Agriculture committee  That's okay. Thanks so much.

Agriculture committee  —national initiatives thereof, it's a bit of question depending on who's in the room and what path we can put forward. But I think the important part is to have a sustained commitment from the stakeholders and from government to make sure that it's not a one-hit wonder and that w

Agriculture committee  Yes.

Agriculture committee  Yes, absolutely. To answer your question right away, we know that a third of farmers are using business advisers for their farms, and we're hoping to increase that number. Our anecdotal little piece to our farmers is to “do your best and hire the rest”, recognizing that farmers

Agriculture committee  It's nothing personal. It's okay. I have lots to say.

Agriculture committee  That's a good question. I guess it depends on the stakeholders as well, because of course we have to acknowledge everyone's availability and time, and if there are producer organizations, we want to make sure that we're not doing something at their busy season. Again, good planni

Agriculture committee  Yes. I am definitely a supporter of national initiatives. I think it really depends on what the initiative looks like. I would say that perhaps, instead of launching a national program, we start with a national conversation. I'm thinking of what Andria Jones-Bitton was talking ab

Agriculture committee  That's a great question. If I understand the question correctly, it is how many farms across Canada are adopting business management practices. Is that it? Or is the question more about our reach in terms of our farmers and our members? It's just to clarify.

Agriculture committee  I don't know for certain. I know that every province is different. The way we see it is that we have a network of provincial-territorial ministries of agriculture, and specifically business development departments. I'm not completely familiar with how it's working in Quebec, but

Agriculture committee  Yes, for sure. Our specific interest, of course, is farm business management, so we focused on those. But we published a document—it's available on our website—that tells farmers exactly what's available to them in their province and through what program and how to apply. In te

Agriculture committee  I sure can.

Agriculture committee  It's nice to hear you too.

Agriculture committee  Yes. To be clear, the study is not officially starting until April 1. That's when we're allowed to start spending resources on this. It's what we want to look at: what management practices are in place, what the mental health status is, and whether there's a correlation between t

Agriculture committee  —and to see how we can integrate every single piece into what we're doing moving forward. Thank you for that.

Agriculture committee  Thanks, Chair. Thanks for the question. It's a great one. I obviously can't speak on behalf of the federal government, but I can say that I think the exciting thing about this is that we're just getting started, right? Andria Jones-Bitton's work has really launched us into this