I spent a number of years as a conservation officer in a prior life before coming down this road. I not only protected ecosystems under my mandate as a conservation officer, but I worked in partnership with farmers and rural producers. You see the fencing off of rivers to keep cattle out of them, and so on, and the environmental changes. These are anecdotal things that I can track in my own personal life, but they are difficult to measure.
Farmers are not welders, carpenters, or environmental scientists by trade, but they have an ability to weld when they need to fix their own machinery. They also understand that their environment is their backbone, and if they keep their farms clean and their access and sources of water available, that's vital to their industry. So just to reinforce the point, the issue isn't whether or not farmers are doing a good job, or whether or not the environmental farm plan is working; the issue is the accountability mechanism within the department.
So at what point in the department is this breakdown happening? Is it a leadership issue in the senior ranks within the Department of Agriculture and Agri-food? Is it a mid-management issue? Is it at low-level management, just before we get out into the operational field? Where is that breakdown occurring?