Agriculture committee  Exactly. We're seeing lots of good things there. What's very interesting is the reinvestment in continuous learning that we see. Over 11,000 people attended one of our seminars this past year, and 14,000 the year before that. They are out seeking knowledge. We're not the only ones who are providing it.

Agriculture committee  Exactly. We've done a little bit of that. We dabbled at FCC with a next-generation council. We had young producers under the age of 35. There were just a dozen, but it was a chance for them to connect from coast to coast with people who are like-minded and up to things, and to learn from each other.

Agriculture committee  “Icing on the cake” may not be quite how I would term it. We would look at the farm operation, where they are in their life cycle, and how much leverage they have. The more of a risk stage they are in, the more we would be looking for basic things like crop insurance and some types of business risk tools that are out there.

Agriculture committee  I don't have the stats you're looking at, so I don't know if I can comment. I'd be happy to follow up with you afterwards if you wanted to, just to look into the information.

Agriculture committee  Yes, it's clearly helpful to have a parent who supports them with that strong backing, whether it's from assets, or perhaps for security on loans, and who has that management capability and the experience that comes with multiple generations of seeing highs and lows and all the things you learn along the way.

Agriculture committee  From the co-operative perspective, the credit unions would be a key factor on the finance side. Their service to rural Canada in particular is very strong. We've done a lot of work with the credit union system to work more co-operatively and in a more coordinated fashion to help their members in terms of being able to develop their operations from a financial perspective.

Agriculture committee  That's a great question. One reality is that 95% of new entrants typically are connected to an established farm. A really nice number of new entrants are getting into agriculture; it's just as you'd want it to be. Whether those are intergenerational farms—many times three generations are in a farming operation—or multi-family, brothers, sisters, cousins working together, you draw on some of that from a credit history perspective.

Agriculture committee  In terms of our lending practices, we have our own policies and processes that we establish based on our knowledge and expertise in the industry. In some cases, they differ slightly from the banks. With our young farmer loan, we've intentionally gone with a lower down payment than would be traditional to try to make sure we're supporting some of these new entrants.

Agriculture committee  I can address that, Mr. Chair, to start. We would see differences in terms of farm debt levels, based on industry as well as on geographic location and income potential. Typically it all revolves, though, around that income potential. You'll see it in ridings. The Lower Mainland of B.C. will be a high-priced land area, and stuff like that, very confined, but from an income-opportunity perspective, it matches up with some of that piece, as well.

Agriculture committee  From a farm debt perspective, sector-wise, as I say, it does come a little bit more into the structure of the industry. You might find that a dairy operation or a poultry operation might have a little bit higher leverage ratio, just because of the consistency of some of the income expectations prevalent in that industry.

Agriculture committee  Regarding FCC and why we exist, it really goes back to where we came from. The first organization that was part of our organization was the Farm Loan Board, and it was established after the dirty thirties. There were no mortgages available to farmers post that period from the private sector FIs, so the Government of Canada established that organization.

Agriculture committee  Yes, it's something we also do work on in terms of stress-testing loans that we would make for producers and our overall portfolio. The answer to that question really revolves around how far it goes and how fast it moves. If there's very little time to adjust, I think that creates more challenges, for sure.

Agriculture committee  Agreed. But going from three to four up to six to seven would be a significant adjustment, without even getting close to some of those double digits we would have experienced back in those days.

Agriculture committee  We have a few products in that category. One that we would have marketed in years past is called plant now, pay later. Think of a vineyard that's getting established. We would do the financing. It would be interest-only for a period of say three years, as an example. Principal payments would start to kick in once the income started to flow through, similar to that of a construction loan.

Agriculture committee  I'll turn that over to our economist, J.P. Gervais. We do some work in that area.