:
Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thanks for the opportunity to speak to all of you today about young farmers and the future of farming from the perspective of the 4-H program in Canada.
We've been given 10 minutes for our presentation, but for those of you who are former 4-H'ers and know the art of public speaking, once our 4-H members start talking it might be difficult to stop them talking. But we'll try to keep within the timelines.
l'd like to start off by introducing my colleagues who will be participating in today's presentation.
Ashley Knapton is a 4-H member from Almonte, Ontario. Her family's dairy farm started six years ago, and they milk 20 purebred Holstein cattle.
For those of you in the dairy industry, you might think we're stacking it up for the dairy industry, because we also have Gillian MacDougall here. She is a current 4-H member, vice-president of the Quebec 4-H Council. She is vice-chair of the Canadian 4-H Council youth advisory committee, and she is currently between studies at university and is helping out on her family dairy farm near Ormstown, Quebec. And before the questions come, they have Holstein and Jersey.
On Gillian's left is Ken Lancastle. He is the communications and marketing manager of the Canadian 4-H Council.
We were invited to do our presentation on Friday, so I've been polling colleagues from across the country. The thoughts we are going to share with you have been compiled from feedback we've received from some of our stakeholders across the country. They include our 4-H members, 4-H leaders, 4-H sponsors, and they include friends of 4-H. It's a wide cross-section of who, in fact, we've gleaned some information from.
I'm going to turn it over now to Ken Lancastle, to talk about 4-H a little bit.
:
Thanks very much for having us here today, guys.
As one of Canada's premier youth leadership organizations, 4-H serves more than 26,000 members across Canada between the ages of 5 and 21. The 4-H program itself, as many of you might know, began in the late 1800s in the United States. In an effort to teach new and innovative farming practices, university extension agents looked to youth as the future for growth and development in the agricultural industry.
In Canada, the 4-H program began in 1913 in Roland, Manitoba, and it has since had more than two million Canadian youth take part in the program. For almost 100 years, the 4-H program has had a proud legacy of creating Canada's agricultural and non-agricultural leaders.
The Canadian 4-H Council, which we represent, began in 1933 to oversee 4-H in Canada. As a council, we've endeavoured to find out the importance of the 4-H program and how members benefit from their involvement.
In a recent study done about four years ago, we surveyed 4-H alumni and found out a number of really important findings, that 40% of all 4-H alumni currently work in an agriculture-related job; 82% of the alumni with a secondary school education, which was 22% of those surveyed, grow or produce agricultural products; overall, 31% of all 4-H alumni have a bachelor's degree or higher, versus 18% of the 2006 Canadian population; and 43% of 4-H alumni have had household incomes of $50,000 to $99,000, versus 32% of the 2006 Canadian population. Another 16% of those surveyed had household incomes of $100,000 or more.
We're very proud of these statistics. It's clear that 4-H plays a critical role in developing these future leaders of agriculture.
:
My name is Gillian. I grew up on a dairy farm. We have Jerseys in southwest Quebec. I'm from Ormstown. I am the fourth child out of five in my family, and only one of my siblings is going into agriculture. My little brother is still in high school, so he has a chance, but he probably won't. So there you go: we only have one person out of the five kids going into agriculture.
So I grew up on a dairy farm, and both my parents work on the farm. They're full-time farmers. I've chosen to not go into agriculture partly because of seeing my parents; it's a big commitment, a full-time job. My dad doesn't get weekends, doesn't get time off. He goes out to the barn at night to check the cows, different things like that. It's a full-time job. It's not something I want to do.
But last summer, and now this summer, I've been working at the Agriculture Museum just beside Dow's Lake. That has given me the great experience--something that I've brought from 4-H--to share agriculture with other people. So 4-H has given me all sorts of different ways to see agriculture that's not just the Jersey farm that my parents work on. It has given me all sorts of different things.
I grew up showing dairy calves, mostly Jerseys. I showed one Brown Swiss one summer. But I've also done square dancing, judging, public speaking, life skills, handicrafts--all sorts of stuff like that.
