time have any plans to carry on the family farm. I think they are really trying to hold me to ransom for a better deal on the farm when I decide to retire. Of course, they do not realize yet that all that means is that I raised them to think innovatively on their own; at least I sure hope I did.
Most farm innovation has developed over time, through trial and error in the early farming days, moving toward more technical and scientific approaches in the more modern times of today. It is generally safe to say that most innovation adapted or initiated by farmers is to decrease costs of production and/or increase production of the overall farm, all for the benefit of economic gain or, as most farmers tend to call it, profit.
The majority of the early transformation was not seen as major innovation but as small processes provided by the farmer himself to better work the land or develop the equipment on it. From the old hand plows to the tractor, small incremental improvements were the norm. There were, however, several major leaps, such as the gasoline engine, and so on, through to the diesel engine used today. While there have been additional major leaps, such as incorporating GPS systems onboard tractors to capture better use of the labour, thus cost saving, innovation today on farms is almost solely, but not always, for the purpose of reducing the cost of farming.
Innovation can come at a farmer in many ways: first, farm process innovation — small incremental processes to reduce the costs, such as crop shifts, capturing changing demographics, culture, diets, direct marketing, et cetera; second, industry process innovation — new and better chemicals and chemical application processes, both cost-saving and more environmentally friendly; and third, government research has been an important part through Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada research stations, including the Pesticide Management Research Agency and the Minor Use Working Group committees, which look at plant health, new varieties, chemicals, pests, et cetera. All assist the farmer in gaining knowledge or improved growing opportunities, hopefully to increase and improve production or assist in bringing about cost reductions.
Most farmers will react to market shifts but may not be pure innovative drivers themselves. A circumstance happening in the market condition will trigger reactions — a new approach in market shift, usually small and incremental but almost classed as innovative approaches. An example on my farm is a "full circle" approach, whereby my Angus beef cattle eat vegetable waste and potatoes as well as their regular food. In turn, the manure is used to provide nutrient values to enrich the soil for crop production. Another full-circle approach on my farm is the composting of waste food to place back on the fields to produce food for the local food bank under a partnership agreement.
Industry process innovation, such as new equipment and better performance, have also occurred recently, mostly in small incremental changes rather than radical changes, and have proven to be beneficial to the farmer. In the past, research has provided both incremental and radical innovative changes. While some may have been seen as incremental to the researcher, to the farmer they have been seen as radical. For example, potato research is a national scheme rather than regional or provincial. This gives our industry, thus my farm, far better research opportunities. As well, potato variety trials held in different regions in British Columbia and across Canada assist our potato growers to take advantage of regional differences, such as soil structure, market conditions, weather conditions and local disease issues, et cetera.
In British Columbia, our industry works very well with the B.C. Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation. I, as co- founder of the Spuds in Tubs program, work with AIC to help teach the younger non-farm generation the benefit of fresh food and general knowledge of how food is grown. Another agricultural example, while not specific to potatoes, would be adaptation of rapeseed into canola by changing the plant structure to reduce the uric acid, allowing the development of canola seed for canola oil that is extremely practical for home use worldwide. Canola is a major Canadian crop for our prairie farmers.
Currently, farmers are dealing with additional incremental changes, mostly through government initiatives, with changes in support for both risk management and traditional plant research. We see regulatory requirements changing on packaging and more fees for the cost of recycling, which may or may not provide opportunities for our sector. Farmers will assess these changes independently in terms of the effect on their overall operation. One standard that all seek to achieve is profitability, which seems to be the forgotten goal when the buzz word "sustainability" is tossed around today. Farmers have noted that there are less fully funded support programs available today, such as AgriRecovery, AgriStability and AgriInvest. It is expected that these trends will continue. Another notable issue on the horizon today is global climate change, which needs to be drilled down to gauge the impact on each local farm in our province.
While the above is not an exhaustive list, it provides you with some local, regional and national examples of small incremental steps that I believe can be classed as innovative. As noted, most innovation is undertaken today to reduce costs thus adding value to the farms. I also believe we will continue to see innovation over the years as technology changes and as adaptation by our future generation of farmers continues.
Senator Buth: Clearly, you have an extremely diversified operation. It is interesting to see how you have integrated different components. What is the most challenging part of your operation?
Mr. Zylmans: On a daily basis, the number one issue we are facing is labour, which is becoming extremely difficult to sustain. The cost of labour is over the top. In a diverse operation like we have, we find it really hard to stay competitive in the marketplace with the different components of growing vegetables and strawberries and other types of programs.
Senator Buth: Are you using any immigrant temporary workers?
Mr. Zylmans: We are not doing that at this time. We are close to a large Indian population. We have been able to bring in contractors who bring us a good supply of labour on a regular basis. Unfortunately, that labour force is becoming a little older and it is hard to get the younger generations involved in agriculture.
Senator Buth: That is interesting.
I also note that you have been involved in the horticulture council. The horticulture sector was involved in the Canadian Agri-Science Clusters Initiative. Did you have any experience with that program? Could you offer any comments in terms of the delivery of that program?
Mr. Zylmans: I work closely with the research components in the potato sector on this. We are going down the right track to get the cluster to become more innovative and usable for all agriculture in Canada. Currently, it is a little immature, but over time we will gain a lot of extra knowledge and usage across Canada.
In the past we found that way too many people in different provinces are not communicating with each other and so we had duplication. The cluster program and the efforts to get everyone communicating have helped to reduce the duplication.
Senator Buth: You talked before we started the meeting about getting farmers off the farm and involved in understanding more of the business of the whole value chain. Can you make some comments on that?
Mr. Zylmans: You heard me speak about the extensive list of components of what I do. It is difficult to go to a meeting and find that the general farmers between the ages of 48 years and retirement are not really involved off the farm with other things to know where their markets are going. We find that the older generations, if I may say, are focusing more on what they have done in the past and where they are today instead of being able to see innovation and adapt to change. Most of them just retire for lack of a better way to deal with it. They pack it in. With the new rules around food safety, the environment and recycling, some growers have said that it is simply too much for them and they are done. They have done it for 50 years, and they are not going to continue, so they just pack it in. Their children have left the farm for a better life and a better career.
As I mentioned, it seems to almost be a swear word to use the term "profitability" in agriculture. One way to become more innovative and get young people involved with agriculture today is to bring profitability back into farming. Sustainability is not good enough anymore. When I started farming back in the 1970s, when I took over my father's operation, there was profit in agriculture. There was a time when you could all go out and buy something new. We do not see that any longer. It is hard to get the new people involved, and the older people are getting tired and do not want to follow off and get on to new jobs and see what is going on.
Personally, I travel a lot. I make a lot of contacts and I do a lot of sales on the road. You come home with new ideas, and sometimes my pipe dream is little too long and my wife brings me back to reality, but the important thing is we see that. Unfortunately, we do not see that in agriculture. The farmers are too busy at home trying to make a living. At the end of the day, they are tired, worn down and just need to rest.
Senator Mercer: Mr. Zylmans, I am very impressed with your operation. How many acres do you farm?
