Okay.
Severe weather is pretty common. With the degree of damage caused in our area, the actual crop loss for that year was about $1.5 million. The damage to infrastructure and whatnot was again over $1 million. Most of that was insured, as AgriRecovery is designed to cover what no other program will cover. For the most part, it did a reasonable job.
In the Leamington area, this past July, a series of tornadoes seriously affected a number of apple growers. The problem there was that the premier of the province came in and offered the municipalities immediate assistance, which meant that the areas weren't declared a disaster area, which limited their ability to access these other programs. I don't think it was done intentionally, but it actually hurt the agricultural producers in the Leamington area, because they couldn't apply for ODRAP and AgriRecovery. One of the key criteria for AgriRecovery is that a disaster must have had a significant impact on the industry as a whole. The tornado in our area affected over 10% of the apple-producing area.
Even though a lot of trees were affected, it takes time for that to become visible. One suggestion by one of the growers was that the damage was down the road. He figured he had about 20 acres that would have to come out of production because of the effect of the tornado, but it wasn't visible at all until about August of this year.
So it's pretty good, but there's a lot of room for improvement. If tweaking is to take place, please consult with the producers, who know the program and how it has affected them.
Thank you.