C4-Infrastructure needs of Agriculture that should be in the coming Federal Budget

Kim Sytsma: environmental goods and services, land stewardship: if farmers follow environmental regulations and mandates they should be paid for the land, resources they give up to protect water, carbon credits, tree planting, wind breaks, fencing of streams. should be paid for protecting environment.  The feds could just go ahead and do that.

Les Herr: geothermal energy grants

Don McCabe: govt should be in the business of enabling, not choosing technology winners and losers (which they do a terrible job at)

Kim Sytsma, Less Herr: smart regulation.

Chris Kennedy: funding levels increase for projects in environmental farm plan.

Kim Sytsma: funding for environmental projects - some sectors of farming are having cash flow problems.

Don McCabe: distributed energy generation infrastructure, broadband access, access to ports,

Kim Sytsma: internet very important, farmers really need information to help them farm.

Don: like knowing rain in Argentina - internet can help with that.

Kim Sytsma: there is a critical mass of size for beef industry, has to be above a certain level or else it will collapse. vets, meat processing

Don McCabe: Ont farmers are very leveraged, very interest rate sensitive.

Kim Sytsma: "Emergency Cash Advance Loan" program to farmers, repayment due in september, federal government program, many farmers don't know how they will pay it back. Maybe there should be easier repayment conditions in new budget.

Don McCabe: R&D for Ontario agriculture is all over the place now. Not a Guelph one-stop-shop any more, not even just in Canada.

Kim Sytsma: production insurance to take volatility out of market prices. resources are used inefficiently, e.g. meat processing plants, when prices fluctuate a lot (meat plants underutilized between BBQ and pot roast season)

 Kim Sytsma: more money to open up trade in other countries for Canadian farm products

Don McCabe, Kim Sytsma: rail infrastructure needs investment. Shipping by truck is far more expensive than rail and we'd like to be able to use rail more.

Stacey Ferris: money for young farmers to get into farming, like student loans.