There are a number of programs to address that, and you're right to point them out. The budget allocated $250 million for labs at the federal level, which are certainly well needed. It's hard to get scientists to work in an environment where the ceiling's literally falling down around their ears. We're working on that in concert with universities, provincial governments, and of course industry itself to get that job done. I look forward to much more research being done at the Canadian level to keep it in the public purview as opposed to always being done by the private sector as we've seen before.
I think the long-term solution to agriculture will be.... Our studies are showing us that the larger, more diversified operators are the ones who have a good bottom line at this point, and they are rewarded in that because they integrate their system.
You and I have both been on dairies where they've put in a system for the recapture of methane off the pond out back, and that's a tremendous opportunity. In the case of bio-digesters, we have a feedlot just outside of Vegreville in Alberta that has gone to the point where they are now recapturing every bit of the energy off the byproducts--the manure and dead stock and so on--and they are supplying enough power to run their 50,000-head feedlot plus feed back into the Alberta transmission lines and create extra dollars generated from that. That's a tremendous opportunity. That's the type of thing for which we have to get beyond the thought process.
We took some unnecessary hits on our biofuel strategy because a lot of people were hollering and baying at the moon that you can't have a food and fuel supply. Certainly we can. With the innovation and industriousness of our producers, they can go beyond the straight food supply. We can contribute to both and allow farmers to make that extra money.
Canadians enjoy the cheapest, safest-quality food, when you look at how 10% of their disposable income goes to feeding themselves. They spend more money on their vehicle, or their boat, or their cottage than they do on feeding themselves. We have to get that turned around. It's part of the education that governments need to do. Canadians demand safe, secure food. They have it in spades. We'll continue to deliver that and help farmers do other things that will return a buck to the farm gate.