I want to highlight that the organic standards funding is a constant pain for us. Every five years, for our trade agreements with those 35 other nations, it's mandatory to have it renewed. If we do not have the funding, the agreements do not get renewed and trade halts for international exports as well as imports.
We can't highlight enough how important it is for us to get full, permanent funding. There have been two recommendations from the Standing Committee on Agriculture over the years. We still do not have permanent funding. We still have to fundraise a portion of that funding. We do appreciate that the Canadian General Standards Board's costs have been covered, but there's another $200,000 at least that need to be covered by industry. We have to fundraise that by 2025.
I love that you brought up the idea of a fair work environment as part of the standards process that we're in right now. I'm leading a working group on fairness. It ties in to the concept of labour and making sure that we have a workforce for the future. It really is part of the organic principles.
We have four organic principles: health, care, ecology and fairness. When we became regulated in 2009 by the federal government, we dropped all the discussion about fairness. It's time to bring that back because we need to motivate the workforce to continue to farm organically.