I believe the government needs to take a much more holistic look at how we react to the need for business risk management programs. We were happy to see the increase in funding last year in the SCAP program, but it's a decimal point on a rounding error. To actually have an effect, really what we need is a different program, a stand-alone program.
A prime example of that was in 2021. With the drought in the Prairies in western Canada, the CFA initiated the hay west program. We sourced hay to get to our livestock producers in western Canada to help them through the troubled times. When we sourced hay, we could not find any in western Canada at all. Yes, the production was down, but any extra production there had already been gobbled up by U.S. farmers.
Why? The USDA has a program on the shelf, and whenever there is an issue, they pull it off the shelf, insert money and get it out to the producers quickly. It's timely. It's effective. I can't put a number on what the dollar value would be, but it's certainly not the dollar value within the SCAP program now, which wouldn't suffice long term. Part of those dollars, as we've talked about around the table today, are about putting preventative measures in place to offset the tremendous cost that happens when an event occurs. If we can mitigate those costs, then the cleanup is a lot less.
There has to be a long-term vision to how we do this. It can't just be a one-off program or a short-term program. There have to be conversations with the people on the ground—the farmers, the farm community and the governments across the country—about how we get that done.