Agriculture committee  I can tell you that just through the farmers' markets themselves, the majority of all the new vendors are all new, young farmers who are all farming organically.

Agriculture committee  This would be in B.C., and it's probably due to the high price of land. All our pieces of land that we buy are five-acre parcels. You're looking at $500,000 for a parcel of land. So to make it viable you almost have to farm it organically and sell the produce in a niche market.

Agriculture committee  Yes.

Agriculture committee  I'm not really up on GMOs and all the chemical studies behind it and everything, but I do know that a farmer from Saskatchewan I talked to a few weeks ago was saying that farmers could figure out right to the 0.001% that something was infected with GMO. They can do tests and figure that out.

Agriculture committee  Yes, I think there should be an act, something that says you have to do it, no wishy-washy yes, no, or maybe. There should be an act that says you have to label GMOs.

Agriculture committee  The biggest problem for organic agriculture is the GMO cross-contamination. As long as there are GMOs out there, there is the chance of cross-contamination. With corn, we're seeing that now. We have all these other vegetables that are starting to have it, and it could wipe out the whole organic industry.

Agriculture committee  Yes.

Agriculture committee  We just had this question last week from an outstanding young farmer. The tip we would give him would be to get a mentor, to talk to other farmers to see what they're doing and to work with somebody—a perfect example being us. I would also say to sell to the consumer wherever possible.

Agriculture committee  No, that's through the farmers' markets.

Agriculture committee  There's no funding. Everybody is basically trying to do whatever they can—and that's about it—in trying to help people go into farming. What was the third question?

Agriculture committee  That's in Canada, through farmers' markets.

Agriculture committee  Perhaps grants could be available, or something like that, so they could repay it. But a lot of farmers are scratching by with nothing and they don't have capital to do it. The farmers' markets in Vancouver are actually going a step further and trying to save up money to have a nest-egg fund for farmers so they can get a 0% loan.

Agriculture committee  In the Organic Farming Institute, our courses are all developed so they are online. People all over Canada and internationally can take them. We have some students who have applied from other parts of the world. The courses are pretty in-depth, with videos. We have a teacher available through email who marks everything.

Agriculture committee  Are you asking what we're doing to get more people into farming?

Agriculture committee  I guess I'd suggest getting people to talk about it. The biggest thing right now is land value. People are saying that they can't get into farming; we have probably 20 people coming to us every year who want to get into farming, but they feel the land is restrictive. So we say, “Well, come to our farm and we'll teach you how to make it work.”