Mr. Zylmans: Just over 500 right now.
Senator Mercer: What is the number of employees you have?
Mr. Zylmans: I have seven full-time employees. In the harvest season and in the summer we go up to 50.
Senator Mercer: That is a good-sized operation in anyone's mind.
I want to talk a little bit about labour, but first I want to talk about something that you did not go into detail on that was in your written presentation, about being involved with the agricultural community in the City of Richmond: Chairman of the City of Richmond's Agriculture Advisory Committee, Chairman of Metro Vancouver's Agriculture Advisory Committee, and the Director of Delta Farmers' Institute. Those are pretty urban centres from the perspective of those of us who do not live in British Columbia. I am impressed by the fact that there is a City of Richmond Agriculture Advisory Committee and that there is a Metro Vancouver Agriculture Advisory Committee. Tell me about their operations and the integration of thinking about agriculture as they are thinking about urban development in both Richmond and Vancouver.
Mr. Zylmans: It is interesting you have gone down that road because I probably am the largest land farmer left in the City of Richmond. Today many people have gone back to gardening and thinking about buying local and the greeneries, and so we become a lot more conscientious about our agricultural components and our agricultural land base that is still left in our area. Therefore, in order to let the alderman and the mayors and city staff understand what is really going on, they need the expertise from people like me and others who can bring them back to reality and tell them how important it is to have agriculture in their community and how we need to work together to make it work and educate them in the needs and wants and wishes of what agriculture still needs in these areas. If you are not willing to further those needs, then you must understand that it is not feasible for us to operate there.
In turn, what it really means is for the cities to put their money where their mouth is. If they really want agriculture, they must react to the needs of agriculture.
Metro Vancouver, being as large a city as it is, still has a few farms. The University of British Columbia used to have one of the largest research stations in the country but has basically dissolved in the agriculture of today. It has virtually a couple of curricula, but really agriculture is not there anymore. The municipalities are working with people like us to better understand what is still needed for the communities. We tend to sit down on a regular basis and educate each other on what our needs and wishes are toward each other.
A small example is the large potato theft that happened last August in our area. That happened to be on one of my farms. It ran across the country and in the end we lost a lot of potatoes. There were probably 700,000 pounds of potatoes stolen off our farm, but when everything is really bad, there is good that comes out of it. The good is that we educated a lot of people about respect and about agriculture. It was probably the best three days that the potato industry had had in Canada for over the last 15 years and it was great for our industry.
Education is a key factor today. As I said, we are trying to educate the children more about agriculture, but also the people who run the areas need to be educated as well because they are so far removed.
Senator Mercer: That leads into my next question, which is about the Agriculture in the Classroom program. Could you tell us about that, how it operates and how it integrates an agricultural community into the education system? Perhaps you could continue on from what you were just saying.
Mr. Zylmans: Agriculture in the Classroom is under the school system and partially sponsored by the provincial government. About nine years ago, the lady in charge, Lindsay Babineau, came to see me about what we could do to get the children involved with something new in the classroom. When I went to school, we used to grow beans in paper towels. There was not much excitement about doing that. She said, "You are the potato guru, Mr. Zylmans, what can you tell us?" I told her that we can do this: We have taken compost, topsoil, slow-release fertilizers, plastic tubs and provided them with a seed potato.
This is a full circle in the school. They "green sprout" the potato on their desk, then they plant them in the soil four inches deep. They measure, water and watch the plant grow, and in turn they harvest them. Of course, all the way they are measuring, competing with each other as to whose potato is growing faster than the others. At the end they harvest and have a large, afternoon cookout at the school where they actually boil the new potatoes. These are what we call the nugget potatoes.
In B.C. we grow a Warba variety, which is called the nugget, and it comes onto the store shelves around Mother's Day. Lo and behold, when I chose this project, these children had gone home around Mother's Day and had just had these new potatoes. My marketing scheme tells me that we go on the radio and market fresh, new, nugget potatoes on the store shelves, and going through the children is the way to get through to their stomach.
We have been able to integrate the whole potato circle with the commercial industry and everyone benefits.
Senator Mercer: You are not just a good farmer, you are a good salesman.
I am interested in a term you used about where you get your temporary workers. I was unclear whether your workers were South Asian or Aboriginal Canadians.
Mr. Zylmans: They are South Asian.
Senator Mercer: Many of them are new Canadians. Have you needed to use foreign temporary workers to this point?
Mr. Zylmans: Not yet.
Senator Mercer: Do you think you are reaching the point where you may have to?
Mr. Zylmans: We are coming closer every year. Right now is the time of year when I hire a lot of new people to start the year off, and it is probably my most frustrating point in every year to try and find new people. Unfortunately, this year is worse than I have ever seen it. We may be getting closer to that all the time.
Senator Mercer: Your seed potato operation is a unique part of the industry. You say that you have exports to Alberta and to the U.S., down to the Mexican-U.S. border. Whatever volume of measurement you use, how many potatoes do you export?
Mr. Zylmans: I export probably about two thirds of my production. Of course, I buy and sell a lot more on top of that. I used to go into Mexico up until about 10 years ago when the red tape became too long and too hard to deal with and I pulled out of that market. Probably about 3,000 tonnes go into the United States. I buy and sell in and out of the Prairies a couple of thousand tonnes as well.
[Translation]
Senator Rivard: Thank you for your presentation, Mr. Zylmans. At the end of your brief, you say that we should gauge the impact of climate change on our regions, provinces, and on Canada as a whole. As a producer, you are on the front lines. Could you tell us about the repercussions you have noticed over the past five years? What kind of changes have taken place, and what consequences have they had on your production?
[English]
Mr. Zylmans: On the potato side of my operation, we can no longer grow 120-day-plus potatoes. With the climate changes that have occurred, we have had to cut back on some varieties that need that length of time. We are also finding that the real warm weather veggies are not working well for us. We have to be very careful about what varieties of squash and corn we choose. We are constantly striving to find shorter-duration crops that need less heat units.
We have lost a large portion of our strawberry industry. We no longer have a processing industry, partly due to climate change.
[Translation]
Senator Rivard: Our country is preparing to sign a free trade agreement with the European Union. As a farmer, do you approve of that agreement, or do you rather fear that Europe will take over, as we hope that such an agreement will be a market facilitator for our producers? What is your opinion on that?
[English]
Mr. Zylmans: I think that in the vegetable industry we will be in a losing situation. There may be a benefit to grain on the Prairies. I do not see a lot of change in potatoes. Today I am already competing consistently with imports from China in fresh produce. Broccoli, for instance, arrives in Vancouver from China at certain times of the year more cheaply than I can produce it.
I think we will be faced with a very tough time, especially on the West Coast where weather patterns are so extreme and can change quickly. I do not think that it will be beneficial to us. I say that because, although the crops may be the same, we are not on the same playing field. Input costs are different in other countries. We have a real problem with that right now just with the imports from the other side of the border. They use chemicals that we cannot use. Their input costs are less, including labour costs. If we can achieve a level playing field with everything equal on both sides of the table, we might have a chance to survive. Right now, however, I see us struggling very seriously in agriculture.
