Agriculture committee  That's a good question. Thank you. I have to think about that fairly quickly here. Certainly the production insurance side works out well for us in Ontario. It would be great if that could be across provinces. Whenever we start to talk about income guaranteeing of cost insuran

Agriculture committee  So trying to guess where you're going to be in profitability and trying to peg a rate that's comfortable to you, it becomes quite a challenge.

Agriculture committee  I think that certainly from an Ontario perspective, with the whole situation of diversification, there seems to be less risk.

Agriculture committee  We have no quarter sections in Ontario.

Agriculture committee  I'll just make one comment.

Agriculture committee  I think you can try to manipulate the system, but at the end of the day who are you kidding?

Agriculture committee  I will reiterate some of the things my two colleagues have talked about. Certainly, on the whole trade aspect, we always have to recognize—whether you are in a farm organization or you are the farmer on the back road, such as me—that we cannot consume all of the stuff we produce

Agriculture committee  I guess I look at it—and certainly the AgriInvest—coming from the policy area of looking at programs as whole-farm programs. That's a transition we've seen over the years. I've been through a lot of years, with some payments back in the eighties and those types of things, which w

Agriculture committee  Thank you. It's a good question. It sounds like an international trade committee question. As an open market producer, all of my commodity is based on international markets. Anywhere we can have discussions on how we better ourselves, how we position ourselves better, and how w

Agriculture committee  Yes, I think that over the last number of years some new incentives have come through Growing Forward, especially in the area of research and innovation. We always ask, “Is it enough?” No, it's never enough. It's a situation where I think we recognize that there are monetary and

Agriculture committee  Yes, I can answer that. Certainly I think you don't want any interprovincial advantages or disadvantages, as far as commodity marketing and stuff are concerned. It's great, I think, that the provinces can get involved, depending on what level of support they can put in, but at

Agriculture committee  I'll start off a little bit on the interpretation of that. Again, on programs and the discussion about being bankable, predictable, and that type of thing, that comes down to not just what you're going to be eligible for, but to whole.... Again, we have the opportunity within ag

Agriculture committee  I can attest to that too. We had a neighbour with Holstein heifers. Of course, the Holstein heifer market was just a disaster through BSE. He was a young farmer, up and coming, and basically it wiped him out. Two years later he got a great big cheque, but he couldn't get back int

Agriculture committee  You make a good point, Mr. Hoback. The fact is that 1.5% currently—the $22,500 cap—is $1.5 million of allowable net sales, not gross sales. If you bump that to 2%, suddenly that brings you back down to that cap of $1 million; a lot of operations have become a lot bigger than that

Agriculture committee  Thank you for the question. As a producer, first and foremost through my career...we look at it as a true business. The farming side of it is a good lifestyle, but all producers need to be very cognizant that it is a business. We have to be pretty receptive.... Something we've d