Agriculture committee  Good morning, everyone. Thank you for having us.

Agriculture committee  Fine, thank you. While I was thanking you, I was thinking about how we are going to do this. So, good morning to all of you, and without further delay, may I thank you for receiving us and for giving us the opportunity of speaking on the issue of debt. I am going to ask Ms. Bo

Agriculture committee  Equipment now costs much more than before. Equipment has to be updated, and robotization and seed also cost more. There has been a decline in competition among the main seed providers. I would say that in the past 10 years or so, the cost of seed has more than doubled. The cost o

Agriculture committee  Yes.

Agriculture committee  I believe a bill was introduced by the NDP. Its objective was to see to it that the measures that apply to vendors related to buyers would not disadvantage the family, as compared to a situation where the farm is being sold to a stranger. Currently, the thinking is that when you

Agriculture committee  Regarding a decrease in capital gains, no. Exemptions for capital gains are important in the case of a transfer because as you heard, you need $8 in assets in Canada to generate $1 of revenue. In certain cases in Quebec, it even goes up to $15 in assets for $1 in revenue. If you

Agriculture committee  It would not take a very high increase in interest rates for many farms to find themselves in a difficult situation. This would particularly affect the businesses that started up in the past few years, because their debt level is normally higher than that of businesses that start

Agriculture committee  I often say that, for young people, having patient capital is really the key to launching a farming business.

Agriculture committee  It's not an agricultural development model. It's a business development model. Franchise owners, meaning producers who acquire a franchise from Pangea, obtain 51% of the shares of a company whose destiny they don't control. In Quebec, the producers must own 51% of the shares, bec

Agriculture committee  Land allocation should be regulated, especially to ensure long-term loans and leases. It's important. At this time, since the value of land is increasing quickly, farmland owners who aren't farmers have no interest in leasing their land over the long term. They may have a chance

Agriculture committee  Okay. The agricultural sector has many risks. As mentioned earlier, we work with the living and the climate. We're currently experiencing significant floods. We don't control the elements of nature. The key to investing in agriculture is risk management. For farmers, it's a mat

Agriculture committee  Good afternoon. I am chair of the Union des producteurs agricoles, but I am also co-chair of the Food Sovereignty Coalition. This coalition has existed in Quebec for nine years, and also has members elsewhere in Canada. Currently the coalition has 62 member-organizations. Sever

Agriculture committee  I will conclude by saying that the expectations of citizens are very high, the concerns of producers are real, and the needs are very specific. The previous speakers outlined them. The government has an interesting project here, but it will have to take a multitude of factors i

Agriculture committee  No one can be against the principle of fair taxation. I won't speak for other economic sectors in Canada, but as regards the agricultural sector, the difference is that you need very high-value agricultural assets to produce one dollar of income. Eight dollars of investment are n

Agriculture committee  I spoke about the regional agricultural framework, in fact. I think that the cuts made to the agricultural strategic framework, to risk management and the support for various programs such as AgriInvest, have had more impact these past few years on small farms than any of the mea