Provincially, 4-H has offered me many different options, including opportunities to go out and see different types of agriculture in my area and around Quebec. In Quebec, we have an “innovative ag” tour. It's held in different regions every year, and we go there to see different things. We see dairy farms, we see dairy farms with sheep, we see bull testation farms, we see alpacas. We get to see a lot of different things that you wouldn't normally see, and we also get to see how different people got into agriculture. So it really opens up your opportunities and kind of shows you the different things you can do.
With Quebec 4-H we have provincial rallies. There, all the 4-H projects get to come, whether you're an agriculture project or a life skills project. Again, all the members get introduced to all the different animals--horse, dairy, and so on. It's really nice, because coming from my area, it's a lot of dairy, but at the provincial rally every summer you get to see the beef, you get to see the horses, the rabbits, and everything.
We also have a senior member weekend, which is for members from 16 to 21. It's a weekend that's a bit special for the senior members, a bit of a thank you. We also try to get speakers in to talk about different things in agriculture, different opportunities, different jobs. We try not to just talk about going home and milking on your dairy farm. 4-H has really opened up opportunities for young people to see different types of farms.
There are national programs that I've been a part of or have seen. We have interprovincial youth exchanges. I was lucky enough to go to Saskatchewan and spend a week on a beef ranch, which took me into a different setting in agriculture. There's also the Garfield Weston U.K .exchange My family hosted a delegate from the U.K., and we got to learn about how they farm, their different opportunities.
I'd like to quickly go over a presentation we did last year as the youth advisory committee. We were looking at 4-H and where the 4-H members are going. We're having some trouble retaining some of the older members. We want to keep them interested, and we're trying to see the difference between the people who are in 4-H and those who aren't and try to figure out why they're not in 4-H.
But most of these people...and it's the same with what we're looking at now for young farmers. You want the future of agriculture. Generally they're born between the 1980s and the turn of the millennium. This age group will be entering the agriculture industry in the next 10 years.
Now, a lot has changed for this generation--i.e., technology, the demographics of Canada, and an increase in environmental awareness and sustainability. One of the big things they're pushing is the “green-loving”, so you're talking about the ten-mile diet and recycling in schools. Organic is a really big thing now. You go to the grocery store and it always says “organic”. That's what a lot of people will go for if they don't understand the difference between organic and what's not organic.
We're communication obsessed. It's a really big thing. Whether it's Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, cellphone, or MSN, there's no shortage of ways we can connect to each other.
I know that Quebec 4-H has a lot of our activities on Facebook to say what's coming up and say what's happening, because we know that's where our members are. We try to get people in by putting pictures up, different things like that, because we know that a lot of young people use it.
In terms of the current demographics, generally speaking, the people entering agriculture are people who have grown up on farms. They come from an agricultural background, so they're from the area; they have parents and family. That's a big part. The people entering agriculture are the people who came from it.
In terms of the demographics of those who are not entering agriculture, generally speaking they don't find agriculture to be a glamorous job. And in some ways it's not. You don't get weekends off, you have to get up to check the cows, and different things like that. They don't think they'll be able to make money, which is really important. They feel they don't understand enough about agriculture to become involved. And that is one of the really key roles of 4-H.
The Chair: No, that's okay.
Ms. Gillian MacDougall: It doesn't matter if you're from a farm, a town, or the city; anyone can join 4-H and learn about agriculture. They can join a calf club or join any club. They can get the experience of agriculture and be introduced to it.
What we can do to encourage youth involvement in agriculture is get them in 4-H--it's very important--and also diverse job opportunities. If you can get different jobs available in the agriculture field for people, stuff that would be open to people who aren't just from farms, you'd get more people interested. You'd give these people experience as well.
Promoting the importance of agriculture is also important. Some people don't think about how important it is because they don't get their food straight from the farm. They go to the grocery store to get their food. So it's important to promote it as a lifestyle.
There are a couple of ways we can retain youth involvement in agriculture. Offer support to new and young farmers so they're not just people who are finishing their diplomas or degrees in agriculture; they're also people who are changing their lifestyles and their employment and becoming farmers.
Promoting agriculture as an area of academic study is also really important. You want to be able to give people the knowledge and tools to become successful farmers. You give people the chance to learn about new tools and different ways to become farmers, make money, and make it work. Otherwise people try and fail and quit, or they don't try at all because they don't know.
