Yes, it's a topic that is very relevant within the agriculture community itself. We've all heard about the 100-mile eating habit, or whatever they call it--trying to source all your products within 100 miles.
When I look at that and I look at some of the things closer to our larger cities in western Canada, say Calgary or Edmonton, there is an area surrounding those cities that could supply that local vegetable market during the summer, and that should probably be encouraged through farmers' markets. But the problem is that not only does our climate limit us as to what we can actually supply and the time we can supply the food that people want in the fresh vegetable end of the market, but our consumers in Canada have been educated to go to the grocery store and buy enough groceries for one week--that type of thing. So a farmers' market has to operate more on a day-to-day basis, as in the European model, where people go each day and buy fresh stuff, which to a certain extent I don't think really applies in this country. We can't do that.
As for the food quality and the research and the biotech, that is where we look at it. I think all of us in the agriculture industry recognize that there are some opportunities within biotech research and some of the products that are coming, especially when we consider the diversity of pharmaceuticals and some of those things.
There's a controversial issue about taking the fish gene and putting it into a plant and things like that. That has to be decided by society as a whole. We can't decide that as agriculture producers. I don't think the biotech companies should have the right to decide that. When you look at the Percy Schmeiser case, basically, to a certain degree, it wasn't that he used the product and he saved the seed that blew on his land. What it really comes down to is who owns the gene in that plant, and that's what's going to be a problem.
When we got a court ruling in Canada.... I had this in my brief and took it out, because we can't patent a living organism anymore; the court has ruled that. They can't own a mouse--they tried to own a mouse--but they can own every gene that makes up that mouse. So we have to distinguish what's actually going to happen in this area, and it's a bit of a controversial thing.
Biotech offers us an opportunity in certain things, but I don't think we need to leave it wide open to everybody. I think there have to be some rules and guidelines. You can't have a free-for-all out there. And society itself, through the government, has to set some restrictions on what the parameters are going to be and what is going to be the benefit of it.
As producers, we want a say in what actually comes out and what we grow on our fields, the opportunities, and how it's going to affect us.