Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses here today. For the record, I'm disappointed that my colleagues are spending so much time on the character assassination of the Wheat Board. The Wheat Board is represented by farmers and we should be listening to the board.
Anyway, I have two questions that I think we should be asking here dealing with the international scene. My first question would be dealing with WTO. The negotiations seem to be at a snail's pace. My first question is, do you think that because our lead negotiator, Steve Verheul, was given other duties the team is now weakened? Do you think our focus is weakening on the WTO talks? That's my first question.
I read an article in The Economist just lately about organizations or individuals buying a lot of land around the world--farmland. You hear about Saudi Arabians buying land, you hear about big private corporations. Jim Rogers is buying a lot of land around the world, kind of sucking it up, in order to be in control of the food supply in the future I guess. My other two questions--to any of your organizations--are about what your position is on that. Should that be allowed in this country? Where are we going with this? Will we have a situation where farmers are going to be really employees, similar to what you see in chicken production in the southern states where the farmer just has to pay for the feed and he gets the price for his chicken when he sells it to Tyson? Are we going down that path in our agriculture. And what's the danger of it?
So there are three questions. One is on the WTO. What are your concerns there about our team? The other two questions are about this thing that's taking place on the world scene as far as farmers not being in control of the production and the ownership of their own destinies is concerned.