Thanks again for coming and sharing your knowledge and expertise.
Before I ask a question, I just wanted to address something that Frank mentioned on the article he quoted. I think we have a misconception that any new potential breakthroughs in improving the quality of the plant have to be through GM. I would just like to note for the record that there are many non-GM breakthroughs.
For example, Australia has a new salt-tolerant wheat said to bring life to dead farmland. In Japan, non-GM drought-resistant rice is in the pipeline. Zambia has a better non-GM maize harvest. In South Africa, GM drought-tolerant maize is way behind non-GM. In the Philippines, there is new non-GM drought-resistant corn. New Delhi has indigenous rice that is better than GM rice for dealing with stress. The list goes on and on.
Sometimes we hear from the industry that although now we have just HT and Bt traits in our GM, we're looking at the future, and we're going to feed the world. I would just like to say that's not necessarily the case.
The other thing I'd like to address is the idea of competitiveness and regulations. It seems to me that in this case, after what you've told us, having regulations would ensure your competitiveness. By not having the regulations, you wouldn't be competitive. So that's kind of... You know, we're often given this spin that the more regulations there are, it's cumbersome, but in this case it seems that this would be the way to go.
It's my understanding from listening to you that contamination seems to be really actually more difficult to control with the perennials than the annuals. I would just like to get some comments.
Kurt, you sent a memo to me in March that I shared with members of the committee. In it, you quote some of the experience in the United States. I'd just like to get other comments on this. You mentioned that:
...Monsanto and FG International have not been truthful and have not followed their own stewardship protocol in the US or worse, they are proving now to be ineffective. FG International placed production acres of [Roundup Ready alfalfa] in all parts of the production area of the U.S. when they were limited only to a specific production area.
This action demonstrates what their true intentions are, pollute the land everywhere, then the gene is out and let others worry about it.
So this speaks to the whole idea: can we really contain a GE alfalfa?
You've talked about the benefits to blueberries and hybrid canola with the bees and about feral alfalfa. Maybe I could get some comments from you folks on this.