Thank you, gentlemen, for being here.
Just furthering the discussion on GMOs, we were talking about the hope by our industry that our products will be acceptable in Europe as we undergo negotiations and regulations. In Canada we have a concept called “substantial equivalency”, where basically, if a GMO products looks, feels, and smells the same as a non-GMO, it's deemed to be safe, as is a non-GMO product.
Most of our research is industry-based, and often that's basically rubber-stamped by our government. Would it help, do you think, if we want to ensure that our GMOs are accepted in Europe, that we undertake more independent research? In other words, the government or another independent agency, apart from industry, undertakes research to look at the effects of, for example, stacked traits in corn, gene splicing, all of the traits that we currently have that basically make a plant either herbicide-tolerant or insect-resistant.
Should there be more independent research or independent studies to give us more clout when we're negotiating with the Europeans?