That is an excellent question. I would like to begin by specifying that Agropur is a cooperative, but it is not a cooperative federation. Agropur's members are directly related to the cooperative. Our members are not related to a local cooperative, which is in turn related to Agropur through a federation.
To answer your question directly, we help emerging cooperatives through our provincial or national associations, whether we are talking about the Conseil canadien de la coopération et de la mutualité or the Conseil québécois de la coopération et de la mutualité. We provide them with a fairly high level of financial support. We invest over $300,000 in those organizations. We provide $50,000 a year in support for a research chair at the Université de Sherbrooke.
As for the International Year of Co-operatives, we are putting up $300,000 for the upcoming International Summit of Cooperatives. I would like to thank the government for supporting the UN resolution that designated 2012 as the International Year of Co-operatives. That shows that pretty much everyone is interested in that business model.
I think that smaller emerging cooperatives sometimes need financial support. They may also need administrative support so that they can generate maximum start-up power. Things are always the most difficult in the beginning. Once those start-ups grow a bit and acquire some experience, they can have more staff. They can stand on their own two feet a bit more.