Senator Merchant: You speak to children in the schools and you have children of your own. Are you optimistic or pessimistic when you speak to them about a future in agriculture? I heard you saying that young people are looking for a better life off the farm. Is that true? How do you define a better life? Is it profit oriented? You said we must talk about profits. What do you do to encourage people to stay on the land and take up farming? We need them.
Mr. Zylmans: That is true. I spend a fair amount of time talking to young children in classrooms. It is moving and exciting for me to do this. I was in 4-H for 11 years and I was a 4-H leader for 10 years after that, so I saw how we have changed over time. Children in grades 2 and 3 get all excited when a farmer walks in with his cowboy hat and his cowboy boots on. Then reality kicks in. When the children of farmers become 16, 17 or 18-year-olds they say, "Dad, you work too hard. There is an easier life."
We have stopped talking about finances on the farm at our kitchen table, because it does not help the younger people to understand when you are having a tough time making ends meet. Our children's friends are talking about their families going to Hawaii and Disneyland, and to other places in the summer months, while the farmers have to stay at home and work.
Farming is not a passion for the young folk today as it was when I left school. I was probably a farmer before I was a student. School was secondary in my books. When I got out of school, I went farming. Two of my friends went into construction and four of my friends went into university. We have all done very well. It was all about dollars and cents at that time, but it is even more so with the young people today.
When I attend meetings and look around the room, I see that we do not have young people involved on the farms anymore, and that is primarily because we have lost profitability. Young people are much smarter today than we were. The children look at the bottom line of the balance sheet. They do not want to work that hard for that amount of money when they can work five days a week and then have the weekend off.
We have lost the passion that once existed in agriculture. We struggle today to survive in the industry. It is tough to convey to young people that there is more to agriculture than just a job. It is rewarding to plant a seed, see it grow and harvest the fruits of your labour. However, that is something that is either in you or not. It is something you have to enjoy, like any job.
We are trying to get some excitement back into it for the younger folk today, but it is a struggle.
Senator Merchant: Some young adults idolize the country life. I see that in Saskatchewan. What is their most difficult challenge? If there is not a family farm that they can perhaps take over, what is the biggest challenge for people who may want to go into agriculture?
Mr. Zylmans: I have mentored some of those young people and had them working with me on the farm. The financial situation is a big dilemma today. If a young person from a different walk of life wants to start farming, they need a lot of capital to get started. It is virtually impossible for a young person to ask a bank for a couple of million dollars to start this project. Where is their backing, their support, their knowledge base? How do they suppose this will work? You have to be a very good salesman to sell yourself with that approach. It is very difficult for anyone to start in agriculture if they do not have a family history of farming to get them started.
I have seen some people who have worked hard for a farmer and begun to do some farming on their own, utilizing the boss's equipment. They have started that way. However, those cases are few and far between.
Senator Eaton: Mr. Zylmans, just to get back to the trade, because our government is really very interested in international trade, you said that you feel we are at a disadvantage when we sign on with the EU. Would you feel the same about the Pacific if we entered into talks in the TPP, for instance, or with Korea and Japan? In negotiations, do they not try to level the playing field? For instance, in Europe, with GMO products, they put up non-tariff barriers with our honey. Surely we could ourselves put up source traceability, non-chemicals, could we not, or do we not? Do you feel you have good representation with our trade negotiators?
Mr. Zylmans: I think we need to do a lot more discussion amongst ourselves to really get a proper handle on what we really need to be able to be on that level playing field. I do not believe our negotiators right now have the real insight to what is really needed from the grassroots at my level. I still believe that we will be at a disadvantage in most agricultural components right now. We need to do a lot more homework, and we need to get to the same area. One of the ones that I do not know how we will achieve is our labour. For a lot of product, our labour is just over the top for agriculture. I use labour as the example, but —
Senator Eaton: Sorry, let us go into that point. Is our labour expensive because of the benefits that go along with the source salary? What makes our labour so much more expensive?
Mr. Zylmans: Our cost of living is high and as a comparison to the workforce we have to pay a large dollar to our labour force; otherwise, we cannot even find anyone that will come to the farm.
Senator Eaton: So our labour costs are much more expensive than the U.S.'s, for instance?
Mr. Zylmans: They are, yes.
Senator Eaton: Do we have a minimum wage and they do not? Are they heavily subsidized? How does it work?
Mr. Zylmans: The minimum wage in British Columbia right now is $10.25 an hour. In all fairness, that is really not even enough to survive on in our economy. We are probably a pretty expensive province to live in for that respect. The same person doing the same job 15 miles away from me on the other side of the border in Lynden, Washington, that employee, top dollar, gets $10 an hour. My tractor driver gets $18.50 an hour. Their tractor driver gets $9 an hour. There is no difference. The tractors are the same. The diesel is almost the same on both sides of the border. We are only talking 15 miles apart.
Senator Robichaud: Is the worker American, or are they workers that are just brought in for a certain time and then they go back?
Mr. Zylmans: It can be both. If I need a tractor repaired, right now mechanics up our way are $85 an hour. If I take that tractor across the border to have it repaired in the U.S., it is $60 an hour. When the dollar is at par, as it is today, where should I be going with my repairs? It is not fair for me to do that, but these are the things that face agriculture today. These are real.
Senator Eaton: Yes, but these are the things we want to find out. The sophisticated consumer seems more and more interested in traceability and sourcing of things, and hormone-free, pesticide-free. Do you not see any of those things entering into the negotiation? Why are we importing all those vegetables from China if they have pesticides and things? If the Canadian consumer knew about them, they would probably choose the local food source. Is that because we are not marketing well enough, or is that because we are not negotiating well enough?
Mr. Zylmans: It is neither me marketing nor you negotiating. It is the retailer looking at his bottom line for profitability, and that is where the bottom line is. If you go into a store today and look at a product, whether it is a leafy lettuce or an onion or a carrot, it will either say "Canada or U.S." or "Canada or import." Why is "Canadian" not in large letters, and why is it not highly promoted as being Canadian?
Senator Eaton: In Ontario, we do. Every season we have "Buy Ontario," and they have large advertisements for fruit and vegetables. "This is the season — buy Ontario."
Mr. Zylmans: I guess that is not consistent throughout Canada because in B.C. we hardly ever see a large umbrella that says, "This is the season — fill up on it today." There will be a short period of time that you will see a sign that says "local," and it would not be any larger than my name on the card. In most cases, it will be "Canada or U.S." or "Canada or import," and they use it in either way. You really do not know from where you are buying your product. The general public are like sheep. They can be led any way they wish to be. You can put the U.S. product on this corner and the local one here, and it could be a dollar for the local and it could be 75 cents for the import. As a consumer, which one will you take?
Senator Eaton: Well, if I can trace that one, I would take that one.
Mr. Zylmans: That is you. The general public, at the end of the day, outside on a survey, will answer all your questions correctly, but when they walk into the store, they are going to go for cheaper — not necessarily healthier, but cheaper. On the U.S. side of the border, they have chemicals that we have not allowed and we will not allow, and we have the highest food safety standards anywhere.
