My name is Maurice Vigneault, and I'm a maple syrup producer and forester and President of the Fédération de l'UPA de Lotbinière-Mégantic. That region is located a little to the west of where we are right now.
I see that there is a lasting and worsening income crisis in Canada, one which Quebec has not escaped. Some of the indicators alarm us. Outside incomes accompany the incomes of agricultural producers, that is the incomes from spouses or part-time work. Currently, 40% of our members are part-time members. It's not that we wouldn't like them to be full time. You have to take that figure for what it is: an indication that increasing numbers of people are having trouble living solely from farming. There's an increasingly strong trend toward part-time farms, which is not wrong in itself, but it's a disturbing indicator.
The crisis is no doubt due to the global context and to the development of markets in general, which the agricultural market can't escape. Approximately 10% of agri-food products in the world are exported, but this phenomenon is resulting in a drop in overall farm incomes around the world. Quebec hasn't escaped this situation. We are in a situation where a small portion of our products has a great influence on the majority, or on a very large part of agri-food products. These are observations.
If we want Canada or Canadian producers to emerge from this situation, we absolutely have to improve the way we support agriculture in Canada. And when I say support, I'm talking about investing money. But it doesn't stop there. We have to be able to provide our producers with better assistance in coping with this new challenge if we want to maintain a dynamic agricultural sector in Canada.
I won't repeat the comments by the Fédération de la relève agricole du Québec. I think its representatives presented them very well, but I'm going to support their concern about the next generation of farmers. We have an aging farming population. It's not because we're aging faster than others; it's that young people are not going into agriculture, and the average age of farmers is quickly rising. That shouldn't make us panic, but it should make us see things as they are. It's less and less interesting for young people to go into agriculture, for all kinds of reasons, the biggest one being economic. It's not because it's hard work, because, when you're passionate, you do the work whether it's hard or not. Young people are as passionate as we are, but they can't aford to act on their passion. I won't repeat all the suggestions that have been made to you; I support them all. I want to assure you that we, as a union organization, are as concerned as the Fédération de la relève agricole about the difficulties involved in starting up in agriculture.
To meet all these challenges, we will need flexible programs that complement those in each of our provincial organizations, in each of the regions of Canada. We don't need situations where the thinkers of one government organization go against the thoughts of other government organizations. We need levels of government that cooperate in order to offer us complementary programs, not one level of government that imposes its vision on the other.
Producers have to be involved in developing those programs, through their organizations, so that those programs are well suited to our new situations, which are constantly changing. Agriculture is evolving very quickly, so we have to adjust quickly. We're the ones realizing that first.
I'm going to speed up because I only have 10 minutes. I'm discussing the themes quickly, and just giving you an outline. Some things you've been told many, many times. We're confirming them for you, repeating them and adding some points.
First, let's talk about traceability. It's very important that we be able to establish good traceability mechanisms, but all of that will ultimately lead nowhere if Canadian consumers can't correctly identify products that come from Canada or Quebec.
Recently, one of my colleagues told me that he had found olives produced in Quebec in the supermarket. By what miracle of nature have we started to produce olives in Quebec? I don't know. But if you can have doubts about the origin of those olives, imagine how it is in the case of strawberries and apples. Consumers are completely tricked. Once traceability is done, you absolutely have to make that identification possible and easy for the average person. The entire traceability system serves no purpose if consumers ultimately can't conclude, for example, that olives don't come from Quebec.
We have a society that is increasingly demanding about its products. We are entirely prepared to offer high-quality products. We're already doing it; we've established all the necessary mechanisms. We are partners in that effort; we've established traceability programs, in particular in the cattle industry. We are putting them in place for lambs and sheep, and we're going to continue along that line. All that is being done to meet society's requirements, and, to date, only producers and the government have invested a little, a lot, in those mechanisms, in starting them up. Now producers, to all intents and purposes, bear those costs alone, whereas the objective is to meet society's requirements. It is unacceptable that we should bear these costs alone, when producers in other regions of the world sell us products that are not consistent with these mechanisms and with which we have to compete.
