Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Although I appreciate the invitation--maybe I should embellish a little, but you probably all have the papers in front of you—I've gone to these round tables on a number of occasions and I hope this one will have more fruitful outcomes than other ones we have attended. Especially in light of the number of diseases, crises that we have seen over the last number of years, and also with the WTO talks that are under way at the moment—even though they maybe somewhat stalled—I do hope the Canadian government sees the overall picture. We cannot wait for the world to progress; we have to make progress ourselves.
So although I appreciate the invitation, it is disheartening to appear before a committee, in a long line of committees, that has repeatedly attempted to find solutions to the financial hardships that agriculture continues to face while the remainder of the agrifood business sector seems to be prospering.
I'm here to speak on behalf of 248 dairy farms that produce over 130 million litres, just over $90 million. They take care of the delivery of the product, of which 95% is processed within the province and another 5% is directed towards markets in other provinces.
Dairy producers in New Brunswick embraced the concept of collective marketing of their milk 33 years ago. In the last ten years we have taken enormous strides to modify how we do business to deal with the fallout of the international trade rules that are sometimes imposed on us by governments for what is professed to be the greater good of humanity.
I have a little graph here. Basically, it's talking about the net farm receipts of New Brunswick. In 2005, it was $387 million. In 2004, there was $419 million. In 2003, $404 million; and in 2002, $428 million. As you can see, it is on a declining scale.
The other thing I would like to mention is what government has expended over the last number of years. In 2005, it was $40 million. In 2004, it was $36 million. In 2003, it was $12 million; and in 2002, it was $8 million.