Well, there has been strong opposition to the recent closures of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada research centres. In our opinion, this is a very bad decision. We have reported this to several members of Parliament from different regions.
The problem is that we need experts to help us. A loss of soil health accompanied by a 1% loss in its productivity represents a loss of about 10% of the business's net profit each year when it's raising a monoculture. That means that, within 10 years, most businesses will be operating at a loss. This means one thing: We have to move quickly.
When a research centre is closed and people are relocated, many do not follow. The result is that you lose staff with 25 or 30 years of experience. Experience is not something that you can restore immediately by hiring young people. Merely replacing staff following the relocation will have particularly harmful consequences on Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's ability to generate the research results needed to address soil degradation.
It's particularly the forage crops research group and the soil health group that are affected by the closure of the Sainte-Foy agricultural research centre. These research groups are essentially relocated and will inevitably lose the interest they had in regional research. Now, as a previous speaker said, the solutions in the Canadian agriculture sector are often regional. This means that it's important to still have this ability to respond regionally to agricultural producers' needs.