Thank you.
I just want to make a comment on food. I talked about the environment. There's an article called “The Looming Food Crisis”, by John Vidal, inThe Guardian, August 29, 2007. He starts off by saying:
Land that was once used to grow food is increasingly being turned over to biofuels. This may help us to fight global warming--but it is driving up food prices throughout the world and making life increasingly hard in developing countries. Add in water shortages, natural disasters and an ever-rising population, and what you have is a recipe for disaster.
Then he goes on to talk about the United States. He says that this is “bringing new money to rural America”, and we see that, but it's “also helping to push up the price of bread in Manchester, tortillas in Mexico City and beer in Madrid. As a direct result of what is happening in places like Nebraska, Kansas, Indiana and Oklahoma, food aid for the poorest people in southern Africa, pork in China and beef in Britain are all more expensive”.
He goes on to say that the Americans “are patriotically turning the corn belt of America from the bread basket of the world into an enormous fuel tank”. He goes on to talk about corn that used to go to cattle feed and food aid now going to ethanol, and the fact that this will have a devastating effect on developing countries.
We tend to be kind of insular. We look at what's happening here, and we look at the prices our farmers are getting, and we say that it's good and that we're much better off. But in a sense, is what we're doing, then, changing what's happening in the world?
Later on we see that the UN World Food Programme predicts that the demand for biofuels will grow by 170% in the next three years, so food prices are going to rise between 20% and 50%. For us, maybe we can handle that, but for a developing country and poor people, this is devastating, and we've seen that in Mexico.
I'm wondering whether we are going in the right direction with regard to what is happening in the world. That's the first question.
I have three specific questions, then I'll stop.
Mr. Toews, you mentioned biotech. Do you foresee that the accelerated push for biofuels will increase the pressure to get GM wheat? That's a question for you.
Ms. Buth, Manitoba, in its policy, has a 10% limit on crops that are going to be used for ethanol. That's the policy. They've decided to limit it. Should we be setting a limit for canola in Canada, or in other words, designating just 10% of our arable land for biofuels and the rest for food?
Dr. Klein, you said that fundamentally, this could change the face of agriculture. I'd like to know how. And if that's the case, should we be adopting this?
I'll start with Mr. Toews.
