I don't necessarily agree that we're going to see large corporate interests taking over the farm. I think it was mentioned earlier that something like 98% of the farms are still family-owned operations, but these family operations are a lot different than they were 20, 30, 40, or 50 years ago. Many people are bringing their sons, their daughters, nieces, and nephews into the operation, and they're creating a business that is a little more sustainable, I think, in the long run. If I look back to some of the older small farms that were in business, some of those farms did not have high productivity, and the people who were working on them were working every day of the year themselves. They didn't have anybody to share that labour.
I think what you've seen is a shift taking place on the commercial farms, and I don't think there's anything wrong with calling them commercial farms. The people working those farms want to have a scale that allows them to make a decent living, and they also want to enjoy the same benefits the rest of society have. If they want to go on a holiday, they'd like to go on a holiday. If they want to take their kids to a sporting event, they take their kids to a sporting event.
The real issue is not about the size of the farm. It's about making sure that there's profitability there. In some cases, the farm that cost $5 million, because of its productivity, may have more profitability than the farm that cost a million dollars. It's all about making sure that the proper tools are there for business planning, so that the people buying a farm have the opportunity to find out what they're getting into. If you put in some of those tools, like tax policy, that allow the farmer who's exiting to decide to hold the mortgage and have the income coming in on a tax-free basis, this may give the farmer the opportunity to move that farm over to the next generation.