Agriculture committee  I'd like add something. Let's not forget how competitive we are on a global scale. There are people coming from Holland, Europe. You're looking at their cost price for red meat. I was in China last year, and we saw some of their budgets. We are globally competitive with our cost price.

Agriculture committee  Some of our pork is going to Japan. There's a lot of pork from Denmark going to Japan, too. We have a much better cost price than Denmark, Europe, and many other countries.

Agriculture committee  Sometimes it's hard to keep our employees around. It's not too hard to find new people, but we have to work hard to keep our people happy and keep them around.

Agriculture committee  A few government initiatives have helped young farmers, including us. The AgriStability program helped young farmers, but only after they had been in business for a few years, because they needed reference years. The environmental farm plan has helped a lot of farmers, and helped us quite a bit as young farmers.

Agriculture committee  It puts us at a disadvantage.

Agriculture committee  Some things need to be done to retain and encourage young people in farming. We need more positive advertising of farming and farm products. People need to understand where their food comes from. I'd like you to pay attention to this. We have brought this up a few times before. Maybe the government could guarantee some start-up loans for beginning farmers; maybe certain criteria have to be met--for example, education, experience, some track record or something.

Agriculture committee  Thank you. Good afternoon, members of the committee. Thanks for the invitation. We're honoured to be here.

Agriculture committee  We will give you a quick summary of our farming adventures. In 1987, at the age of 17, I came to Canada as a co-op student and fell in love with the country. In 1991 I immigrated to Canada with a backpack, $2,000, and the dream of becoming a farmer.

Agriculture committee  Being our own general contractor, we were able to build a bigger barn for 2,700 sows. A few years later, after spending four months in bed with a back injury, I figured that the farm was running pretty well without my always being there. We thought we might as well build another barn for 2,700 sows.