At this point in time, we have effectively worked with government to bring a number of workers to support production to meet forecasted needs, but that's looking at production today. We could see impacts of weather; we could see challenges in planting, looking at it from a produce perspective. There are still variables that are unknown as we move forward.
We recognize that it's essential to have a food security model in Canada, where our domestic production can sustain domestic need but relative to our climate as well. We can go back to the international nature of fruit and vegetables and the fact that we don't grow bananas, citrus, and a range of other products that Canadians are looking for.
To the point earlier on whether we have shipping channels open, whether we have access to containers to be able to bring product in, the bigger issue is also specific to availability of transport and ships. Shipping companies are now reducing the number of ships internationally. So it's not just a matter of a lack of containers; it's the volume of ships on the water because of the lack of business currently in the international market outside of food. It's across the board.
The complexity of the question comes back to whether we have enough workers. No, we don't, but the industry is making do. Can we produce enough food to feed Canadians? Yes, we can, but we need further support from government, both financially and through aid programs that continue to drive the systems that will help production. There are some small farmers who can't go into further debt and who won't bother putting product into the ground this year.
The fruit and vegetable business has 10,000 family farms, 2,500 of them being large companies of a significant size, and the rest being small businesses. It is those small businesses that will be a challenge to keep going over the continuing months of COVID and as we go into the new normal in the post-COVID environment.