None of you dealt directly with ethanol in your presentations, but it is something that's a major issue. A lot of the demand and drive is to have producer input.
I'm going to express a little bit of frustration here. Different groups come and look for producer funding. But when I see the groups, I guess in some ways they reflect the overall farm community. The older, well-established farmers are the ones who come. What about the 15-year-old kid who's riding the school bus? Three years from now, he'll be out. He'll work in the oil patch for two years and will then try to start farming. He'll have a few cows, etc.
This is my frustration with all sorts of programs, and ethanol is the example I'm asking about. Do you have any suggestions for programming to get producer involvement for any value-added program that's not basically one time for the first guys at the front?
Ethanol is the biggest example. If the 500 biggest and most successful farmers are the only ones who get aid for ethanol projects across this province, it's not really good for long-term viability. It's not fair to the 15-year-old kid who's going to farm.
I'm a farm kid. I said this to an earlier panel, and I say it frequently. I was so successful at farming that I retired after two years. Everyone knows what it's like. All the young people in this province basically retired after a year or two. One of my 12 cousins is farming.
Do you have any suggestions for value-added programs, etc., that are not only good for the one-time guys at the front but are continuous for agriculture in the future, not only for present farmers but for future farmers? I am really open to ideas. I haven't really heard a lot over the last couple of years.