Yes, absolutely.
If you look at the rate of capital reinvestment in our industry over the last 15 years, it has declined significantly. It's declined for many reasons, mostly due to the economic hard times around 2008-09 and the recovery it took in our industry.
The level of reinvestment has been at a critical low, and it needs to change and to be ramped up. Access to capital remains a challenge for both existing producers and new producers coming in. The harsh economic reality that we face as producers is that we live in a very capital-intensive industry. In order to be competitive, you need to be of a certain scale of size. In commercial operation today, that requires an investment of millions of dollars in capital, and it also requires that this capital be reinvested on a periodic and timely basis to ensure that our facilities are up to date and modern, and that they meet the ever-evolving needs of animal welfare and safety standards.
It's imperative in our industry that producers have access to capital. A program is needed desperately in our industry to allow young producers and existing producers to reach that goal. If we're not able to reinvest in our infrastructure, we will reach a critical mass point in the next four to seven years, when a lot of our buildings will have to be retired and we'll be unable to have access to capital in order to reinvest in them.
We need to come up with innovative programs for capital investment that can maybe be set aside and converted to interest-only payments during economic downturns. We need to come up with ways that will continually enhance the value of our product and ensure that primary producers are getting a full share of the total market value of their product so that young people can invest with confidence, knowing that over the long term, 20 or 30 years, that their investment will pay off and that they made a wise decision. We need to increase access to capital. We need to also increase the value of our product to make it a wise decision. We need to work on ensuring that the primary producer is getting an adequate share of the value-added chain.