I guess I'll take on the carbon tax one first. It is of great concern, when you consider how much energy it takes and how much agriculture is based on carbon inputs. We rely on fuel, diesel fuel. Nitrogen fertilizer comes from methane gas; that's its main source.
There are technologies out there, and that's why I talked a lot about accessing this technology. Somehow we have to get off this carbon reliance. The technology is there, but to get access to it at the farm level is going to take a lot of money, or some incentives to make sure that it gets down to the farm at the very end of the day.
In Manitoba, an announcement came out in the news a couple of days ago. Manitoba has the luxury of sitting back and learning from other provinces like B.C., Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec. In Manitoba, we're actually in a very unique position and probably a pretty good position, because we have a choice.
Our provincial government is engaging agriculture, engaging KAP to see what is going to be included in this conversation, as far as agriculture goes, and what's going to be excluded.
I think one of the major concerns is that we're not at the table and not being talked to about how this is going to impact us. Our members are very concerned about what this might mean to their bottom line, because we do rely on a lot of carbon to grow our crops.
There's the whole conversation around the actual balance, and whether growing certain crops emits more carbon. No one can talk about that better than producers themselves. We need to be at the table. We need to be addressing that.
How do we move forward? As long as we're talking about it with governments, I think we'll come to a solution. It may not be palatable. Some people are going to be very mad and concerned about it, but I think it's the reality. I think farmers have to deal with the reality every growing season. So that's what we're going to do. We're going to work with governments to try to figure out the best system for all of this.
We have to make sure, though, that we remain competitive in this whole system that we're talking about. Just because Canada is standing there saying, “We're going to be the best Boy Scout in all the world”, meanwhile, China could be importing goods that are high-carbon emitters. We have to look at that, too. That's why trade is so important.