We're suggesting a re-profiling. That $500-million fund is geared toward new technology and innovative ideas. It doesn't include any business risk management type of programming. Our proposal the year before the last election included a business risk management component in that fund. When the flexibility fund was announced, it lacked that component. I guess we're looking to include a business risk management component in the Growing Forward initiative.
We hear from our friends in the agriculture sector, the agri-retailers, that costs are going up all the time, and they are for the farms also. We're losing the next generation of farmers today because there's no stability in agriculture any more. We seem to rely more and more on inputs, and less and less on our own domestic products. Today one farmer feeds 150 families; 10 years ago one farmer fed fewer than 100 families. So we are getting more efficient, but at what cost? That cost is the next generation. We're losing our sons and daughters to other industries because of the unstable environment the farm community offers.
There are increasing costs due to global competition. Fertilizer is being exported all over the world instead of being kept in Canada. Saskatchewan potash is heading overseas, and we're paying more here in Canada for our own potash. We're trying to bring phosphate from the Carolinas, but it's going overseas instead of staying in North America because of global demand. So we're being asked to feed more and more people with the same number of acres, at cost to the farmer.
We're not looking for bailout money; we're just looking for the current dollars the government is spending to be spent on a more proactive program that would benefit the growers in a positive way, because right now ad hoc programming.... We know the Growing Forward suite of programs is due for a review in 2013, but we can't wait until 2013 to review it.
At the federal-provincial meeting this summer, the agriculture minister admitted that the Growing Forward programs probably are not working as well as they should. So if they're not, let's fix them now. Let's not wait until 2013. That's what we're asking for. Let's sit down and fix them now so we can bring some stability and spend the government's dollars more wisely.