Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank everyone for coming in today.
I'm having some difficulty in the analysis that Dr. Steinbrecher brought to the table today, that GURT technology is not comparable to seedless fruits or to hybrids. I'm a farmer and I represent a large constituency of farmers in my riding. They're making a lot of use of hybrid crops--hybrid corn, hybrid flax and soybeans. I know for a fact that those hybrid crops in most cases do not reproduce. I look at hybrid flax; it doesn't have the ability to reproduce itself. The technology is there just through simple plant breeding, without having to go through genetic modifications.
We still have an enormous number of varieties out in the marketplace. Farmers can pick and choose what they want to use, what best suits their farming practices, what suits their environment, and if it's a GURT technology that works, they should be allowed to use it to maximize their profits. The reason they are using hybrids right now is that they're getting higher yields, and their goal is to sell that entire product. It's either going into the food industry or it's going to end up in the biofuels industry.
My comments are directed to Dr. Steinbrecher and Madam Dewar, so that you can enlighten us a little bit more. I really cannot correlate the information that was presented with what's actually happening out in the field and what we, as farmers, need to do to be more profitable.
If you can keep it short, I will split my time with my buddy Larry.