Thank you again.
What I've heard as well in the last week or so, and what I'm hearing now, is that there's an absolute willingness to stay on the farm, an embracing of the farm life, a love of the farm life, but for many, an inability to make a living.
One of the figures and statements that really hit home with me last week was that 65% of farmers under 35 have left the industry in the last 10 years. That's because they can't make a living in it.
I'm sorry to keep raising the dark side of this, but if we minimize, or live in denial, I think we will find, as one farmer said last week, a complete decline in the industry. I'm concerned about that. I don't want to fluff this off as something where we can adjust a few programs and everything will be fine, because that's not it, folks. In fact, one of them said that we wouldn't be having this tour across the country on the future of farming in Canada if we weren't in crisis.
Wayne, I really liked your ideas about allowing farm land to come out of farm corporations, as if they had not incorporated, really, in order to distribute that land, or whatever, in retirement or on death. Someone last week spoke of a program where we match up retiring farmers with non-family who wished to become involved in farming.
I took it a step further and suggested that those favourable tax laws that exist for succession planning within families should perhaps extend to non-family members as well, if we're going to save our farms. Could you comment on that?