I have three specific questions to ask. Whoever feels most qualified to answer them can step up. If more than two want to answer, that's great.
One of the things you do in giving out loans is assess the risk. Obviously you're profit-oriented, and that's fair. In assessing that risk, I think you need to know, when a farmer might run into some kind of trouble, what kinds of programs are there for the government to assist. One of those programs is AgriStability.
We've had many farmers come before us to... I can't count the numbers. And this isn't a criticism of the government; this is an assessment of the program to decide whether or not it's working.
So the farmers talk about this olympic averaging, and how the protocols are not working. They say it's not being fair to them because they need to have two years where they're in the black and not the red, and they can't get those two years in many cases.
I'm wondering to what degree might you recommend--if you could, if you look at this--that we redesign or tweak the business risk management so that it helps the farmers and lessens that risk so you might be more willing to have them qualify for loans. That's the first question.
The second question is about transition, about succession planning. We all know how much is going from one generation to the next. I used to be a succession planning lawyer, and I did a lot of work helping plan the transition of farms from one generation to the other. I would assume that you've been engaged with the government to some degree in helping them redesign some tax rules and laws that might address the issue that Randy was talking about. I'm just wondering if you have some advice for us on how some of the tax laws might be adjusted to enable that transition to occur when it might not otherwise occur.
My third question is on loans, not just to farmers but to other areas of the industry that ultimately help the farmers. That involves loans to companies that turn biomaterials they get from processing plants into energy, that kind of thing. As you know, we're becoming far more innovative now in pursuing the use of those materials to create energy.
I'm wondering to what degree the banking industry is prepared to participate in that as a partner. Government is a willing partner, with the announcement of $25 million and $40 million in the recent budget, and we applaud that. But how willing is the banking industry to participate with that industry in financing those projects?
Those are my three specific questions.