Agriculture committee  I just think it would be nice if our federal government would grow some balls when it came to trade negotiations in agriculture, because we're always concerned about anything we export being considered dumping in another jurisdiction, yet we're more than happy to take stuff below

Agriculture committee  I'm not sure it's the federal government's role to guarantee it as much as it's the importer's role. I think more onus needs to go on the importers to pay the full cost of protecting and ensuring the product they bring in. And then it wouldn't be so cheap for them to bring that p

Agriculture committee  Waiting until 2010 to get a 2008 AgriStability fee is unacceptable.

Agriculture committee  I think things like PMRA should take total responsibility for all pesticide registration and get it out of the provincial jurisdiction. Similarly, when it comes to business risk management programs, it should be totally a provincial jurisdiction. That's not to say that the federa

Agriculture committee  That would be just strictly on gross dollar value of the non-SM industry, basically.

Agriculture committee  You asked about cashflow. I think our business is all about risk mitigation. I look at myself as a risk manager. You've got production risk, and we can deal with that through crop insurance. I think some significant changes could be made to enhance that, because essentially it ha

Agriculture committee  I think there are of a couple of tools that can be used. One issue we face here is that we have a lot of farm organizations—commodity groups, livestock organizations, crop improvement associations—and it's hard, especially in a rural environment like Ontario, and it's even worse

Agriculture committee  Totally. We're far behind the times in competition legislation, I think. I'd be fully in favour of that, but not just at the processor level. It goes right down to short-line manufacturers of equipment and that sort of thing. We're very fortunate here in that we can price parts

Agriculture committee  There has been a lot of debate going on in the last little bit about food labelling. The way I see it, if you'll pardon the language, it's ass backwards. Right now you look at a label that has the percentage of carbohydrates and fat and whatever the nutrient value or mineral valu

Agriculture committee  I think the money is there. The interesting thing that I find is that if you want a farm mortgage, whether it's with FCC, credit unions, or the banks, you get anything from 1.5 to 2.5 points higher interest than on a home mortgage. When you talk to your branch manager and ask him

Agriculture committee  I just talk a lot.

Agriculture committee  Good morning, folks. My name is Steve Twynstra. I farm in Middlesex County, around the city of London. As a result, a lot of the issues that were addressed here hit me directly. We have seen tremendous appreciation in our land values, and I'd like to think that's probably one o