Senator Eaton: All right, so why are we allowed to import those vegetables?
Mr. Zylmans: It is the retailers who —
Senator Eaton: But why are the retailers allowed to import those vegetables? Other countries have put up bans to some Canadian products, like GMO products or honey. Why do we not do the same?
Mr. Zylmans: I guess it is because of a trade issue. We ran into this scenario with potatoes on several occasions, where we may not allow something across the border, and we call it a light tariff. They will nail us for what we need to export. We need the United States in our industry a lot stronger than they need us, because we do not have products 12 months of the year. We need California products, even though they are in a frost freeze right now and you cannot buy a head of lettuce right now because they are in trouble. We need their products, and so we have to be very cautious in how we treat that border. We are the underdogs in this situation.
I am dealt with on a regular basis in the summertime, whether it is on beans or cucumbers or peas or broccoli: "Mr. Zylmans, you want $10 a case for your product, but we will give you $9 and that is it, because otherwise we will buy it elsewhere; take it or leave it, Mr. Zylmans." What do I do? It is a perishable product. No one has the high standards that we have here in Canada: traceability, food safety, all of this. It does not matter. At the end of the day, it is price that dictates what you are going to buy and what you really want.
Senator Callbeck: Thank you for being here and for your presentation. You certainly grow a lot of product on your farm, as well as selling beef. You mentioned selling directly to the customer. Do you sell everything you grow directly to the customer except those seed potatoes?
Mr. Zylmans: I even sell the seed potatoes to the customers as well. Every commodity that I grow on my farm, I sell directly to the public as well as wholesale. Beef has been the latest addition that I put into my mix. I used to sell a lot of purebred cattle. I started my purebred Angus herd when I was nine years old, and I sold purebred heifers and bulls across Western Canada as well. When BSE hit, the bottom fell out of our beef industry, and I was hauling a trailer load of cattle to the auction and coming home with a bill.
That did not work very well in my mathematical equation, so I had to find a better way. The $5,000 bulls were $800 after that, so we thought, "We have all of these fresh fruits and vegetables; why do we not just start selling natural beef? We cannot call it organic, but it is natural." It has been one of my biggest hits since we have started doing that because we market it that way, and the consumers are appreciating it. There is a lot of education going on there. We are communicating. We are learning, and so people are appreciating the natural component. They are appreciating the organic, and so that has been great.
However, we see that you have to keep feeding something new into the mix to keep the general public coming. One thing that I stand for is that I do not sell what I do not grow. If you are looking for oranges or bananas, do not come to my operation. What is in season I will promote heavily, broadly and do a very good job at it. That is what is on sale, and that is what is in. The people are aware of that, and it is an educational component as well.
Senator Callbeck: What percentage do you sell to wholesale, roughly?
Mr. Zylmans: For the fresh fruit and vegetables, probably 60 per cent.
Senator Callbeck: As for the main challenges in selling direct to the customers, I know you have talked about labour, but what else? What are the main challenges here?
Mr. Zylmans: If I could say it, it is virtually a cakewalk compared to wholesalers and exporting because you can sell a product that might be a little bit blemished for a reduced price, and everyone is a winner. I do not lose the product, and the consumer gets a deal. If a cauliflower is a tad yellow versus crystal white, they are not going to be concerned about it. If I go to a wholesaler, they will condemn me. Consumers are really an easy target for us, and it is a constant for us. We understand where it is. The problem that I think we have with the general public today, as a direct marketing component, is that the younger generation only buy what they need for about 24 hours. Our operation was started in 1952, and we are still catering a lot to families and people that buy volume. If you are buying one potato, one carrot and two onions, I do not really think that my place is the place to come when you have to drive 8 kilometres to my operation.
We see that the population is shifting. On top of that — and this is where we are probably struggling more than anything right now — the demographic of Vancouver is changing. We have a large influence from the Chinese and Japanese, and we do not grow a lot of their typical vegetables yet in this country. We have a problem with that; some of those vegetables that they really like and want are very labour intensive for us because we do not grow them on a regular basis. It is a challenge to move in that direction. It is somewhere I think we need to go, especially in British Columbia, when in Richmond alone 80 per cent of the population today is Asian.
Senator Callbeck: One other area I wanted to ask you about is innovation. You say in your brief that innovation can come at a farmer in many ways. How do farmers learn about government research?
Mr. Zylmans: Well, through their organized committees. I am a chair of the potato and vegetable committee in our area. We have workshops, annual meetings and district meetings to enlighten the general farming community about what research is being done. It is a bit of a hard sell. It is not as easy as it once was because it has become a lot more difficult to reach. We have a bit of a gap in the components. We have the farmers who are convinced that what they do is right and who say, "Do not change me." We have the next generation of younger farmers who are into it and are on their computers constantly. They have picked up all the latest and newest, and so we have a disconnect. We do not have a transition going on yet, unless there is really good communication between the young and the old.
We have just started, through Growing Forward 2, a national scheme on research.
About a year ago, when I was here in Ottawa at a meeting, we found out that there were researchers in British Columbia doing the same thing as researchers in P.E.I., but neither one of them knew what the other was doing. There, again, we have some really young, exciting researchers, and we have some older generation researchers who are basically very comfortable doing what they are doing. We have to get them to communicate as well so that we are not duplicating and so that our government monies are being spent wisely. For the same project, let us spend on one.
Senator Callbeck: Is there a process set up now so that the researchers in Prince Edward Island are talking to the researchers in British Columbia?
Mr. Zylmans: We are working through that right now through CHC. We have come under one complete national research group now, and as we speak they are trying to put proposals together so that we are working together for a better bang for our buck.
Senator Callbeck: One last thing. I come from potato country, and I like your project Spuds in Tubs. Has that been going on for quite a while?
Mr. Zylmans: We started 10 years ago. We now have just over 5,000 children in the province of British Columbia growing potatoes in schools. It is probably the most exciting project that the teachers, as well as the students, are doing. Ms. Lindsay Babineau drilled me over a cup of coffee, and we designed this over two coffee periods in about an hour and a half. It is such a hit. I believe other provinces are starting to take it up as well, and we funded it through government and through the potato industry as well. I told the potato industry the benefits that they would get from it. Once the children have finished growing their potatoes, low and behold, we come to the market with our fresh product. It has been a real hit, and everyone wants to be on the bandwagon today.
Senator Callbeck: It is really important for those non-farm students. I congratulate you on it.
Mr. Zylmans: We might find one out of that class, somewhere along the way, who will be a great farmer, and that is what we have to do, right?
Senator Callbeck: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: Welcome, Mr. Zylmans. I am very happy to see someone who gets his hands dirty.
We have heard from a number of members of the scientific community. We have visited universities and research centres, and our work is not done. Those people tell us how things should be done, while you are in the field doing things. That is completely different. Canada needs people like you.
I want to put your mind at rest regarding a specific issue. During a visit to Nova Scotia, we went to a poultry and egg farm where the grandfather, father and grandson were all involved. That was a nice example where succession was ensured.
