I do not believe that what we're seeing take place in the marketplace has resulted in food producers purchasing less farm gate output. I don't have any data to support that.
In fact, what's happened since the pandemic is that we've seen quite a bit more volume because people are at home, cooking more at home. That drives more volume throughout the supply chain or the food value chain.
My concern for farm gate output is the same for many of the businesses in the value chain. They also are faced, according to reports that I'm receiving, with incredible pressures on everything from transportation of their goods through to fertilizer, through to the impact of the carbon tax and labour costs. With all of those issues, many of them are occurring throughout all of the value chain.
If we are going to make the most of the opportunity ahead of us, as a country, we need to address and understand the circumstances for each value chain member and the relationship between both selling and production and how that product gets to market. We're not always in control of the pricing and whether or not we can control whether or not our product gets to market efficiently.