It's quite challenging when you're talking to government because I've just about never heard of government getting rid of stuff, which is maybe needed here, or maybe some amalgamation.
I want to start this though by saying we're all for safe food. It's a really difficult discussion to have because of all these different rules and regulations, be it CanadaGAP or SFFCR. There are other organic certifications and standards around poultry production. All of these things came out of, presumably, a need. None of us are against that, but it's when you pile them all together that it becomes burdensome, to the point where it it can be hard to have the will to keep going and to fight it.
Just as a simple case in point—I wrote my notes before this happened—yesterday I got stuck at the border trying to get some sweet potato cuttings from the States into Canada to start our sweet potato production for the year. We're in an ideal spot in New Brunswick, one of the few places in the Maritimes where we can grow really nice sweet potatoes. I was stuck for about six hours waiting for the right stamp on the document so that I could cross with them back across the border.
That's just one example of the challenges where I should be in the field planting and a logistical bureaucratic thing holds me up. It took them five hours to recognize that I had actually paid the invoice so they could release it. Helping to speed up the process and make the things that are there work better would certainly be an asset.
Then I wish there was a way to have more cross-communication. The organic certification that we do deals with almost all of the same things that the chicken board has in their regulations, but because the chicken farmers are all under this umbrella, they don't want to allow us to provide our organic certificate as enough. Now I need yet another audit in order to raise 5,000 birds on pasture. It's these kinds of things.
If I had a $2-million or $3-million business and I could hire somebody full time—we're getting close to that, close to being able to hire somebody full time—it becomes a full-time job just to manage the logistics around these governmental departments. I have a friend who grows about half the annual volume that we do. He's strapped in this middle management crisis where he can't do everything, nor can he afford to pay somebody to do everything for him.