While the Year 2000 compliance of egg hatcheries is very much an issue of ensuring a supply of young birds to poultry producers, much rests on the ability of the individual farmer and farm manager to ensure that her or his operation is prepared. That's the only way Canada's farms ,all 276,000 of them, will be in full production in the year 2000. Dairy and turkey farmers may have a highly interrelated industry behind them, pushing them toward being prepared, but this is not the case for commodities such as hogs, greenhouse flowers, or shellfish. This is particularly true for farmers who seem to have fallen through the cracks of the current strategy simply because of the nature of the agriculture industry itself. This should go without saying, but is worth mentioning because it does have a bearing on the ability of Canada's farmers to prepare their operations for the date roll-over.
Agriculture happens in rural Canada.
The same rule should be applied to any need for replacement equipment. It will take longer to get there and it will probably cost more to ship as well as import any expertise needed to perform the repair. The need for contingency planning is higher in rural areas due to the realities of distance and population. This is one feature that CFA has been careful to stress in its awareness efforts, because even the most compliant of embedded chips needs a power source to function properly. The concentration of Year 2000 expertise in urban and industrial areas, as opposed to rural communities, is also a concern CFA would like to raise.