Promoting diversity of careers in agriculture, and particularly production, is also very important. You want to talk about different things. You want to talk about production--being there, raising livestock, raising crops, and things like that. It's also important to have a bit of diversity, such as research, and the different options, sales and so on, are also important.
:
Whew! I'm tired just listening to you there, Gillian.
I'm going to close things out here by talking about two things. First, what can 4-H do to encourage young people to enter into agriculture as farmers, and second, what can the Government of Canada do to do the same thing? We have some suggestions for the committee today.
Currently 4-H is facing similar problems with agriculture in that rather than facing an acute shortage of young farmers, we're facing an acute loss of 4-H members. To that end, we've developed a number of programs that directly and indirectly support AAFC's business development objective of providing for enhanced participation by young or new entrants and first nations clients.
I'll give you a couple of examples. I don't know whether you want me to elaborate on them. I'll name some of the programs, and perhaps you can ask questions afterwards.
We have one called the RBC 4-H rural-urban youth outreach program. As the name states, we're reaching out into urban centres to teach people about agriculture.
In the summer of 2011, we're going to be introducing the business development opportunities on-farm mentorship program, which is a partnership with Canada's Outstanding Young Farmers, where young people interested in going into agriculture, agricultural production, will spend two weeks on the farms of some of the winners of Canada's Outstanding Young Farmers to learn how it's done.
We currently have on our website a “Careers on the Grow” job board on which we're encouraging our stakeholders to advertise in terms of careers in agriculture.
For the last three years, we've been running an aboriginal 4-H program. We see urban centres, as well as the aboriginal youth community, as markets for 4-H.
In addition, one of the things we have identified that we need to do in terms of moving forward is to expand our partnerships with the Canadian deans of agriculture and veterinary medicine. In fact, I made a presentation to that group last week, and we're looking at partnering with them. The University of Guelph, for example, is piloting a project where there will be a university credit for becoming a 4-H leader.
As I said, we are partnering with Canada's Outstanding Young Farmers program, as well as with the Canadian Young Farmers' Forum.
We kind of see ourselves as the apprenticeship for young farmers, basically. We think our members will become Canada's outstanding young farmers or members of the Canadian Young Farmers' Forum.
I don't have to tell you about rural demographics these days. We see the growth of 4-H and the growth of agriculture in terms of reaching out into urban centres. That's a priority for us.
We would like to see ourselves develop a national strategy to partner with agriculture in the classroom. We see that as a critical element in respect to teaching kids about agriculture. As Gillian alluded to, we need to use means of communication for networking with youth. It's important that we're communicating with Twitter, Facebook, etc.
One of the things we see is that 4-H members like Ashley and Gillian will show cattle; they'll show a dairy cow for seven years of their 4-H program. By the time they get to be about 17 or 18 years of age, they've passed that stage. So what we need to do is develop programming for senior 4-H members that includes components of starting up a farm, writing a business plan, sharing different market ideas, or an “ask a professional” night that could cover technological advancements such as genomics or get into advancements in specific commodity production such as vegetable growing; beef production; sheep production; bioenergy production, in terms of hemp, corn, etc.; or transition, one market to another, or part time to full time. The key to this would be to include a major business component to all of these. We could have club weekend events, an intensive two- or three-day event with workshops, seminars, etc.
Now I'll just turn to some thoughts that we've shared with some of our colleagues across the country on what the Government of Canada can do to attract young people into primary production.
First of all, we think it would be a good idea to develop a new, crisp, clear vision for Canadian agriculture, focused on young people. Young people want, need, and respond to a vision that they can buy into and something that they believe can deliver the probability of a positive future. I think the greatest thing the Government of Canada can do is develop this vision and share it so that youth get behind it and grow with it.
We should be able to do that. Look at what Canadian agriculture has to offer: some of the highest-quality food products in the world; some of the sharpest, most committed producers in the world; world-class processors, although there are just not enough of them; a world-respected regulatory system; one of the most pristine natural environments in the world, with an abundance of fresh air and fresh water; and productive land that is the envy of the world.
