Agriculture committee  No. They wish. My grandpa, he's still working to make a living. If he could have the money banked up from years of farming, I think he'd leave. He'd be happy to give the reins to my uncle right now and walk away. But there are so many older farmers out there who are still paying bills.

Agriculture committee  I think one of the biggest things is making a profit. If the older farmers were making a profit where they could retire and go down to Miami for the winter, go RVing, retire and go to Mexico, they would.

Agriculture committee  One story that always comes to my mind when I think about that is about one of the biggest cattle feeders in this country, who came to this country with a dollar in his pocket. He is now one of the most successful businessmen in Alberta. Dad is always talking about when he got started.

Agriculture committee  We've been seriously working with Ducks Unlimited and the Growing Forward program to go towards more environmental farming. We're trying to run our cows...where we don't have to start a tractor in the winter. This year, feeding 240 cows, they got 20 bales of hay and that's it. We're trying to get to the point where we're running our cows cost-effectively, not having to start a tractor in the winter, not having to crop any acres, stuff like that.

Agriculture committee  Yes.

Agriculture committee  I read the article in The Western Producer and what his comments were towards the attitudes of young farmers. I don't know exactly where he thought they had negativity towards farming. I know I and the guys I've grown up with in this industry have no negativity towards this industry.

Agriculture committee  The biggest thing for me to see in this action plan for young producers is the capital thing. I know for myself, if I could go to the bank with a strong business plan and I could prove to them that a ranch could make money in this industry without any kind of government subsidies, without any kind of AgriStability, that even in a bad year we could make it work, we could make money in the cattle business; we just need the opportunity to do so.

Agriculture committee  Yes. For me, going to the bank when I was 18, they would have said no and kicked me out the door. The livestock loan guarantee program allowed me to buy some cows and get started in this industry; otherwise doing it with cash on hand would have taken me a long time to build up to where I'm at now without that program.

Agriculture committee  I don't know how AgriStability could be fixed for me personally. I got into the cattle industry right before BSE, paying top dollar for cows, bulls, everything. Then everything hit the crapper, and for three or four years I'm paying them back money for feed bills and pasture bills, stuff like that.

Agriculture committee  My name is Carter Bezan. I'm a rancher and a cattle farmer from north of Regina. I was really excited when I was asked to speak on this topic today, so thank you. In the February issue of the Western Producer, there was an article about the feds offering a carrot to young farmers.