Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank you and the members of the committee for having us here.

My name is David Beauvais. I'm a sheep producer in Magog, in the Eastern Townships, and I started a business in 2019. With me today is Véronique Simard Brochu, executive director of the Fédération de la relève agricole du Québec, of which I am president.

The Fédération de la relève agricole du Québec brings together 2,200 volunteer members from all regions of Quebec, representing all types of production. We have drawn up an interesting portrait of the next generation of farmers, and much of the data has already been mentioned. It's interesting to note that, in Quebec, almost half of young farmers—44%—have to work outside the business, mainly for financial reasons. Nearly 55% of transfers are family transfers, and 35% of young farmers' businesses are start-ups. Quebec's generational renewal rate is one of the best in the country, at 30%, compared with 24% in the rest of Canada. Worryingly, however, it was 38% in 2016. So, in Quebec, there has been a sharp drop in the generational renewal rate.

What worries us a lot is the planning of transfer processes—we've talked about this a few times. Many transferors have no transfer process, or too few.

Some people have talked about this before, but in Quebec there's a resource called L'ARTERRE. They run a land bank project to match transferors with the next generation of farmers. But it's an underfunded project that lacks resources. In our view, this is a problem.

On the tax front, Bill C‑208, among others, has led to several advances. This bill is very close to our hearts. However, as we said earlier, we believe there's still a long way to go, for example to include the extended family, including nephews and nieces. Businesses are getting bigger and more diversified, and it's increasingly common for two brothers to each have children, so more and more nephews and nieces might want to be part of the succession.

In our opinion, it might be worthwhile to grant a tax incentive when buying your first land. We've done it for housing, but it could also be an advantage for the next generation, for people buying their first land.

In the majority of cases, transferors or producers need the value of their land to increase if they want to retire. This is a problem. So we, too, believe that a contribution to an RRSP could be very beneficial and would help reduce the financial pressure due to rising land prices.

The diversity of businesses, both in terms of production and type of business, is one of Quebec's and Canada's strengths. We are highly resilient to weather or international trade problems. This is one of our strengths, and we need to keep it.

Finally, we need to set up several assistance programs to help everyone. There can't be just one agricultural model.