Probably even better for you, too, right...?
Actually, I thought this was more about young people than us seasoned people sitting around this table. It is interesting to see that.... We try to encourage young people to get into agriculture, and in our province it's key, because we're so new in the way of agriculture. In our province, we've been in the farming industry for only 40 or 50 years, so how do you get young people like the person on my right interested in something that is not very productive, to say the least?
Young people are very well educated versus what I was when I started agriculture 40 years ago. They enter this business with a debt from student loans before they get there; then they're expected to raise capital to start farming somewhere in this country. They do have business plans, and they'll say very quickly that they have a huge debt looking at them, because most farmers who sell their operations are looking at their farms as their pension plan and a way of living in the future.
We know, or we've been told, that the Canada's pension doesn't seem to be the be-all and end-all for us senior people, so you have to look after yourself in the way of providing financial aid for yourself in the future. If you are a farmer, that farm is your aid in the future, there's no question about it.
Another question is about opportunities in farming. The first thing we have to do is put profitability back into farming. It's not there right now. We see some glimmer of hope in some of the supply-managed sectors, but even then we're hearing some horror stories about the price of quota and how we get people to buy into supply-managed sectors. It's getting too expensive to get in there.
Starting up a farm is hard enough, especially when you're starting from scratch and you have to go out and clear land. In our province, we are still clearing land. We need another 40,000 hectares. When you look at the numbers in our province, we grow 15% of our vegetables, 2% of our beef, and 0.5% of our pork. We're self-sufficient in dairy and self-sufficient in eggs and 70% in chicken. For sheep, it's probably about one-seventh of a per cent, so you can see in our province.... We also have very little grain. We could be self-sufficient in grain if we had the land base cleared. That's the challenge. It's up to us.
Not only are we seeing young people starting in agriculture in our province, but we're seeing people who are 30 years old and 40 years old. Now, to my mind, that's getting close to the age of a seasoned farmer, not a young person.
More and more demands are being put on today's farmers, such as paying the cost of looking after the environment. We own, I suppose, the majority of the land in this country, and we are expected to look after this land base.
We're asked to provide food safety. We've always been told that we have the safest food in the world, but we have to prove it now, and there's a cost.
If you're into livestock, animal welfare is raising its ugly head again. You have to provide for animal welfare and document it. You must have your doors open if someone wants to come in and look at what you're doing.
Those are a few things from my notes here. I'm probably better at answering questions than I am at speaking.
I'm wondering what we have to do to entice the young people here, like Chan and Jill, who are sitting either side of me, to want to go into agriculture. If you don't make any money, why would you want to go down that road? Most kids are now coming out of school with $40,000 or $50,000 worth of debt, and then, if they want to get into a supply-managed commodity, they have to turn around and look at $3 million or $4 million more.
At today's prices, if you can't get at least a 5% or 10% return on your investment, you're not going to last. Because every time you turn around, someone is out there with their little hand out.
In the last five years, you've seen your fuel prices go through the roof, your fertilizer prices go through the roof, and also your labour costs, if you can get the labour to work on the farm--it's gone. Your workers' compensation premiums have gone up. Your unemployment premiums have gone up. Every time you turn around, there is someone trying to get that little tiny 5% that you have--if you have 5%.
And at the end of the day, if you don't have anything to put in your back pocket, you're not going to get people to get involved.
Thank you.