Thanks, Greg.
I was looking at my watch. I'm on P.E.I. time; it's one o'clock. I figured the whole thing would be over now and I wouldn't have to say all that.
I really appreciate coming here and having the opportunity to present both yesterday and today. It's been great. The event last night was a huge success in our terms. I appreciate everyone taking the time to hear about some of the problems we have in our industry and what's going on in the world marketplace that affects our industry.
I'll give you a short overview, and you have the slides of the Prince Edward Island industry. We have 1,289 licences in P.E.I., basically all active—everyone fishes. In 2008, we had 9.92 metric tonnes of lobster, or about 20 million pounds, landed. Harvesting and processing are the main components of our industry. Most of our lobster is processed and constitutes probably half of our catch.
There are nearly 6,000 people involved in the industry. Certainly, financing has been a big factor this year, both for the fishers themselves and for the processing sector. It has been a big issue. We worked long and hard all winter to make sure that our processors had access to financing. It was an issue with them. Everyone in the industry is hurting, not only the fishers. It runs right down to plant workers and everyone.
Here are a few of the things that we've done and where we plan to go in the future. We've brought in a low-interest loan program for our fishers, so they could basically restructure their debt. We brought it in through our lending agency, and I think we have over $20 million involved in that right now. Actually, we're looking at opening it again, because there has been further hurt this spring and there are many more fishers who need to restructure and consolidate.
We put in a future fisher program. Yesterday, I was asked why we would do that if we want to get people out of the industry or get some gears off the water, but when you move gears off the water, it's because there aren't enough stocks to sustain the number of gears fishing. It's not to get fishermen to stop fishing. Most of our fishing captains now involved in the industry have an average age of 55 years, so we need new entrants into the industry as well.
We put in a future fisher program to help them to a certain extent with some interest. Also, we want to educate young fishers about financing, marketing, and all aspects of the industry. I think they need to broaden their knowledge in the industry to make it more viable for themselves.
We've invested in local, regional, and international marketing. We've started a lobster industry round table, which is very successful on P.E.I.. It's bringing both sides of the industry together and getting them working together and getting some of the mistrust away from the processor to the fisher, control and pricing, and things like that.
We also have a lobster monitoring program that is working very well, giving us some idea about our stocks in the Northumberland Strait and the gulf. There is a lot that we don't know about our lobster stocks and there's a lot more to learn, because we really don't realize what affects them and why some years they're up in one place and down in another.
We recently put in a five-point plan, but a lot of it involves the federal government. We had a meeting with the minister this morning and there are still more details to come out. As a province, we're certainly looking at all of the aspects. One of the big ones is the rationalization or restructuring. We're certainly on board for that, and as a province we'll do everything we can to see those details come to fruition.
We want to see restructuring in all areas, and I don't think you can have rationalization without the whole industry changing for the long term as well, because there are a lot of things that haven't been done over probably the past twenty years, and the industry has to change as well.
I'll leave it at that for now as far as our province goes. I really appreciate the opportunity to present here, and if we can answer any questions or anything in the next hour or so, we'd be glad to. I guess we have more time than I thought.
Thank you very much.