Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
It's obvious I'm not a young farmer. We had every intention of having a young farmer here today to do this presentation, but he wouldn't leave his air seeder, which is probably the right thing for him to do.
You've already heard from at least one of our young farmers earlier today. Kyle Foster is involved in our organization as well. We do have a very strong and active young farmers group within our organization, and we strive to include them in all our policy development. In fact our current executive of 12 includes four young farmers. So we're certainly very engaged with them.
Our biggest concern, I guess, is the decline in the farming population in general, but particularly the sharp decline in young farmers. We need to get more young people involved within the sector in whatever way. Sometimes it's going to be with existing farm operations and traditional farm styles or new ones entirely.
One of the barriers that the sector faces to new entrants--and not just young farmers from existing farms, but bringing people in from the outside--is the very negative image and very negative message that we continue to get of agriculture. We as farm organizations have been attempting to be more proactive in recognizing our success stories and getting those back in view of the public.
There are clearly some problems of limitation and equity issues. The cost of getting into agriculture is quite large. Even the programs we do have--and we do have several here in Manitoba through Manitoba Ag Services--have very severe limitations on the equity situation, which makes them difficult to use.
In the area of business risk management, there are certainly problems. Some of them have been mentioned, such as the lack of initial margin in AgriStability. The same thing applies for crop insurance coverage for young farmers and new entrants. It also applies to AgriInvest. You simply do not have the numbers to start. These are the most vulnerable entrants to the sector and we give them the least amount of protection. Clearly we have our policies mixed up on that one.
We need some programs to be in place, and we are going to suggest some here. We've been working with our young farmers group and we have roughed out a program. Basically they fall into three areas: addressing leadership and skills development, providing some mentorship opportunities that draw on the experience that is in the industry, and of course allowing some access to capital.
One of the big changes, though, and it's been referenced all the way through, is the profitability in the sector. We have seen a significant shift in the value chains and that has led to a serious lack of profitability. Even your own farm income numbers, which just came out this week, are actually going to back up that statement in a sizeable way.
So there's a significant drop in farm income, which is going to be a crisis in the next year that's just emerging. It is even more evident in the value-added sectors where the income has dropped even more sharply. So clearly we have shifted this.
The farmer's share has been referenced by Mr. Black. A document that we have been tracking for some time has shown a continued decline in the farmer's share of the consumer dollar. That is really the basis of the problem: no matter how efficient we've become as farmers, someone else in the sector has been taking that. We have actually been subsidizing inefficiency in the value-chain sector. It's something we clearly can't afford to do in the future.
Now, getting back to our concept paper, which we don't have completed.... We're in the development stage, so I'll give you some of the points. We named it “AgriStart”, to fit it in the current models that are used, the lexicon of the day.
In the area of leadership and skills development, we think we should start with a grant program with a limit of about $10,000 per person during the first three years. It will help people get properly trained to provide the necessary skills these days to run a large farm. It will be aimed at increasing access to planning tools and resources whether they include financial planning, business planning, marketing, or whatever.
It will offer participation in leadership training because I think we're going to need leaders in the future in the farm community and these are where they'll have to come from. It will also offer participation in an applied mentorship program. We'll talk a little bit about that shortly. And there will be increased participation in farm organizations because we have to have a strong voice in the future.
In the area of internship or mentorship programs, we will have on-farm training for interested individuals and hands-on training in production and management. The employer would get a tax incentive based on the number of hours mentoring, and the employee would be paid a percentage by the producer that would be supplemented by a leadership development program.
So it would be the same as in other sectors. We'd divide the cost of having a new person in the workplace, they would get some education, and the owner of the operation would get some benefits as well.
For non-agricultural recipients--those without current agricultural background, or the non-farm people--the applied program would be required for any further loans or whatever under other programs. Mentorship farms would have to be approved for each commodity, and that would be done by commodity organizations at the provincial level. An example would be dairy farmers.
We're also putting forward a concept we call the “AgriFoundation”. AgriStart funding would be available at low interest rates, maybe even down to zero. The source of that funding could be from companies like Farm Credit, or we could set up a mutual pool of retiring farmers who want to invest in that--maybe not so direct. There might be a need for some guarantees in that area.
Non-agricultural recipients would be required to go through an applied internship/mentorship program so we would know they got the experience. We would also have funding incentives for alternate energy and green technology users. Frankly, we're finding it very difficult to get new farmers, young farmers, or even existing farmers to apply some of those new greener technologies, particularly in alternate energy. Maybe we'll have to import them from elsewhere to get at least the initial one started.
That's our concept paper, and I'd be happy to answer any questions.