Thank you, Chair.
I want to focus the discussion on the farm gate. In Growing Forward we've been studying science and innovation, but now we're looking at the competitiveness of enterprises. I think of this at the farm gate, meaning that we expect our farmers to be good farmers, and they are good farmers, but we also expect them to implement business skills.
As a government, we sometimes obligate business-type training if someone requires access to a particular program, if there is difficulty within their sector or on their farm, but each of your organizations is different. You have different scenarios, different systems, and different networks.
What I'd like to know from each of you, does your association promote business development, business skill development, and business strategy development at the farm level, so the farmer is looking ahead more than just in the crop season in which he finds himself? But he might be looking at should he pay off debt, should he acquire more capital acquisitions, should he use an accountant, what tools does he have to help run his farm like a business--those types of business decisions that would affect his enterprise.
Because your organizations are quite different, because we've got supply-managed sectors and we have non-supply-managed sectors and the communication levels between the farm gate and your associations would be different, perhaps I'll start on this end with turkey farmers and then we'll go to dairy farmers and then to organic farmers and then to canola farmers.
Perhaps you could explain to me what you offer and how you encourage the take-up by farmers within your association. And is there a take-up?