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.