You want what is best for your children, your two boys. That is how a father must act. However, you should know that your boys also want what is best for you, and they will achieve that in one way or another.
I am astonished at the variety of your production. Yesterday, a renowned scientist told us that, in the west — and possibly British Columbia — some people in the beef industry were using some sort of an additive to harden the meat. That meat was intended for Australians and New Zealanders, who have tougher teeth, while Europeans do not want to eat that kind of meat.
You produce a bit of Angus beef on your farm. Do you give your cows that vitamin to make their flesh harder in order to sell it to Australians and New Zealanders?
[English]
Mr. Zylmans: No. Our sale is on the pure natural vegetables, potatoes, grains and hay. Everything that is produced on my farm is fed to my cattle. Nothing goes into my animals that comes from anywhere other than my farm, so I know every meal that they eat. We are proud of the fact that our meat is hung for 28 days, so it is as tender and cured as possible. Once people have tried our meat versus store-bought meat, they never go back. I have never heard anyone say they like it tougher. It sounds to me like they like the old dairy cows.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: We heard about that yesterday. I did not believe it either, but the information came from renowned scientists.
Succession in agriculture is very important. You are a man of experience who has built his farm and diversified it. Would not your children or other young people from your town, Richmond, want to benefit from your experience and take over the farm later on, when you decide to retire? They could take advantage of your experience — which is as good as a university degree — in order to perhaps diversify the farm and make it even more profitable with new methods. They could do that by drawing on all the experience you have gained through a life you have lovingly sacrificed to farming. Do you think that could happen?
[English]
Mr. Zylmans: One of the main reasons I still farm as seriously as I do is that we will still be in business after my children go off and get their education. We will be here for a while yet. We are not quitting any time soon. I have seen young people change their careers many times before they actually finish, so we will wait for that to happen.
I have seen it out my way too. A grandfather and his son and daughters have left and now the grandchildren have come back to mentor with their grandfather and are taking over the farm. If any young people are interested in working along with me or my operation, I would be extremely happy to have that opportunity, but they have to move fast. It would be great. We wish that there were more of that coming through programs that might help. Something can come from that.
For example, in Europe, schooling is very different from the schooling here. My roots are in Holland, where they are choosing careers or getting their feet wet in different careers in grade 9. They are starting to get some diversification at that stage to see where their futures lie, whether as a farmer, plumber, electrician — whatever. They get some sort of basic knowledge earlier than we get it here in North America. There is a lot that we can do to change education for agriculture. We could have a lot more agriculture components. As I said earlier, UBC had large faculty years ago, including dairy farming and sheep production. They no longer have any of that. We are starting to see some different colleges begin to bring agriculture back. That experience and bringing some young people back to mentor with people like me would be a win-win situation at the end of the day.
The downside to mentoring with me is that I am in an area that is an agricultural land reserve. Much less land is available for farming and it is getting a lot more expensive to farm in such areas. It is great for direct marketing because there is a population that is second to none at the back door — Vancouver. For intensive farming, it is almost too expensive for anyone new to get started.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: Is it problematic in British Columbia to transfer or sell your property — which is actually your pension plan — to your children, given the size of your farm?
[English]
Mr. Zylmans: One would like nothing more than to pass the farm on to the next generation. If that does not happen for me, and I hope to see the roots of that come to light in the next five years, I still have no intention of quitting. If it does not happen, I probably will have to downsize and do a bit of hobby farming on one of my farms. I do not think there will be a problem for me to retire at some time if I wish to do so. That might be more difficult for me than for my wife, but we will deal with that.
Senator Oh: Mr. Zylmans, you are a great farmer and a great travelling farmer. I think you should consider exporting to China, where there is a huge market. Any product that comes from Canada is very welcome in China, and we have a good relationship with China. I will tell you why.
Airlines are shipping lobsters to China in a big way. The bottom of the plane to China is fully loaded with lobsters and other farm products. You should be able to ship your products to China because they love imported products from Canada; and we have a huge market there.
I travel to China frequently. You would do well in China. We have a good relationship with China to buy imported products, especially foods from China, which is a key issue today. The market is huge.
Another big problem for you is labour shortage. In Ontario, a lot of temporary workers are brought in to the Niagara Peninsula for the wine producers. I do not know whether you do the same thing in B.C. That is something you may want to consider to solve your labour problem.
You mentioned that in Vancouver, B.C., you have a huge population that is oriental. You are a good farmer, so you should be able to switch to accommodate your huge market. There are 1.4 million Chinese Canadians across Canada. The two major markets are Vancouver and Toronto. If you could concentrate on those two markets, you should be able to open a good market for your products.
Mr. Zylmans: Your comment on exporting to China is interesting. I have been in touch with people from China to try to export seed potatoes there. There is a large market there. We are trying to work with CFIA and AAFC to see if we can make this happen. It is an extremely large market. I would love to get into there. I have pushed with them to try to see what we can do with that.
Another one that I have also been involved with, but through Agriculture Canada, is Indonesia. At this time, we are having a bit of a problem with the trade agreement with seed potatoes.
Those are the components of my operation that I feel we have the potential of selling a good quality, high- generation seed potatoes to these countries. We are close to the ports. We should be able to get into that market with our products. It is just a matter of time, and sometimes the government wheels work more slowly than mine. We would love to work on that.
As far as labour is concerned, there is a lot of labour now in B.C. from Mexico, the Philippines and other countries as well. We are finding there is a large influx. There are about 12,000 coming into British Columbia now from other countries for temporary workforce. We will see that expand in the near future. It is a bit of an issue with certain farms that are not utilizing labour full-time for that eight-month period to keep those employees fully engaged. The greenhouse industry is a large component, and they use a lot of labour. Nurseries use a lot of the imported labour, and it works well. In the field crop vegetables where I am mostly involved, it is more difficult, because today I need five people and tomorrow I need fifty. Working with the local labour force is simpler for me at this point.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Zylmans, for being here this morning.
Honourable senators, we now have with us Dr. James Dosman, Distinguished Research Chair, Canadian Centre for Health and Safety in Agriculture from the University of Saskatchewan.
Dr. Dosman, thank you for accepting our invitation. We have taken notice of and seen the presentation in both official languages that you sent to the committee through the clerk. Thank you for that. I would invite you to make your presentation, to be followed immediately by questions. The floor is yours.
Dr. James Dosman, Distinguished Research Chair, University of Saskatchewan: Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is a great pleasure to be here. I greatly appreciate being invited to make this presentation. I am particularly happy to see a senator from Saskatchewan here, Senator Merchant. If I get into trouble, Senator Merchant, I have no doubt that you will help me out.
My purpose this morning is to share with senators the tremendously important need for support for a program of research and development in agricultural safety and health in Saskatchewan. It would be our goal that such a program be supported through Growing Forward 2. I will briefly outline what some of the issues are, and then I will outline what the program is and why it is so essential to have a program of research and development in order to prevent the continuing toll of injury and death in farmers.
