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Agriculture committee Absolutely.
February 10th, 2022Committee meeting
Serge Buy
Agriculture committee I completely agree that they must be funded adequately, just as research centres must be funded adequately. I absolutely support their demands. You will see that the deans council supports our appeal. It is not a matter of choosing one or the other; it's a matter of having both, together.
February 10th, 2022Committee meeting
Serge Buy
Agriculture committee As I just said, I am not too favourable to the creation of new levels of bureaucracy, as we already have a number of them in Canada. What is more, commissioners of this and that don't necessarily have all the powers they need. The creation of such a position is often announced to resolve a specific minor problem, but the commissioner will have no real powers afterwards.
February 10th, 2022Committee meeting
Serge Buy
Agriculture committee Academia is a crucial part of this. Universities and colleges need to play a role. This is why, when we called for the creation of this strategy, the Deans Council—Agriculture, Food and Veterinary Medicine supported our call. This is why colleges in the country, such as Olds College and others, are also supporting our call.
February 10th, 2022Committee meeting
Serge Buy
Agriculture committee Absolutely. I think they certainly could do much more than what is being done presently. They're responding to crises. I think the idea is to not just respond to crises, but also to be proactive. The vertical farming issue, as an example, would be great. We're seeing the private sector moving on that.
February 10th, 2022Committee meeting
Serge Buy
Agriculture committee We certainly believe that the government could play an important role at this point in convening the various stakeholders to discuss some of those solutions and in developing a long-term strategy for research and innovation that includes a focus on adoption as well. Yes, the government can play an important role in this.
February 10th, 2022Committee meeting
Serge Buy
Agriculture committee We haven't specifically done such research, but certainly some of our members have looked at this. We're looking at leaf vegetables, as an example, which would probably be more appropriate than others, as would spices. As I said, we're not going to produce pineapples in Nunavut by vertical farming, but we can certainly look at lettuce and other things.
February 10th, 2022Committee meeting
Serge Buy
Agriculture committee Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon. All parts of the agri-food supply chain are facing challenges that predate the pandemic. Food production is impacted by diseases, pests, weather-related events—think of the drought in the prairies in 2021 and the fires, then the floods in British Columbia—workforce availability, capacity to adopt new technologies, etc.
February 10th, 2022Committee meeting
Serge Buy