Sure. What we've witnessed with how AgriRecovery is set up is that it compensates for additional costs due to a disaster—for example, if a flood occurs. The atmospheric river in the Fraser Valley had a tremendous amount of water and flooding, and barns were destroyed or heavily damaged. There were additional costs for farmers to get out of that disaster.
In our situation with the extreme cold and the extreme heat, I'm calling it the “silent disaster”. Let's use the extreme cold event. Our trees looked exactly the same a week after the event as they did a week before the event. Where the disaster lies is in extreme crop loss, which, in the current framework, directs us to go to AgriInsurance for our losses. We have been doing that, but what the cherry industry example highlights is that this is not a program to go back to year after year, because you can cover only 80% of your crop. You have a 20% deductible. In a one-off scenario, yes, a farmer can absorb that 20% and understands that they got their insurance and that next year they're looking for a better year, an average year or maybe a record year. However, this five years in a row that we're now in highlights that this is not the correct program.
I'm talking about a program that lies somewhere between AgriInsurance, AgriStability and, on the far end, AgriRecovery. If I had to give it a name, I would call it “AgriResiliency”. Within that, we'd have monetary compensation for extreme losses so farmers remain viable, and at the same time, we'd assess what caused that loss and provide funds for BMPs. If it's extreme heat, shade covers could potentially mitigate that in the future and open it up for farmers to invest in, because as mentioned by one of the panellists, farmers are very adaptive.
The Cherry Association is already looking for options, but we can't do this alone. It needs to be supported with some government intervention to help us.