Agriculture committee  I had a bit of discomfort with the vision, in that I feel the agricultural sector that has been suffering the most is the primary producer. I'm not sure the vision statement puts enough emphasis on the sustainability of the primary producer.

Agriculture committee  I'll take the first crack at it. If we look at examples where you're trying to deal with a disaster, you're far better off with a plan in place ahead of time. So if you're looking at it from the perspective of whether we need a plan regarding how we should deal with disasters,

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Charlie. I'll make the comment that it's important for the government to have an understanding of the needs of the industry. We need a plan in place, call it an agricultural bill or whatever, so that as an industry and as government we know our roles, how we're going

Agriculture committee  I mentioned this management club that I was part of. It was rather interesting in that club that the highest-profit farm was a mid-sized farm. The next most profitable farm was the largest farm in the group, and the third most profitable farm was the smallest farm in the group. I

Agriculture committee  I feel that somebody graduating from an agricultural course with the idea of being a farm owner should have business management skills. That should be part of their training. I feel strongly about that. I feel that within the extension work that's done with existing farmers, ye

Agriculture committee  My response is that the minister needs to have a plan that says this is where we want to get to and this is how we're going to get there. You have to develop that plan to get there. Don't just go here and there or wherever the money happens to need to go today.

Agriculture committee  I think you can choose certain, say, hog farmers who are profitable or at least have a good lifestyle and have the potential to be profitable over the long term.

Agriculture committee  No.

Agriculture committee  I'm sorry if I misled on that. My interpretation was that he was asking who we would hold up to show the potential of the industry if we were to ask somebody to be modelled to present the idea for new farmers. Then I would say that you would choose who you would--

Agriculture committee  No, no.

Agriculture committee  No. The program should be available to all farmers.

Agriculture committee  I feel we should be promoting more the fact that they are businesses. If you're going to be the owner of the farm, you need to be able to manage a business, so you need your business management skills. Put more emphasis on those, because you need them. That really will separate a

Agriculture committee  I think you have to decide which farmers you're going to profile. If you profile the farmer who has been losing money for 20 years, no, they're not very interested, but if you profile a farmer who is reasonably profitable and has a very good lifestyle besides, then I think you'll

Agriculture committee  Okay, dairy and debt. I mentioned that my farm has four times the debt as what we paid for it. I don't necessarily see that as a problem in the sense that I have the cashflow to make the payments. The farm is four times as big as it was, so we're still making the cashflow and we'

Agriculture committee  Yes, I would agree that you need to get into a business that's less risky. At the same time, you need a lot more knowledge when you're into that. To just produce the bulk commodity requires a different set of knowledge than to produce the bulk commodity and take it through to the