Thank you, witnesses, for being here.
I want to first of all say congratulations to the Dairy Farmers of Canada on the introduction of their new logo. I can tell you that the blue cow, around our home, is the one that gets looked at, so I hope this supplementation and this marketing tool are going to come along and just make a good thing better.
I wasn't going to say this, but you just mentioned something that struck me. In agriculture, as my good friend over here mentioned, there is a concern that the average age of farmers is 55 and that is because in the agricultural world, what we do is not very sexy. That's not right. I have to tell you that I disagree with that. I'm looking at this book about the agricultural workforce, and I'm looking at the farming around my area, whether it's supply management or not. Why is it 55? I can take you to farm after farm where the father doesn't want to leave, and he's my age or older, but the next generation is coming along. Why is it coming along? Because we've made the industry sexy, sorry to say.
I will be honest with you folks. I'd take the majority of our young entrepreneurs and farmers and stick them in a room with any CEO or CAO of a company, and say let's talk about business.
I'm not concerned about it being 55. I'm a long ways past that, but it was always 55. What we have is a brilliant, energetic, technologically advanced group of young people. I'll take you from farm to farm, and you'll see that the number of women who are involved in the management and the workings of them is really quite something. Why? I talk to students coming out of university, and I ask them what they're going to do. “What do you think about farming? Are you thinking about science? Are you thinking about chemistry? Are you thinking about engineering?” I tell them that agriculture has all of those. With regard to research and innovation, this is an industry in which you can have a job, and it will be a good job, because you're in one of the most progressive industries.
I think it's a sexy industry, and I tell that to the young folks, and I want to now try to relate that to the APF.
Any time we see an industry that in seven out of the 10 provinces is ranked number one or number two, then we have a great amount of dedication and respect for it. That's the way it is.
First of all, Dairy Farmers, can you help me? There's a new research facility in Elora. How does that work in terms of the five-year cycle and getting a research project at that facility? You say it's too restricted in terms of the flexibility, so can you give me an example of what we can do to use that as a facility? It is brand new and quite amazing, quite honestly. How can we improve so that the research that comes through that facility...?
Mark, I know you don't have your own, but help me with some of the ones that you have.
Research leads to innovation, which leads to productivity, which often leads to markets, whether domestic or international.
Maybe, Caroline, you could start and then we'll go to Mark.