Really, the focus needs to be on youth, because this is the generation that's going to be out in the field, if you will. I think the government needs to communicate this vision as well as implement support programs for beginning farmers using new social marketing technologies, but I won't beat that one to death. Government can promote the number of elements involved in agriculture beyond production and ensure that agricultural educational programming is in place for youth. The purpose of today's hearing is basically to talk about production; you have production, but there are other aspects of agriculture where you're going to need young people going into the business.
Government can continue to provide financial support for programs that focus on science, technology, and innovation in agriculture. That is a critical element. We can't be left behind in terms of science, technology, and innovation.
Government can seize upon the interest in locally grown food in all parts of Canada, especially in urban centres. I was reading the Ottawa Citizen today, and they're talking about people raising chickens in their backyards. There's an interest there. Vancouver, I believe, has the highest concentration of rooftop and empty-lot gardens in Canada right now. There's an opportunity for us to seize and for the Government of Canada to seize in educating young people about what a cool business agriculture is.
Government can research approaches and programs being used in other countries to encourage young people to enter farming and develop them as models for Canada. This was a suggestion made by one of my colleagues who was formerly with the Department of Agriculture. As an example, in New Zealand they have a popular production-sharing program in the dairy and livestock industry that is helping many young people to establish their own farms under the guidance of the current farm owners. This is just an example. There are probably other examples in other parts of the world.
You've been out west, and I think you heard from a number of young farmers and a number of groups what some of the issues are. They include addressing barriers to getting into agriculture, such as start-up costs and financing. One thing Ashley didn't tell you about her parents is that they got their quota six years ago and they're still working full time off the farm as well as running the farm. That's a significant commitment.
There's a lack of knowledge of the industry and the opportunities that exist. We can help you with that, in terms of creating awareness.
In terms of succession, government can review programs that perhaps don't go far enough in recognizing the needs of first-time entrants into agriculture. For example, the government guarantee for land purchases under the Canadian Agricultural Loans Act is limited to 15 years. In speaking with one of my colleagues about this, I've realized 15 years just might not be enough to cut it; perhaps it should be 25 years.
In conclusion, the Canadian agricultural industry is a vital component of the Canadian economy. The industry accounted for 8% of the total Canadian GDP in 2005. It provides one out of every eight jobs. It employs nearly 2.1 million people. The agriculture and agrifood system has been growing at an average rate of 2.4% per year over the past decade.
At the same time that the industry is experiencing this growth, there are also challenges appearing ahead. In particular, the agriculture industry needs to attract and retain a new generation of producers, and that's why we're here today. This is becoming more apparent, as the number of producers under the age of 35 is declining faster than in any other age range. In fact, from 2001 to 2006 the number of farm operators under the age of 35 decreased by 25% across Canada. That's not a good statistic.
To address that growing gap and the need for younger farm operators, the 4-H program in Canada can play a valuable and significant role. Young people interested in agriculture see it as a career with opportunity. They may be interested because their parents or grandparents were producers, but today's young farmer is a business person.
I won't ask those of you who are former 4-H members to say the pledge, but I'll refer to what the four Hs stand for: head, heart, health, and hands. Today's young farmers may enter the field with hearts and hands, but in their heads they need to feel there is a healthy future for them.
We have gone over our time, but thank you very much for the opportunity to make this presentation.
:
In terms of the first question, Wayne, with respect to what the Government of Canada can do for the Canadian 4-H Council, the last contribution grant, which we signed in October, showed a 30% increase in funding. That was an excellent way to support our programs. I think it's important to maintain the continued support of the Government of Canada.
One thing we hadn't mentioned to you is that Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada is a founding member of the Canadian 4-H Council. We've been partners in that regard for a very long time.
I'm going to flip it over to Ashley and Gillian to talk a little about what you can do in terms of financing. But with respect to recruiting or creating more of an awareness for agriculture, especially in urban areas, my sense would be that the 4-H and Agriculture have mutual objectives. There's no doubt about that.
In partnership with the Government of Canada, we want to introduce new methods of communication with young people in the language they speak, which is electronically. If you go to fall fairs these days and look at the display booths for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the Government of Canada, they're stationary. Kids aren't going to stop there and take a look. For the government website, once again this is not a negative reflection, but you certainly have to communicate on Twitter and Facebook, etc.