Indeed, the title of my presentation is "Stopping the War on Farming." You might ask, "Is this not quite strong language?" Is this not alarmist language? I say this is not alarmist. Indeed, the perpetrators of the war are people who are continuing to fail to take action. These include manufacturers, suppliers, government agencies and producers themselves.
Devastating injuries and work-related illness dominate the Canadian agricultural workforce. On the third page you see the language "amazing" and "killed in action." Can you believe that between 1990 and 2008, 1,975 men, women and children were killed on Canadian farms? We were all saddened by the toll of death of young men and women in the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan. Each life is important. A total of 158 Canadian Forces personnel were killed in Afghanistan as of December 31, 2011, but we have not heard the numbers of people killed on Canadian farms. Of those killed, 1,603 were men and 117 were women. Two hundred and forty-eight children were killed on Canadian farms during that time period. No one wants this to happen, least of all the families and operations where the deaths occur.
Incidentally, all photos and depictions here are with permission of the individuals involved.
On page 5 we speak about how those deaths occurred. There were 392 machinery roll-overs, 354 run-overs and 157 entanglements. One hundred and twenty-three of the deaths were related to animals.
To continue the analogy of the war on farming and count those wounded in action, in the 10-year period for which we have data, 1990 to 2000, an amazing 14,987 persons were sufficiently wounded to have to be hospitalized, many with permanently disabling injuries. The injured were again primarily men, 12,621, with 517 women and 1,849 children being injured. The depiction here, with permission, is of a farmer from Saskatchewan who lost his right arm in a power takeoff.
Of the 14,987 persons wounded, 754 lost a major limb. There were 5,620 broken bones and 1,443 head injuries, which were often permanent. It was estimated in the year 2003 that the cost of injuries alone would be $300 million per year.
The dramatic toll of death and injury does not negate a large number of other safety and health problems such as strains of muscles and tendons. For example, in the swine industry strains result from repetitive needle usage. The use of chemicals results in neurological and reproductive effects. Dust and biological exposures result in asthma and obstructive pulmonary disease. Noise results in deafness. There are vibration injuries to nerves and tendons. There are injuries in installations, such as falls and electrocutions, and an amazing number of injuries related to large animals.
There is a problem with asphyxiation in confined spaces. For example, two years ago I believe five people died in the mushroom industry in British Columbia. There is an issue with transfer of infections from animals to people and issues related to weather, such as stroke, sunburn and cancer. There is the issue of contamination of water and, finally, stress and family issues.
The problem has been extremely resistant to intervention. There has been little change in the number of fatal injuries over 15 years. In 1990, the farm population in Canada was about 870,000 and the rate of injuries was 15 per 100,000. By 2005, the downward trend was insignificant. The farm population had decreased to 692,837, but the rate of fatal injuries remains very much the same.
I will explain why we think this is happening. Despite efforts at prevention over 20 years, including the Canadian Agriculture Safety Program started by our centre and funded by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, there has been no organized program of research and development to support and sustain prevention efforts. We maintain that without a program of research and development we will not appropriately address the problem.
I will explain what the proposed Canadian AgriSafety Applied Research Program is, what it hopes to do and why. The Canadian Centre for Health and Safety in Agriculture at the University of Saskatchewan is Canada's only diversified, university-based centre devoted to addressing health and safety issues for Canadian agricultural workers. The centre has been funded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Government of Saskatchewan and is to open in May of this year with a new medical facility, the National Agricultural Industrial Hygiene Laboratory, at the University of Saskatchewan. More than that, however, the Canadian Centre for Health and Safety in Agriculture has participants in the effort at Dalhousie, Laval, Kingston, Edmonton and Vancouver, a collection of scientists who will be able to address many of these issues.
The Canadian AgriSafety Applied Research Program proposes to be national in scope, focused on vital issues and taking advantage of existing strengths. The infrastructure exists to mount a national program of research and development in agricultural safety and health.
The Canadian AgriSafety Applied Research Program has already made progress in funding. Agreements are in place with nine of ten provinces to provide modest matching funds for grants for research and development in their provinces.
These amounts, as you will see in the more detailed documentation, amount to almost half a million dollars per year, $467,000. In addition, between the research centres and private sector, there is potentially a million dollars per year, half in kind and the other half in cash through the private sector. The Canadian AgriSafety Applied Research Program seeks an arrangement with AAFC, through Growing Forward 2, of $1.7 million per year to match the amounts that have already been agreed to through the provinces, the research centres and the private sector. We believe that this program of research and development would be large enough to make a difference but small enough to be realizable, if that is a word.
If you turn to page 14, up until this time there have been efforts at dissemination and education aimed at prevention. We are proposing that in the various areas of injuries — dust, infections and chemicals — a focused program of research and development would promote, in a seamless manner, the dissemination and education efforts leading to prevention. Indeed, after many years of working in this area, we are now convinced that we will fail to make the kind of prevention efforts that are required without a coordinated cross-Canada approach to research and development.
Honourable senators, the comparison with, for example, crop production would be applicable. Where would we be in crop production without having had a continuous program of research and development over the last 50 years? The same is true in agricultural safety and health.
Why would Canada want to do this? The most important one is at the bottom, but I will start with the top. This program would place Canada in leadership. It would enhance the vitality and productivity of the agricultural workforce. It would lead to new products and patents. It would assist Canada in achieving ISO standards for exports. It would assist in agricultural expansion. To quote the late Lorne Martin, who many of you may have known from Manitoba as he was Assistant Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, he said, "It is the right thing to do."
In closing, I thank you for the opportunity to visit with you and would greatly appreciate if honourable senators would give consideration to dealing with the issue of safety and health in your report.
Thank you kindly, Mr. Chair.
The Chair: Dr. Dosman, thank you very much for a well thought out presentation. There is no doubt in our minds that that subject matter will be part of our report.
Senator Merchant: Dr. Dosman, I am delighted to see you. Thank you for your very well organized — I am not surprised — clear presentation and for your dedication to your work.
Dr. Dosman: It is a pleasure.
Senator Merchant: I know you have been doing this for a long time.
I think you highlighted that part of what we need to do is to make people aware of the plight of the farmer as far as safety goes. You compared it with the loss of life in our Armed Forces; people are aware of what is happening there. They have good public relations, and that is what you are now striving to do, to educate us through this great institution at the university, to make people aware of what is going on.
However, farmers themselves are very stubborn people. I know that you have said that machinery is what causes a lot of the injuries, but is it difficult for them to change their ways? How do you make farmers do what you want them to do? They are very strong people.
Dr. Dosman: Senator Merchant, the components of safety are divided into several categories. One would be the safety of the equipment. Another would be the existence of safety protocol, and then the final one would be the behaviour of the individuals. What we are referring to here is the behaviour and the work practice of the individuals.
Two things are happening, as you know. Canadian agriculture is changing so quickly that what we are seeing is the emergence of the hired workforce and the itinerant workforce. By that I mean the workforce that comes up every spring from Mexico and then goes home.
The problems are constantly changing. In Saskatchewan, it may surprise senators to know that out of 295 rural municipalities, 210 now pay us a modest fee per year to join their farm families in something called the Agricultural Health and Safety Network through the local municipal councils. If the councils are speaking for their farmers, there is a lot of recognition of the need.
