Agriculture committee  May I comment further, sir, for a quick 30 seconds?

Agriculture committee  I'm not trying to nail our friends at Loblaws, but the word is, had that organization done a better job at treating farmers right, we wouldn't have as many farmers' markets as we have.

Agriculture committee  I don't think so, not at all. I think these are professional associations, and if you want to be part of that I think it's your obligation and your duty. Individual farmers' markets have membership fees for the right to sell there, and there are stall fees by the day, that sort o

Agriculture committee  I don't think so, not at all.

Agriculture committee  What I'm stating is that Farmers' Markets Canada, in order to market the sector, needs help from government to tell the farmers' market story nationwide, to provide training to members, to further increase the awareness with health units. All of those programs we should be doing

Agriculture committee  I don't think government should be picking up membership fees to belong to professional associations. That's up to the farmer.

Agriculture committee  Between 550 and 600. Last year we received nearly 35 million shopper visits.

Agriculture committee  Of 175 markets in Ontario, less than 20 would be year-round. Across the country I'm guessing it's probably 60 or 75—less than 100.

Agriculture committee  Well, hopefully, they're selling all Ontario-grown.

Agriculture committee  That's right. We have a program here in Ontario called the MyPick program, where farmers have to register their crop production planning. We visit the field to make sure that's what's happening, and then we accredit that particular farmer as a MyPick farmer, with posters and car

Agriculture committee  Absolutely. When you go to a market and you see the poster and the cards of a MyPick vendor, that person is the real deal.

Agriculture committee  I don't have stats, but I can tell you that enlightened farmers are diversifying. With the various ethnics we have in our country, particularly in the city of Toronto, for example, farmers are diversifying and coming up with crops we hadn't heard of before. They're responding to

Agriculture committee  One of the things I was really hammering at afterwards with his vice-president of corporate affairs and communications was whether he meant what he said. If he didn't mean what he said, fess up and say it was a blunder and that he shouldn't have said it. We're not getting that, a

Agriculture committee  We don't have that much contact with CFIA. Most of our work with the farmers' markets is through local health units. Any contact we have had with CFIA is quite positive. I think they're helpful and positive. We have no complaints certainly, not at all.

Agriculture committee  I think you're bang on. A lot of the vendors one sees at a farmers' market—not here in Ottawa or Toronto's St. Lawrence—are part-time farmers. They hold day jobs and they're tilling the soil nicely on weekends and bringing their product to market. The larger farmer—I think of Ber