Thank you.
Thank you for being here today.
On the issue of food safety and imported food, on the TV, both last night and today, as I went past CNN there were stories about concerns in the United States about food safety. The great irony, of course, is that a pet food problem has brought this issue to light.
I want to talk about access to capital for young farmers and this challenge of how we get another generation of farmers on the land and into the business.
My riding is about an hour north of Toronto. The challenge there is that when a farm comes up for sale, farmers are competing with non-farmers—I always say lawyers from Toronto—people who are looking for a recreational property. That has driven the price up.
When you were trying to figure out how a young person could afford a farm in this area that is worth $1 million—just to pick a number—if the young person is not buying it, who else is buying that farm? Is it another farmer who's buying that farm for $1 million? I'm getting a head nod. That means there must be a business model—an existing farmer feels it's worthwhile to pay $1 million to buy another farm because they can make it go.
For young farmers, is it the availability of capital? As you were saying, if you have to have 30% or 40% down, that is $300,000 or $400,000, and then you borrow the balance from a bank. In the housing market we went to high-ratio mortgages 15 years ago, where you could borrow more than 75%. Is part of the solution figuring out a way to help young people finance that farm? Is that the challenge?