If we go back to slide 14, the weakness of the program to date is that it has relied totally on dissemination and education, and we have not seen the simultaneous development of safer equipment, safer methods and, in particular, what we call in other industries occupational hygiene programs. For example, in a steel mill there would be protocols for safety and occupational hygiene programs, and we just have not had the R & D to develop the equipment or the occupational hygiene programs involved. That is where we see the program of research development and supporting current programs of dissemination and education.
Senator Merchant: On slide 7, where you have the estimated cost of $300 million per year, I imagine that that includes medical costs and loss of time. How do you comprise that figure?
Dr. Dosman: This was a paper by Locker out of Queen's University in Kingston in 2003, and it did include all of the costs. It actually was for Ontario and was extrapolated to Canada. These costs are always hard to develop, so I would be the first to admit that it is not necessarily loss to production. However, there is no question that when you get the human cost involved, there is a loss to production. We have not fully quantified it.
Senator Merchant: With regard to injuries to children, which is very concerning, why are they so high? What kinds of injuries do children have?
Dr. Dosman: It is a devastating aspect of Canadian agriculture, as you can see. The numbers are absolutely astonishing, and when children are injured, it tends to be serious. These are primarily on-site farm injuries; it is a serious problem. Our colleague in Kingston, Dr. William Pickett, has been particularly interested in injuries in children. We have a project funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research that is looking at injuries in children in Saskatchewan. We are following these children over time. It is a serious problem. No family is ever the same after a child is killed.
Senator Buth: Clearly you have been working for a very long time in this field. I am curious about the statistics you use and the fact that you make comparisons to the loss of life in Afghanistan. Do you have any figures about the losses and the injuries that would occur in other dangerous workplaces, such as forestry, mining, et cetera? Why is agriculture different from those other industries?
Dr. Dosman: That is a very good question. The presentation might well compare agriculture to two other dangerous industries: forestry and mining. Agriculture is about the same; it is up there with those two industries.
Several elements about agriculture are different, as you are aware. One is the sheer number of people involved and the disorganization of the workplace. When I say "disorganization," I am not referring to individual farms but rather to the fact that agriculture is not organized like other industries. In a mine, you might have a safety program, safety protocols, an occupational health nurse and so on. In other major industries, it is the industry that leads the safety initiatives. With more than 200,000 farm sites in Canada, who will lead the initiative, for example for research and development? We can think of no other agency than Agriculture and Agri-food Canada that could take responsibility for at least a modest investment in research and development. The statistics are similar but the workplaces are so different. As we know, the workplace is often the home as well. It is an exceedingly complex issue that often involves culture as much as work practice.
Senator Buth: What is your relationship with the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association?
Dr. Dosman: We started it. In fact, in 1994 we spent two years and $200,000 and had five national meetings until we finally got the ear of Agriculture and Agri-food Canada, when they started to provide $1 million per year for a prevention program. The Canadian Agricultural Safety Association, which we called the Canadian Coalition for Agriculture Safety and Rural Health when we started it, is our child which we have fostered. The initial arrangement with AAFC, when the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association was started, was always that there would be a research and development component. It has taken about 20 years but we have developed the Canadian Centre for Health and Safety in Agriculture; a cross-Canada network of research, capacity development; and a new industrial hygiene laboratory will open in May this year. It has taken this long to get the capacity to have an effective program of research and development. We are receiving good support from the provinces and the private sector, but we need core support from Agriculture and Agri-food Canada to be the glue for an appropriate program of research and development.
Senator Buth: Your figures from 1999 to 2005 show little change. I find it disturbing that we have not made progress in terms of safety on the farm. When you started this presentation, I was thinking, "Why do we need to do research on this area?" However, it points to dissemination and education. This goes back to Senator Merchant's comments that farmers can be very stubborn people and that they work in situations where things are changing quite quickly in their day-to-day operations. I guess I am disappointed that there has not been much progress given the amount of money that has gone into education and the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association.
Dr. Dosman: Honourable senator, I would stop short of saying that there has been no progress. We do not know what might have been with agriculture changing so rapidly. It has been important to have the national program of education and dissemination because we do not know what the alternatives are. It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness, as they say. It is an important program that is increasing awareness.
However, in other industries, it has been demonstrated that education and dissemination must be buttressed by technology and occupational hygiene principles. Those are the kinds of things for which we need research and development to support the program. The Canadian Agricultural Safety Association, I believe, is an extremely important program that we need to foster and develop. Unfortunately, it is only one third of the component required for success, in our view.
Senator Buth: At page 14 you outline the applied research that you will do in terms of injuries, deaths, infections and chemicals. What do you expect your relation to be with the private sector, such as equipment manufacturers, in terms of injuries and the crop protection industry in terms of chemicals? Clearly, much research is done in those areas already.
Dr. Dosman: Yes, of course; and it is a complex industry. The private sector is striving to make better and safer machines. No one can quite contain it all. We have letters of commitment from nine research centres across Canada to match potential funding through AAFC. They relate to the private sector for matching contributions. I do not like the word "contributions;" I prefer the word "investments."This program would not compete with the research centres for funding arrangements with the private sector, but it would encourage them and support them.
Senator Robichaud: You are the first witness, although I may have missed a meeting or two, who has mentioned safety on the farm. You say that it compares to forestry and mining. How active are the agriculture associations that bring farmers and other people together in promoting safety? I have a small tractor that came with an instruction manual that says do not do this and do not do that. There are posters everywhere: "Do not lift your bucket too high because you might tip over." There is a power takeoff and all that stuff. Then on the chemical side, I wanted to have some Roundup, and I cannot buy it. You need a person that has a licence to apply that. What is happening that so many accidents happen in spite of all the warnings and precautions you are asked to take whenever you use machinery or chemicals?
Dr. Dosman: Senator, that is a very important observation. I think it relates to the two items that we discussed before. One is individual work practice, and the other is the existence of occupational hygiene protocols.
To get to the associations, we are very fortunate in Saskatchewan. The Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities does support our own safety program in Saskatchewan called the Agricultural Health and Safety Network, and 210 out of 295 rural municipalities actually pay a modest yearly fee to bring the program to 30,000 farm families. With other associations, I think it varies. I think they are getting into it. However, as we know, the focus of associations has usually been production. There certainly is room for more action and more improvement.
We see the agricultural workforce changing very quickly. In the next decade, while increasing interest in the family farm, we will be looking at the workforce consisting of either full-time labourers or seasonal itinerant labours, and then we get into problems of language and comprehension and instruction. For example, in British Columbia, five or more itinerant workers were killed in a van that crashed. These are issues that require action at different kinds of levels.
I do not know if I have quite answered your question, but I have been trying to get to the issue.
Senator Robichaud: I understand that there is much more effort to be made with the associations in order to have whatever meetings they need to have a safety component somewhere in there.
Dr. Dosman: There is no question that the more responsibility that individual producers take, individually on their farms and through their associations, the more progress will be made. However, it is still not the whole story. It needs to be supported by research and development.
