Thank you very much for the question, because it's a very pertinent issue, and I couldn't agree more with David's earlier comments. We in the beef industry have benefited tremendously from a trilateral agreement, the NAFTA agreement. That's where we've seen growth. But when you get to bilaterals, that's where we've seen more cattle, more producers on the land in the last 15 years. We've gone from exporting unprocessed product to adding value to what we're bringing out on the land.
In bilateral agreements something gets left behind, and it's often domestic support. That's what's happened to our grains industry as we've gone forward with NAFTA. Our cattle-feeding industry in southern Alberta is in a really tight spot because of the corn subsidies in the U.S. They're having to compete for feeder cattle, and these feeder cattle are a mobile product. We can move them to Nebraska or Texas or wherever, and these guys have to compete against those corn subsidies.
In the multilateral world of the WTO, this is where these answers come from. We deal with market access on one hand and domestic support on the other. This is where, if we can get a 65% to 70% reduction in U.S. subsidies, we could see a real market decrease in what they're doing with grain and possibly even dairy products. We operate, and we're willing to operate, in a competitive environment, but we need that level playing field, and that happens at the WTO.
If it doesn't happen, I will be here again and I will be talking to you about bilateral agreements in dozens of countries, and it's going to take a tonne of effort on this government's behalf to get those done. It's going to take a lot more work to get those accomplished, but we won't stop if we don't get what we need. We'll have to go on to those with Korea, with Japan, with those nations that can afford our grain-fed product.
Thanks very much.