Thank you, Lloyd, for your question.
You made reference to Mr. Preston and the economic development work that's going on there. We believe that is a positive step. It was part of our original proposal that economic development needed to be part of the solution. However, in the absence of something that deals with the grower issue, the economic development piece is really dealing with the symptoms of the problem, not with the disease. The disease is the precipitous decline in the legal demand for our product and, of course, the economic activity that we as farmers are no longer generating.
What we need immediately is a solution to this problem, and that is a commitment by what we call the senior partners in the tobacco industry, which really are the federal and provincial governments and the manufacturers. We need an exit plan. There are far too many growers, and there is not nearly enough money to go around. With a 20-million-pound crop for the existing 1,559 quota holders, we are all starving to death. We need a solution.
We are aware that Minister Ritz is having some discussions with the manufacturers on this. Of course, it does appear that's tied to some measurable success on the contraband issue. But we don't have time. We need some help right away.