Senator Robichaud: Yes, I agree. You need research to develop protocols or better ways of handling machinery, and also a better way of disseminating that information to the people that use it.
On page 10, you go from 1990, 15.5 per 100,000, and then 13.6 in 2005. It is just a wavy little graph. What is your prediction for the future with all your efforts? I hope this comes down to zero, but I would be hoping for too much.
Dr. Dosman: The only goal we can have is to make it zero. That is the only acceptable goal. To accept this is not conscionable. We must take the efforts that are reasonable to bring this to zero. Indeed, I think the program that we are proposing of a request of $1.7 million per year to AAFC is too modest. Much more would be required, but we have to do what is possible, so in the proposed program we have said what is big enough to make a difference and what is small enough to be realizable.
Senator Eaton: Not to be simplistic, but anti-smoking and anti-drinking-and-driving education have certainly driven home a lot of truths in the next generation. I am sure you have considered this. I would think Workers' Compensation Board has a big stake in making sure farm families suffer fewer injuries.
Dr. Dosman: Yes.
Senator Eaton: I am sure Health Canada does as well. When they were doing the anti-smoking and anti-drinking- and-driving campaigns, they took a lot of that into schools. Kids went home and made remarks to their parents. Have some of these solutions been tried or considered?
Dr. Dosman: Yes, there are prevention programs that have targeted children. As we know, the regulations around driving have certainly driven down drinking, but not that we have eliminated deaths and injuries on the highways from drinking. Certainly education has assisted in smoking rates. We believe very strongly in education efforts. At the same time, there is still a role for applied research on education efforts in the form of evaluation, because we often have to evaluate programs to see if they are successful.
Senator Eaton: I am sure there is. I guess I am asking you whether institutions like Workers' Compensation Board or Health Canada have programs or have done public announcements concerning safety on the farm.
Dr. Dosman: Workers' Compensation Boards vary in each province. For example, in British Columbia, it is the Department of Labour that supports the Farm and Ranch Safety and Health Association. Indeed, in our agreements with provinces to support the program of research and development, each province has committed that researchers could apply for funds for health and safety research that would be matched by the central funds. In Quebec, Ontario and B.C., it is the Workers' Compensation branch that is supporting those initiatives. It varies by province. For example, in Saskatchewan only 3 per cent of farms are covered by Workers' Compensation, believe it or not. In those provinces, it is local rules. The farmers are only obliged to enrol their workers if they have I think it is more than nine employees. I could be wrong, but it is a certain number. Again, one of the reasons this issue is so difficult is the sheer complexity of agriculture in Canada, which of course reflects the sheer complexity of the country.
Senator Eaton: Yes, and the silos, as we all know.
Senator Callbeck: Dr. Dosman, I want to ask you a few brief questions on your presentation. On page 6, you have wounded in action, 1990 to 2000, but for killed in action you have the figures to 2008. Why is that?
Dr. Dosman: When we established the first Canadian Agricultural Safety Program through Agriculture Canada, we had the funding to count injuries in hospitals. It was called the Canadian Agricultural Injury Surveillance Program. We had the attitude when we established the first Canadian Agricultural Safety Program that we would take advantage of existing strengths across the country. In Queen's University, Dr. Brison had the vision of collecting hospital injuries. There was funding for that 10-year period to count the number of people hospitalized with farm injuries. However, funding for that purpose ended that year so we were not able to count the injuries beyond that.
It may be possible to reinstitute this kind of surveillance with funding through the AgriSafety Applied Research Program.
Senator Callbeck: On page 10 you say that there was little change in fatal injuries in the last 15 years up to 2005. Did the last Canadian Agricultural Injury Reporting report not show that that number was declining?
Dr. Dosman: Yes, we are aware of that information. There was an apparent drop, and we certainly are not trying to hide it. The problem is that that data apparently did not include Quebec. You are right that there may be a modest decline, which we should probably show on this graph. However, even if there is, the problem remains very acute.
Senator Callbeck: On page 13 you mentioned nine out of ten provinces. Which province is not included?
Dr. Dosman: You will be disappointed, Senator Callbeck. The idea was to get some research and development going in every province. Even though I visited the province that did not participate, for some reason they did not, and it was your home province.
Senator Callbeck: In 2006, Workers' Compensation, the National Farmers Union and the Federation of Agriculture put together a plan. My understanding is that they have reduced injuries by 30 per cent. Maybe P.E.I. is leading the way here.
Dr. Dosman: Maybe. A great deal has been done and we might see these statistics start to change, which would be great.
Senator Robichaud: You said that in Saskatchewan a very small percentage of farms are in the Workers' Compensation program.
Dr. Dosman: Yes.
Senator Robichaud: What happens when there is an injury on farms that do not participate in the program? It must be very difficult for those who are victims of an accident.
Dr. Dosman: Very often these people are left out in the cold. It is often the owner/operator who is injured.
Senator Robichaud: How does that compare to other provinces?
Dr. Dosman: I am not certain. In other provinces, such as Ontario and B.C., the workplace is quite different with larger numbers of employees in horticulture and so on. They tend to be involved with Workers' Compensation, and the provincial regulations are different.
That is a good point. I must review the provincial regulations in each province. Our relationships with Quebec, Ontario and B.C. have been through the Workers' Compensation Boards because they are most interested in prevention. Of course they are supporting the rates, too.
The Chair: Dr. Dosman, thank you very much. We will be sending you a letter with a few additional questions that we would like you to answer.
Dr. Dosman: I would be very pleased to answer them. I would like to thank senators for your interest and the depth of your questions.
The Chair: There is no doubt that Senator Merchant will be interested in the answers to the questions that we will be sending to you.
Senators, we will now examine our supplementary draft budget for the fiscal year 2012-13. This is for funds to conduct a fact-finding trip to the province of Newfoundland and Labrador on our study of innovation in agriculture. A copy of the draft budget has been distributed to you.
Are there any questions on the proposed budget? The original proposed budget was for approximately $85,000 and included travelling in business class rather than economy. Do you agree that, rather than travelling in business class, we travel in economy class? If we travel in economy class, the proposed budget will drop to $44,786. Travel time is approximately two hours from Ottawa. Is there consensus to travel in economy class?
Hon. Senators: Yes.
The Chair: Are there any questions?
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: I agree with us travelling economy class, but I am curious why no one is talking about potential visits to British Columbia and Ontario.
The Chair: That is a very good question. According to the current budget, the visit must be made before March 31, 2012. The visit to British Columbia will therefore be included in budget 2013-2014, whose first day is April 1, 2013.
Senator Maltais: I agree with you and think the dates should be discussed.
Senator Eaton: The dates are what worries me.
The Chair: The clerk will send all of you the proposed dates, so we can finish planning our visit to Newfoundland and Labrador.
Senator Robichaud: I propose that $46,486 be submitted for approval to the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration for our trip to Newfoundland and Labrador as part of this study.
The Chair: Thank you. This motion is seconded by senator Maltais.
[English]
Is that agreed?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Thank you, honourable senators.
(The committee adjourned.)