Definitely, I can. Imagine the way produce is sold. While there are larger farms, the majority of the product is grown by small farm operations and then consolidated. It is then sold through maybe a dealer, which is another farmer, to wholesale, or even through jobbers. The jobber is a small operation. It could be one truck that picks up product either right from the farm and/or from a wholesale market that distributes to restaurants in the Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver or Calgary markets.
The complexity of the procurement and distribution to food service trickles right back to the family farm. We have a term in produce: “sell it or smell it”. It's extremely perishable. You need to move the product quickly when it's pulled out of the ground, put into the system and sold to the end user. Through that system, if you are moving product and the restaurant is not able to pay, it may have to go through two or three other hands before it goes down to the farmer. In some cases there's a direct line, but as Ms. Sullivan mentioned, there are many pieces in our food system between the farmer and the end point of food. Any break in that system could cause a dramatic impact to the farmer himself.