I'm going to talk a little about agriculture in the classroom. I'll then flip it over to Ken to talk to you about some of the stuff we're doing in terms of social media that we feel would in fact be of benefit for the Government of Canada in terms of tracking new people.
Specifically, I'd like to respond to your question, Wayne, with regard to agriculture in the classroom. Somehow, between us and the Government of Canada, we'd like to see some type of federal or national program for agriculture in the classroom. We know that education is a provincial jurisdiction right now. It's perhaps difficult to get into provincial jurisdictions. But you have to begin educating young people about agriculture when they're five, six, seven, and eight years of age. They're doing it very well in each province, but there's a need for some uniformity across the country.
As we grow in urban areas, one of the things we're looking at is after-school programming. I'll give you a good example of an after-school program in the States. It's a 4-H club in an urban centre in Syracuse, New York.
They went to the Culinary Institute of America and had them make up a salsa recipe. The kids grew the products that they could for the salsa. They then learned a little about marketing it. In turn, they ended up selling it at fall fairs. The demand outstripped the supply. It's an example of some kids who were sitting in downtown Syracuse and who didn't know the first thing about agriculture. What did they learn? They learned about growing, marketing, and retail.
I'm perhaps talking too much in answer to that question.
Ken, I'm going to flip it over to you in terms of social marketing. It'll give the gals a few minutes to think about how we can encourage financing.
:
Pardon pour mon pauvre français. I used to say
“poivre” français. I'll just speak in English.
We currently receive $600,000 annually from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Our budget is approximately $2.2 million a year. The balance of the money comes from memberships, and a significant amount comes from corporations. Just to give you some examples, all the chartered banks in Canada provide us funding. Farm Credit Canada is a significant partner with us, as are all the agriculture and agri-food companies--Syngenta, Bayer CropScience, John Deere, Kubota, etc.
Could we use more money? That's a great question. Thank you very much.
Voices: Oh, oh!
Mr. Mike Nowosad: Yes, we could always use more money.
As to whether it's sufficient, we try to do more with less, at this point in time.
Ken, I'm not sure about social media in respect to whether there is a burden for us in terms of finances.
One thing I do believe is that if we're going to make a push into urban Canada...because I think that's where the future is. We're not going to forget what our past is--most of the MPs here are from rural Canada, where agriculture started, so we can't forget that--but the future is going to be in the urban areas.
Ken, I will let you respond with respect to funding for that.
:
You were talking about all the great things that 4-H does. It's really admirable, and a great program; I have talked to other people in it. It's a great organization. You have all sorts of programs to get people involved, also from the urban setting. But the bottom line is that a lot of the people in your organization don't go into farming. They're not doing it because they can't make money.
Ms. Ashley Knapton: Exactly.
Mr. Alex Atamanenko: You know, we can talk about all the great education opportunities and all the courses and all the science and all the innovation, but if you go into business, you hope to be able to make some money.
I think that's what we're trying to get at here. How do we get at a future where we can get younger farmers coming into agriculture, so they can have some kind of a life producing good-quality food and making money? I think that's the crux of it.
We've talked about banks. Apart from that, what else can we do to attract and retain producers? How do we maintain our rural communities, many of which are dying off as a result of people moving out and other services being shut down?
You mentioned local initiatives. I recently did a tour across the country to get some feeling of what people were saying on the whole issue of food sovereignty and food security. I saw this tremendous amount of initiative for local produce and local farmers, but at the same time there are also obstacles. The distribution system is geared to the big players. If you produce potatoes in Sudbury, they have to go to Toronto before they wind up in the supermarkets in Sudbury.
Last week we heard of the devastating effect that NAFTA has had, in terms of dumping, on our apple producers in British Columbia. We see the supermarket monopoly and how they're limiting the amount of local produce. In B.C. there are meat inspection regulations, and here, that have often forced smaller people out of business.
So there are obstacles, and I'm wondering if you could comment and give us some ideas of how we can overcome some of those obstacles so that more young people can get into farming.