As regards innovation and research, we need it; it's promising. We need mechanisms to support producers who engage in it. I particularly want to draw your attention to basic research. We need to develop knowledge in fields where no one will do it because there are no market opportunities. Companies will invest in research to develop new phytosanitary, service and mechanical products. But when it comes to understanding environmental phenomena, climate adjustment phenomena that are currently changing, it takes basic research, and no one except the government wants to invest in it. So the government must absolutely continue to play its role in this area because it's based on that that we'll be able to develop applied research and to get people interested in investing in it.
With regard to advisory services, we've developed good mechanisms in Quebec. We have good expertise. Things are progressing quickly. Among other things, we need to support our advisors to enable them to keep up to date on new knowledge. We can't ask producers to support all that. We can ask them to support part of it, but we'll need government investment so our agri-environmental, management and agricultural technical advisors are up to date.
In environment, we need a companion government that will help people get motivated and support the entire environmental approach. To date, every time we've assisted producers in pilot projects—we can give you some examples—people have willingly gotten involved and taken major action. Yesterday, I witnessed an effort in a small watershed, a project in which 100% of producers are involved. Probably within two years, they're going to correct 100% of their river bank and take action in the waterways, with the assistance of the federal and provincial governments. When we do it, it works; we have to repeat these experiences. We have to assist producers in this effort.
I'd like to add that environmental improvement is important for agriculture and agri-food, but it's also very important for society in general. This isn't an agricultural mission; it's a social mission. If we don't provide producers with social assistance in this effort, we won't be able to meet the challenge in a way that meets expectations solely with our own resources. Once again, I'm not just talking about money. I am talking about money, but I'm also talking about government assistance in the areas of information, knowledge transfer and understanding of phenomena.
Now let's talk about support programs.
We need support programs that will enable us to be competitive with other countries. Some of them provide major support to agriculture. They enter our markets and don't respect the moral aspect of the commitments they've made to trade liberalization. It hasn't worked, and we have no indication that things will change for the better. We are stymied by the competition, and government support should be commensurate with these problems.
As for the need to simplify the program, I'd say that no agricultural producer is now able to understand the ins and outs of the CAIS program. The accountant may say that everything's going well, that he's done the work instead of the producer and that the producer need only sign the cheque at the same time as the one to pay his fees; nevertheless no producer is able to understand this program. It's too complex. That's why it has to be simplified. It tends to encourage the separation of businesses. Some produce pork and beef, but tend to separate these types of production because the program is more profitable that way. Diversified businesses, that's our agricultural model in Quebec, but we're jeopardizing it with the CAIS program. Changes will have to be made to it in order to stop this phenomenon.
It's also unacceptable for an individual who is both an agricultural producer and an electrician to derive full income security benefits for the agricultural part and for a producer with two types of production to be affected by this situation. There's a kind of contradiction in that. Ultimately, people are being encouraged to do both agriculture and something else. Soon agriculture will become a tax shelter and a way of getting grants. People will be electricians or school teachers while also being farmers. I have nothing against those occupations, but that's not at all what we're looking for. That problem has to be corrected as well.
As for training, I think it's high time we developed new methods for providing people with agricultural training when they are young. Continuing training is fine, and I encourage it, but we have to make our procedure more flexible so that we can train people before they enter the labour market.
There's a great example of success in Quebec. You have to go look at the training school in Mirabel. The secondary and college levels are in the same building. There's no division between the two, which guarantees good continuity. I think that model should be reproduced in other places because the population pool in the rural areas of all the Quebec regions is inadequate to feed the secondary and college-level occupational training schools. We have to find a way to provide more appropriate training that is more within people's reach. Otherwise we'll be seeing an exodus. Go look at Mirabel; it's really interesting. I won't say any more.
I've gone on a bit long, and I apologize for that.
Thank you.
