Thank you.
Let me first outline who I am and why I'm here. Some people will know me from different farm organizations, but I am here representing my family.
I have farmed with my husband for 32 years in hogs and cash crops. Both of us grew up on mixed farms, so we had a pretty good idea of what we were getting ourselves into. We have five children, and three of them have started farming, from 2001 to 2008. However, due to the situation in hog farming, we are now highly leveraged. The only thing that's got us in business is the equity we've built up over this time.
The agricultural situation in Canada, as I see it, is that basically agriculture is totally undervalued by Canadians as a whole, especially as the farming population shrinks. There are misunderstandings, even in rural areas amongst our neighbours. And the cost of food is the smallest part of a Canadian's personal budget, especially when you compare it with the rest of the world.
Historically, agriculture has renewed itself with immigration. We've brought in people willing to import new technology, as they did after the Second World War, and they make huge sacrifices in their lives to build a better life for themselves and their kids. They basically work for next to nothing until they get there.
As Brian talked about, people have to expand because the margins keep shrinking, and you need to make a living. We have inequities among commodities. The capital start-up costs are prohibitive. When I asked my kids what the government could do for them, they just kind of shrugged and said, “It costs millions to start in farming. What can anybody do about that?”
Diversification is good risk mitigation, but all the government risk-management programs that are out there, such as CAIS, favour specialized operations. Established farmers have a better chance of getting value out of the programs than beginning farmers and farmers trying to grow their business.
Canadian labour and technological and utility costs are non-competitive worldwide, and huge variations exist across the country. We have huge variations in the type and scale of farming. We have very rural populations out west and we have very urban populations in Ontario, and probably in B.C. Even in Ontario, not everybody has good access to the niche marketing you can do with an urban population.
Given that, why would we even want to encourage farmers to get into farming? And what can government do about it?
Primarily, I think we have to keep agriculture at the forefront. Mention it more often in speeches, such as speeches from the throne. Develop a vision for Canadian food production and make it readily available. I went on Agriculture Canada's website today, and I didn't see anything that made me think there was a vision of what this government believes agriculture is to the country.
Make agriculture seem like the valuable and exciting career that it is. Make us Olympic athletes. We do it 365 days a year, every year. The brand “In Canada” needs to happen domestically.
If you really want a future in farming in Canada, you have to make it something that kids want to get into. Communicate your policies to the agriculture communities so that more than just us politically active people understand what the government wants or expects from its farmers.
Let the rest of the population know that cheap food is not a long-term, viable expectation that we can continue to have--unless you want to keep trying to find immigrants from around the world who can revitalize agriculture.
I think the government has to make some decisions about direct producer supports. Either make them fair or just eliminate them.
If there are valuable incentives to be paid out, such as what has been done for food safety programs or environmental concerns, please make sure the programs are properly funded so that everybody who wants to can take part in them. Don't make them so heavily burdened in administration that the money gets sucked up in office jobs.
Encouraging innovation in all areas is a good thing, but what we've seen.... Ontario just did give out some awards for innovation, but what struck me was the huge amount of investment that comes with innovation. That can't always come up from the farm, in upfront investment.
I'd also like to say that the investment this government has made in the processing sector has been really good to ensure that our customers have the best tools to market what we do such a great job of producing in this country.
On a personal note, back when we were starting to get established, we took some bad advice from our accountant and we incorporated. What we have found now is that succession planning is a nightmare. Those people who aren't incorporated have other issues, but in some cases it's a lot easier.
Also, I have observed that generally it's pretty common that farming comes from the children of farmers. I see now that our friends who have kids farming....
We're not sure when we're going to retire, but our friends who don't have kids farming are making retirement plans, buying lots. There is no foreseeable future for people whose kids are farming right now.
Thank you.