:
A number of years ago the Department of Agriculture did one thing that was of significant benefit to us: they allowed us to utilize some of our funding for administration.
One of the things we're finding, Pierre, is that these days when we talk to corporate sponsors, they want to go into project funding. But they don't realize that you've got to provide support for the people who actually deliver the programs. So it's been quite beneficial for us to actually have a full-time staff in Ottawa.
One thing that I do believe...and I don't know how the heck you can do it from this committee, but there's quite a disparity across the country with the support that some provinces provide to the 4-H program in terms of providing staff. How the heck are you going to be able to deliver new programs into new areas if you've only got one staff? We've got provincial programs in New Brunswick with one staff member; in Quebec, one staff member; and in British Columbia, two staff members. Somehow there has to be some sort of arm-twisting, if that's possible, with provincial colleagues in the departments of agriculture.
What has the program allowed us to do in terms of the additional funding, though? It's allowed us to introduce new programs that relate directly to production. For example, I spoke about the farm mentorship program. When Ashley was talking about sharing success stories, if you talk about Canada's Outstanding Young Farmers program, they are the success stories and they have very compelling examples of how, in fact, you can succeed. So we're able to offer that program.
One program we're going to be introducing through our funding is not directly related to production, so perhaps not pertinent to this committee, but it is one where we're looking at putting 4-H members in Canadian embassies and consulates around the world for internship programs. The whole idea is for them to learn about Canadian exports so that when they come back, and a lot of them are going to come back as young farmers, they know what's out there. That's allowed us to expand some of our programs specifically directed to the business development objectives.
If we had further money, Mr. Lemieux, we could probably do more work, especially in urban centres.
I'm sure you have a number of questions, but one group that we spoke about was aboriginal 4-H. That's a really tough nut to crack, but we're trying to partner right now with the National Association of Friendship Centres--urban--to introduce 4-H to them so that they in fact have exposure to agriculture.
We're looking at partnering with an investment firm that has bought a whole pile of land in Saskatchewan and wants to turn it over to aboriginals for farming.
:
I want to thank the four of you for coming in today and speaking to us. We are just in the process of crossing Canada, as you know, and examining the farm and agricultural industry.
It was said by one of the witnesses that we wouldn't be on this tour if we didn't fear for the future of the farm industry in Canada. One said that if we don't have a significant, meaningful restructuring of our farm programs, the decline we're in will continue, to the extent that, frankly—and I fear this—rural Canada will become a ghost town.
We have to do something to reduce that trend. You're part of that reversal, as far as I'm concerned, and I appreciate your enthusiasm. But without our help, as you said, you're not going to survive. The numbers speak for themselves—the decline in the numbers in 4-H, the 65% exodus of those under 35 in the last 15 years—and we have to do something about it.
We've heard all of those things that are ailing farming. I'm hopeful that this committee and this government—and if not this one, the next—will be responsive to those.
I want to focus on two things.
One is that it's become clear to me that we have to get involved in non-food agricultural products. If we are going to keep people in the rural areas, we're going to have to have farms that are self-sustaining, that may not only generate food but will also produce those things that could be used for manufacturing. At the University of Guelph, the Guelph area being where I'm proudly from—and Ashley, I'm pleased to see you up here—we saw the making of plastics and things like that, and on farms we saw them using materials for non-food purposes. I want to know to what degree you are encouraging 4-H members to get involved in that kind of sustainable industry.
I also want to know this from you. We're finding that there are a lot of young or new farmers who want to be involved but can't find land, because either it's too expensive or they don't have parents who are going to “succession plan” in such a way that they'll get it. Do you agree that we should have a program that aligns young or new farmers with non-related farmers who are about to exit the industry and that we should provide incentives—tax incentives or otherwise—to encourage that kind of transition?
Those are my two questions: alternative kinds of farming, in the sense of what you produce; and allowing new farmers to become involved.
:
I'll respond to the first question.
Ken and I attended a presentation by Jay Bradshaw from Syngenta last week, and he referred to science and technology in agriculture. It's amazing what my ignorance of agriculture is. I didn't know that they made snow tires out of walnuts these days. That's a pretty interesting thing in terms of how to use different agricultural products for things that really aren't food.
