The member is absolutely right, it does take a long-term vision, and that's part of what I want to lay out here today. I think we'll see that the family farm options program and the money that's available from it are going to play an important role in that long-term vision for agriculture.
We've gone into next generation consultations as well trying to find ways to get the next generation involved in agriculture and food policy. That's a real challenge. When we were down in the States, we heard that that they are having the same challenge of trying to get young people into their industry, and it's a challenge we continue to face.
I've been on the committee for a few years, and this issue has been part of the committee's discussion ever since I arrived. I think it was probably a big issue even before that.
This government showed its commitment to agriculture again this year with another $1 billion investment through budget 2007. This is the start of the new vision and the new direction that agriculture is going to take in this country. As the minister announced, this includes the implementation of the contributory-style producer savings accounts.
Many of our producers are familiar with NISA. They were very excited about having that program in the past. They were able to build up accounts, and then many of them used that to keep their farms going. The minister has come back and said that we want to take a look at that program and see how we can fit something like it into our present farm program system. So he came forward and said that we're going to take a look at contributory-style producers savings accounts to replace the top 15% of the income stabilization program.
Actually he was good and generous enough to say that program is going to be kick-started with a one-time payment of $600 million, which is an amazing thing. I think farmers are very grateful for that. This is one of the things I've heard the most positive comments about. People are excited to see some of these changes taking place, so they may have some programs here that are going to work for them in the future.
Out of that $1 billion, that $600 million was committed, so obviously this left another $400 million. That $400 million is going to be paid directly to producers to help address some of the cost of the production issues they face. We understand that especially this spring there has been a tremendous increase, particularly in fuel prices in the last month. Over the winter, fertilizer prices skyrocketed. Those folks who were not prepared to buy their fertilizer last fall have had a rough spring of being able to buy products.
So that $400 million is going to go towards helping address some of those cost-of-production issues. As well, we made a commitment to pay another $100 million annually to help address those cost-of-production issues.