Agriculture committee  We realize this.

Agriculture committee  If there were a way to streamline the programs a little better, the federal government could have a larger role in filling up those programs, instead of letting every province do whatever it wants. It's almost as if you have two different countries: Ontario and Quebec.

Agriculture committee  But it makes it worse, doesn't it? For us, it's better to have no support whatsoever than to have one province have a little bit and the other provinces have—

Agriculture committee  Other provinces should get rid of their risk management program for the cost of production.

Agriculture committee  It's just going to take four years, four years of more losses. Why can we not have an interim COOL ourselves?

Agriculture committee  Remove the inequities between the provinces. It's so devastating that Quebec has such a great support program for their farmers and we don't, and we're basically competing against them. We're losing our shirt in Ontario. More pork from the U.S. and from Quebec comes into Ontari

Agriculture committee  I think not enough credit is given for production history or for education. As we said, all the big sow barns in 1997...people knew beans about pigs and they all went bankrupt or changed ownership; whereas we, as young people back then, had enough education, had a proven track re

Agriculture committee  Our planned cashflow is so much better, because you have that extra production edge, right? They don't look at that.

Agriculture committee  No.

Agriculture committee  My family was from a farming background, but their farm was burned down by the Germans in World War II.

Agriculture committee  Yes, we think so too, but we also think that maybe the young farmer, because it's so hard, has to think a bit differently. You have to be thinking more creatively to get it done. In our own situation, when we went to the bank, they didn't just give the money. It took a lot of n

Agriculture committee  Yes. Right now I think it's really hard to compete when the Canadian dollar is at par. We lost about 30% of our price, or more than that, over the last five years, just due to the Canadian dollar. There's not much the government can do about that.

Agriculture committee  I have to say that you also have to look at the fact that you can diversify, but you'll lose some of your time with your current operation, right? So for us, having more sows was always a better deal than going for farrow to finish, because you're doing different things at a time

Agriculture committee  What can we do to get young people interested in farming? Farming has a negative image with the general public. We have to re-educate the public about where our food comes from. Rural high schools should offer agriculture classes to get young people interested. Young people shoul

Agriculture committee  Thank you all for coming here. We are Harry and Leony Koelen. We live in Paisley with our five kids. We emigrated from Holland in 1991, with backpacks and $2,000. We worked for other people for four years before we bought our own first farm in Brussels. In 1999 we sold that far