We had Don Floyd, who is the CEO of the 4-H program in the United States, meet with our board of directors last November. The 4-H program in the U.S. has committed, and I'm not sure what the timeframe is, to create one million new scientists in the United States. One of the things we're looking at doing is trying to introduce science and technology into the 4-H program with the express purpose of making people aware of exactly what the opportunities are.
One neat thing that Don Floyd told us about is that the day they launched this “one million new scientists” program, they had 4-H members across the U.S.A. making ethanol. That's unbelievable.
Wayne, I don't know whether you would have done that, back in the old dairy days.
That being said, one of the things we are looking at doing is talking to people in other areas of the industry. We've been in contact with people from crop protection. We were talking last week with the deans of agriculture and veterinary medicine across the country to create an agricultural science summit that would be a sort of launching pad for us to introduce science and technology to the 4-H members. When we talk about more funding, we see a significant amount of money coming from the private sector, but certainly we would support the Government of Canada's providing support in that way.
I don't know whether these guys want to answer that last question, but maybe I'll start off the discussion in that regard.
One thing I referenced in our presentation specifically was a comment from a young lady in her early twenties who was married a year ago. She is from Russell, Ontario. She and her husband just bought a farm in Renfrew. There was some difficulty with the financing, but what she talked specifically about was programs whereby you would do exactly the matching that you're talking about: match people who are going to be exiting the farm with people who want to be farmers and teach them how to do it and give them the opportunity to do it. I keep harping on the urban; there are probably a lot of young people who in fact could enter agriculture that way.
Ladies?
:
I often agree with my colleague across the way, but not always. We aren't doing the study because there is a fear that agriculture is going to collapse; we're doing the study to see how we can assist.
We do hear a lot of very positive things about people coming in. We also do hear large concerns, and they come from different individuals with different scopes, which means that as we go across the country it becomes clearly understandable why it is so difficult to get a national program as we have it struck now.
One concern that keeps coming up is the smaller number of farmers under 35. As you go through your communities, I wonder whether you see this happening. And why do you think it is happening? What we're hearing and seeing is that those who seem to be very successful at it have to have administrative ability within their business to move forward.
We have fewer numbers farming larger amounts of land and milking more cows, raising more chickens, more beef, or more pork, whatever it is, and yet, as Alex has explained, we have smaller farmers who have gone out for markets, and they can be successful in those—not every one; not every business is successful. I think what we are seeing in Canada is that there has to be a blend, and some of that blend occurs across the different parts of the country with different sorts of products, because of our geography.
One thing I wonder about when farmers are growing products—and we have seen some very large ones and some not so large ones—is getting access to capital.
You talked about that, Ashley, in terms of having loans, maybe interest-free loans.
One of the concerns we have right now is that interest will never be lower. Capitalizing sometimes by subsidizing will make capitalization a big concern by driving up land prices, driving up equipment prices sometimes, as we saw also with fertilizer, sometimes driving up rent prices.
Do you see getting access to credit as one of the keys, as young farmers, to why maybe you didn't get in, or are there some other social aspects that affect this?
We have three children. I farmed, enjoyed it, loved it, was successful at it, but they all chose their own careers. That's the way it is. Now there are five farms around our area that are run by one young farmer, and he is doing a great job. The capitalization, though, is an issue.
Do you see that as one of the major ones, getting credit?
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That actually might provide a fairly good lead-in to my next question. It's been talked about a bit today already, the idea of educating the public so that they understand about agriculture and about where their food comes from.
I represent an area in Alberta that's quite heavily into agriculture. I do have Banff National Park, so I have tourism, and I have some other areas as well, but agriculture is quite a heavy portion of what drives the economy in my riding. Yet we border Calgary on two sides of my riding and you could probably drive about 20 minutes off the closest farm in my riding and then be in downtown Calgary. Even though you're that close to the farm, you could probably walk down the street in downtown Calgary and ask people where their food comes from. And many of them, if you ask them, would say the grocery store, or they'd make some kind of a comment like that. They don't really understand what's involved in producing that food and growing that food and then getting it from the farm and the field, from the pen, from wherever, to the grocery store shelf. That's something that probably needs to change, obviously, and you've indicated yourselves that you think people need to have a better understanding of that.
