Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank the witnesses for coming here today. It's good to see the balance here of pros and cons for this bill.
Just recently The Economist magazine talked about Brazil's agriculture miracle. There are different reasons that their agriculture has doubled in the last 10 years. One of the main reasons was the research they're doing in new varieties, new crops, and new technologies. They say that in the next 10 years they can double again with that research and these varieties.
The article also talked about Africa's potential future as a food producer in world production. Especially now that Arab countries and Asian countries are investing in land, it's not totally unbelievable that Africa could be a net exporter of food.
I guess what I'm asking you is, looking at the restrictions we're putting on research or new products, are we going to be left out, to quite an extent in the future, of producing food for the world, especially when many of the hungry mouths are going to be in Asia and these places where they're not that hung up on a GMO product? Are we going to be sitting here, greater than thou, while all of a sudden the Brazils of the world and then Africa become the producers of the products we used to grow?
I would just open that up.