Thank you very much.
My name is Claude Barnabé. I am President of the umbrella group Au coeur des familles agricoles. I am also a full-time farmer and for 15 years I taught young people who wanted to take over their family farms at an agricultural college.
The Au coeur des familles agricoles organization was founded seven years ago by Ms. Maria Labrecque Duchesneau. At that time, she was working in a Regional Centre for Agricultural Settlement or CREA. While working with farm families, she realized that many of them were in distress. She also realized that when a farmer or a farmer's family had difficulties, that affected not only the farmer and his wife, but also the children and the extended family.
She therefore decided to leave CREA in order to found the Au coeur des familles agricoles organization. Our organization is an umbrella group of farmers dedicated to farmers. Only farmers and producers sit on the board of directors. We try by a variety of means to help out or prevent psychological distress and suicide in the agricultural community.
We are located in the St. Hyacinthe region, so we work from that base. However, Ms. Labrecque Duchesneau gives seminars across the province of Quebec, and we also receive calls from every region of the province.
It is true that it is difficult to be last to speak, because the statistics have already been given. The other presentations alluded to the rather high level of psychological distress in the farming community: 50.9% of agricultural producers have a high stress level. The stress level was measured in 1997 and was 17.5% at that time. In other words, in 1997, 17.5% of farmers felt rather stressed, whereas today, the figure is 50.9%. There is therefore a problem.
Ms. Labrecque Duchesneau and the Au coeur des familles agricoles organization are constantly being asked to give seminars and come to the assistance of farmers in distress. As Ms. Ducharme said, there are several reasons for this stress. We have spoken about debt, a decrease in income, expenses, agro-environmental commitments, the instability of markets, etc. I won't repeat all that. There is also an obligation to perform, which annoys me somewhat as a producer.
Take for example the area in which I work: egg production. Our last flock of chickens had a peak egg production of 96% to 97%. But even if we reached that high level of production, if egg prices were to go down tomorrow, we would no longer be competitive. How can you be more efficient than that? Even with a production level of 97%, which is probably as good as that of our neighbours the Americans, tomorrow, the eggs could come from the United States. It's somewhat stressful!
The obligation to perform exists, and most farmers meet that commitment. At the same time, something tells us that it would be better to open up markets, but we are not quite sure. We must not forget avian flu or mad cow disease either. It is definitely stressful.
Other factors, like the increased cost of land, mean that it is easier to borrow. So we tell ourselves that we have to be competitive because the markets might open up tomorrow. What can we do in that case?
You buy more land and more quota in order to increase your sales and to achieve economies of scale that may help you be competitive or reach production levels demanded by society.
That is a vicious circle. It is easy to obtain credit, you want to meet expectations, you take on debt and you are off to the races!
Moreover, as Ms. Ducharme mentioned a little earlier, the social problem involves two aspects. The first is the relationship between cities and the country. Up until my youth, everyone had either a grandfather, an uncle or a distant cousin who was a producer and had a farm. You could spend your summer there and be in contact with agriculture. That is no longer the case today. I'm going to give you a very concrete example.
My sister-in-law—she probably won't be very happy that I'm telling you this—who is married to my younger brother, and who is not all that young, comes from downtown Montreal. She was convinced that eggs were a dairy product, because they are in the dairy sector at the grocery store. She is not stupid, she is intelligent! But she did not know that. She had never seen a chicken nor had she seen a cow. By coming home with us, she has discovered that eggs are not dairy products. It is not her fault, she did not know.
The second aspect is the issue of coexistence between cities and the country in terms of odours and noise, as Carmen said. It is never pleasant to be called the polluter, especially when you are doing everything you need to to avoid the problems that are inherent to animal production.
I'm going to give you another example. My home is almost in the city. In fact, as I often say, we are not rural people, we are urban dwellers who practice agriculture.
My sewage system is similar to the city system. I do not have a septic tank. The sewage line runs parallel to the city's line. We are in the city. My parents-in-law built there in 1960. At the time, seven cars went through the range each day. Now there are 7,000!
We raise chickens. The chicken lay eggs, but they also produce a by-product. Two years ago, we wanted to increase our flock, and we had to ask for permission from the municipality and the Ministry of the Environment, among others. Given our proximity to the city, it was more complicated. We had to install a manure treatment system. A manure treatment system to reduce odour costs $465,000. Of course we did receive government assistance, but it did nevertheless cost us $300,000. A tonne of manure sells for $10. We produce approximately 300 tonnes per year, which is a "whopping" $3,000 per year for manure. All that so that the people who live across from us in an upscale development and who have upscale noses, can live peacefully in the country.
As Carmen said a little earlier, information must circulate between the country and cities. People must be made aware of the fact that food comes from farms, and that people who work on farms devote their lives to that and put their hearts into it in order to provide superior-quality agricultural products.
As regards our egg production, inspectors regularly come to see if everything is clean, if the temperature in the refrigerator is right, if there are covers on the garbage cans, and if we have signed a contract with an exterminator. It is impeccable.
I'm certain there are very few countries in the world that can claim to produce eggs of a quality equal to ours. It must be said. It is as simple as that. People must recognize those who feed them. This is critical. It must not be forgotten. It is essential that we create a connection between agriculture and the city.
Producers are lonely because of the nature of their work. With a very high level of performance objectives and a heavy debt load, when one has to deal with the hazards of weather among other things, it is difficult to endure particularly when we are isolated and have a heavy workload. It is difficult to discuss with others. We cannot decide, when we are fed up, to take a vacation. It is also hard to find time to consult a doctor or a psychologist.
That is why our organization, Au coeur des familles agricoles, decided on its mission. We have partly achieved it by inviting people from the Quebec health authorities two weeks ago. During that meeting, representatives of agricultural producers told them a bit about how things work for them, about what kind of life agricultural producers live.
In fact, the health care workers are already present. Services are offered, but the distance between urban and rural areas that I mentioned earlier also exists between the health care environment and that of agriculture. We simply pointed out to the health care workers that they, like us, are spread out across the province. We encouraged them to travel more. We told them if producers have trouble going to meet with them, they should take the initiative and go to agricultural exhibitions, to make themselves known and they should participate in meetings organized by the local unions of the UPA or those of the specialized unions. We encouraged them to come and meet with us. We also encouraged them to make sure that the producer would welcome them and we told them that if they did not know anything much about agriculture, that was not a problem, but that in order to facilitate contact, they had to take an interest in what the farmer is doing, in his production.
In agriculture, as Carmen was saying, people have relationships—