I've had different suggestions on how that might be done. I'd be interested in hearing both of our young witnesses here today comment on this.
Also, I would be interested in your opinion and thoughts on that, Mr. Lancastle, as a communications and marketing person.
I'll just throw out one specific thing--and I'm certainly open to other ideas and I'd like to hear them. I had a suggestion made to me once that I thought was not a bad idea. I don't know how it would be structured and who would do something like this and who would set it up, but it was the idea of a marketing campaign, be it a TV commercial or whatever it might be, that shows a product on the grocery store shelf and then just flashes through the different points in production to show how it got there. I'd be curious on your thoughts and your opinions on that and whether you have other suggestions and ideas.
As I said, this is to the two young witnesses and Mr. Lancastle as well.
I thank the witnesses for coming today. As a former 4-H leader, I know a lot about the program. In the last couple of weeks we've heard a lot from young people, potentially young farmers, about why they're not going into farming. It's mostly because, as many of you mentioned, of the high capital investment and low returns.
But let's assume that maybe we can get that turned around over the next few years. Ideally, if we have better programs maybe, or even some of the pricings.... Maybe we should have a floor price for certain products, or maybe there should be a marketing board, as Alex said, for some of the tree fruits.
That being said, Mike, you mentioned the U.S. and how their 4-H group was reaching out to the non-farm young people. My fear is that in the next few years there will be so many young people not interested, it's going to be hard to bring them back. But that being said, there might be a lot of young people in urban or suburban areas who want to get into food production or farming.
Now, some of the tax laws we have here, specifically capital gains, are mostly geared to inter-family transfers. Do you think maybe--and you can allude a little bit to what is happening in the United States--we should be making it easier, besides the training, for these young people who are off the farm to get in there? You mentioned mentoring, but I mean more like providing help if they want to get into partnerships.
Should there be a kind of overall program where you'd have tax laws, maybe, or incentives, partnerships, mentoring? How do you see that going in? Could you also talk a little bit about what you were saying about what they're doing in the United States?
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I certainly see merit in what you're describing in respect to the fact that somehow there has to be a connection made. We can go into urban centres and we can educate and teach young people more about agriculture. But that's just one point. The next step is to make that connection between how they're going to get out of downtown Toronto, downtown Quebec City, downtown Calgary and actually make it into agricultural production. So we definitely see that there has to be that connection made somehow.
I'm not sure how you do it, quite frankly. Certainly Agriculture Canada has a database of farmers, and as they're getting older.... As one committee member mentioned, if he has three or four kids who aren't going into agriculture, where's the farm going to go? So perhaps a database could be developed to make that connection. As Ashley mentioned, there was the young fellow in her area who actually partnered with a family that was going to pass on their farm to that individual.
In terms of the U.S., I think some of the stuff they are doing really relates to partnering with different organizations in creating that education. When they did the science initiative, they partnered with a lot of companies, so there was money in the system to actually educate young people about agriculture and science. I think that's something we have to do.
One of the things about the program in the U.S., though, is that they really are, to a great extent, losing their rural roots, but right now the U.S. 4-H program is the largest youth-serving organization in the United States of America. It's hard to believe that the Scouts and Guides aren't bigger than 4-H. But 4-H is bigger.
Interestingly enough, when you were a 4-H member you probably did your club work...and I don't know whether it took place over the full course of a year, but in the U.S., the way they're counting their numbers is that it's almost anecdotal, where you're going to have a 4-H club that is going to be in a very specific timeframe, and it's a very short timeframe.
One of the problems that we and other youth organizations in Canada are experiencing is the shortage of 4-H leaders. I'll give you an example. When we realized that our numbers were going down by about 2% a year, we introduced a program called “Make your Escape!” to encourage young people to get into 4-H. This was all done through print, and a little bit of radio, advertising. In the space of less than a month, we had 5,000 hits on our website for kids in the greater Toronto area to go into 4-H. There were 5,000 hits, but guess how many youth we put into 4-H? Zero. There weren't any leaders for them in--