A few government initiatives have helped young farmers, including us. The AgriStability program helped young farmers, but only after they had been in business for a few years, because they needed reference years. The environmental farm plan has helped a lot of farmers, and helped us quite a bit as young farmers. We used it quite extensively. And the new hog restructuring program might prove to be a success and keep some more of us in the business.
Many challenges face young and beginning farmers. Today the farms are getting a lot bigger because of lower profit margins. The beginning farmer needs a lot more capital to get started. It's almost impossible for young farmers to start from scratch. We wanted to start farming. I had a degree in swine and poultry, I had four years of experience as a farm manager on a large sow operation, and I'd worked on pig farms almost all my life. But it was hard to get financing, and we could not borrow a higher percentage on our equity. At the same time, larger investor-driven barns were put up by people with no prior knowledge or experience in the field, and these people could actually borrow the same percentage on equity. So it seems that there is no credit given for experience, knowledge, or past record.