Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members, for the invitation and the opportunity to share our opinion with you today.
I am Guenette Bautz, the general manager for the Canadian Young Farmers' Forum. We were established in 1997, and we will celebrate 20 years next year.
Our organization has 11 young farmer provincial organizations from coast to coast. We represent young farmers age 18 to 40. Our role with the youth and young farmers falls between 4-H and the Outstanding Young Farmers Program. The 4-H program starts youth in agriculture; the CYFF builds them, giving them the tools and education and training; the Outstanding Young Farmers Program celebrates their success.
Our focus and activities include providing education on various topics, through various methods. Our goal is to build leaders, to represent young farmers of Canada, to provide networking and mentorship opportunities, to connect young farmers to peers and mentors, and address industry issues, most recently, succession planning, business management, and any other relevant topic.
We work on social media outreach, educating consumers, speaking positively for the agriculture industry and representing young farmers on various agriculture boards across Canada. We have also been involved in international collaborations, and have been called upon by various agriculture and agrifood organizations to help lead and be active in international projects with the U.S., Mexico, and recently an outreach from Nigeria. The work that we do as the Canadian Young Farmers' Forum is very important. We focus on working towards the future in agriculture.
Our ultimate goals are to help young farmers be successful by providing the necessary training and education, connecting producers to create those peer-to-peer support relationships, and building our international trade partners. How do we do this? The CYFF relies on support from AAFC through the AgriCompetitiveness fostering business development stream, as well as through industry, support either by funding or in-kind contributions, and collaboration.
We were asked to come and speak about recommendations to consider for the next policy framework, so I welcome the opportunity to share with you our comments on that.
While the CYFF and many other national organizations are very thankful for the support that we receive, the CYFF believes that through working together we can achieve greater success, and that we are ultimately a team, as a not-for-profit organization, working with our government representatives for the betterment of agriculture and the future of young farmers in our country.
I'd like to recommend for consideration for future funding on the federal and provincial initiative that the committee think about the reporting of value for in-kind contributions of recognition. At this point, under the funding module, in-kind contributions are not considered, and we would ask that this be a consideration moving forward.
We would ask for support that would enable projects and programs to advance when the opportunities arise even during a mid-agreement or contract. At times we get into a five-year agreement for funding, and as we go about our business and activities, opportunities will arise for us. We become restricted within our current agreement, and we have a bit of an inability to grow and change the course and meet some of the new opportunities that arise among the work that we're doing throughout our programming.
We would also ask that there be some consideration on the administration requirements. Going from GF1 to GF2, there was a huge shift in administration requirements and demands, which enabled the organization, in some capacities, to focus on the work of the activity versus the reporting of the activity.
Other considerations would be the flow of funds for the agreement. Sometimes there's a delay in the allocated funds being distributed, which causes a bit of a hiccup in executing our activities and keeping our activities on track because of cash flow.
We would like a reduction in matching requirements. Right now it's a 50:50 matching requirement, and we would look for your support to help us advance the agriculture industry by reducing the requirement of 50% cash to 50% matching.
Further, we would just look for some support to give us the ability to make adjustments to our projects as they arise, and support for emerging opportunities that do come about in our work throughout our contract agreement.
I will turn this over to my chair, Mr. Paul Glenn, to speak on our behalf as a young farmer.