You're quite right, the food processing industry is currently the largest manufacturing sector in Canada. Therefore it is a priority to ensure that it remains competitive.
In the 2006 budget, the government announced an ongoing $500 million action plan. As part of that action plan, significant investments were made in what we call the agri-opportunities program, which is designed to create new technologies and new innovations in Canada, commercialize them, bring them to market, and tie them to new market niches and new market opportunities on the selling side and also on the bringing feedstock from farmers side.
We've seen some really interesting innovations come about as a result of that. There's an extra demand for specialty crops in Canada and an extra supply of processed foods from Canada.
In the more recent Growing Forward framework, there's a significant investment of about $160 million in innovation, and a great deal of that goes to research. For example, the minister mentioned the dairy cluster, which can range from new attributes to better genetics for products. Some of the research will also be in new food development, and foods with new functional attributes or nutraceutical attributes. That, again, stimulates the processing sector.
The government has recognized that there's a significant competitive challenge that's based on being innovative, adapting, and getting ahead of new markets.