Thank you for having us here today. I'd like to apologize for our tardiness.
It has been our pleasure, as a young farmer group, especially at the Canadian Young Farmers Forum, to have the opportunity to be before the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food in the past, especially during this past trip to Ottawa, at our annual meeting. You have probably touched on some of our topics already, but I'll continue with them.
I'd like to introduce Maria Smith and Martin Bernard, and I am Ryan Weeks. We are the people who put this project together.
The P.E.I. Young Farmers' Association issues and opportunities are the vision for the future of Canadian agriculture, low record farm revenues, moving beyond efficiency and innovation, declining numbers of farms, barriers for new entrant farmers, and requirements for future and current programs. This is our outline.
What is the vision for Canadian agriculture from 2015 to 2020, and what is the importance of a unified vision? We feel it is important to have a unified vision because it reduces political distortion from election to election. It also provides direction toward specific goals rather than trying to move money in ways to make things look good. We'd also like to focus on whether we're going to export or import and how much of each we intend to lean toward. Also, who should be involved in this vision?
We feel it's important for young farmers to have a spot on committees, on planning organizations, and any of the programming committees that are set up. We'd like to see a little more involvement in that area. We commend you for what you've done so far. We think this is a step in the right direction.
We also think it's important to have experienced farmers on those committees. This provides experience and knowledge that maybe we haven't experienced yet or that could save us some mistakes in the future.
With respect to record low farm revenues, commodities will result in potentially reduced gross income, currently and in the future. Farms in low-income situations cannot afford to exit failing industries with such high debt levels. Low-income effects go further than the farm gate. Legislation against loss-leader products at a retail level should be in place. This would maybe help return a fair share of the dollar spent on food in this country to the producer. Also, value chains would allow an increase in revenue to all stakeholders.
We think it is important to move beyond efficiency and innovation. Today's farmers are innovative and efficient in their farming practices, and they continue to evolve in being so. Actually, you can give credit for this to the low farm incomes, because it has forced farmers to be as efficient as they can be to survive.
With respect to the next step, well, if it continues this way, we'll either have to become differentiated in our products or move to large-scale commodity-based conglomerations, which might head toward multinationals owning them and farmers working them. I don't think that is in the best of Canadian agriculture.
I think declining numbers of farms linked to record low incomes and lack of vision is where we see that tied in. That vision of 2015 to 2020 is not there. Australia has it, but why don't we? The States has a five-year Farm Bill that's up for grabs in Canada. Actually, the CFA is working on one as well. I think this is an important tool.
The average age of farmers is actually down to about 58, I think, which is not that young. The number of farms since the 1960s has decreased by half, from 500,000 to 250,000 farms, and they are increasingly subsidized by off-farm income. No one wants to work off the farm. Anybody who works off the farm doesn't want to work off the farm; it's just a reality we face today.
Barriers for new entrant farmers include high input costs, high collateral requirements to access financing, and limited programs relevant to a wide range of young farmers. Similar programs, like the P.E.I. future farmer program have interest rebates and training. This is a step in the right direction.
CASS is not quite meeting the requirements for advancement in agricultural training. I have a lot of friends who are single today and married tomorrow, and they seem to miss out on the opportunity, yet they haven't moved up into the kind of income bracket where they are totally secure. They're still in the same position as I am in, maybe with the same expenses or more.
Requirements for future and current programing include the inclusion of young farmers on planning committees; including the future in the planning of the future; having federally funded, provincially administered programs monitored for consistency; and having efficient administration of programs. We've seen this, maybe, with CAIS. I hate talking about CAIS too much, because everybody's heard a lot about it over the past few years. There are some changes being done, so that's going in the right direction.
We'll just round off here with requirements for future and current programming. Programs to protect farmers in case of uncontrollable factors that may occur, such as natural, economic, and international disasters, should be in place. There are some. Disaster assistance needs to be adjusted from the typical 60-40 federal-provincial split to a 90-10 split. Whenever you have a disaster, you're in trouble. Whenever you're just doing day-to-day changes or preventive maintenance, you're not in trouble. They do it with households and townships. I think maybe we should look at that for agriculture.
In conclusion, I'll give an overview of what was discussed here today.
The biggest thing, I think, for Canadian agriculture that will solve all these problems is a vision.
I was at the APF meetings in Quebec City, the renewal meetings. I talked to a gentleman there, and he was talking politics a little bit and kind of wondering what was going on. He said he was not sure where we're going to go, or something like that. Anyway, he made the comment: do we know where we're going to go as an industry, and could you honestly tell me what tomorrow holds, or what five or ten years from now holds? That's where we need to focus. Band-aids work today, but preventive maintenance works for years to come. With that in place, I think a lot of these troubles could probably be worked towards and overcome. It would increase farm revenues.
We need to decide on steps beyond efficiency and innovation, slow the rate of declining farms with increased farm income stabilization--once again, a vision of an industry that's strong, not funded. No farmer wants to have to go to the mailbox to get a gratuity; they want to get paid for what they do.
On the development of programs for new entrant farmers, the P.E.I. future farmer program is a pilot program that's well accepted. I sit at AGMs for Future Farmers across Canada, and they love it. Everybody sits there in awe of P.E.I., because the assistance--the training assistance, the financial assistance--and just the focus is there.
Once again, just to touch on the disaster assistance, it should be 90-10 federal-provincial.
Thank you for your time. We appreciate it.