I guess at the end of the day, once again they've been mixing conventional and the GM, and Canada's been predominant there. But I hear what you're saying.
On the alfalfa, obviously it's an issue that's been raised in front of the committee, and it's one I have had some personal interest in. In a previous life, we used to harvest about 25,000 acres of alfalfa annually that we contracted with a number of farmers to grow because we operated a very large dehydration plant.
As a farmer of lots of alfalfa acres, we would have loved to have a nice, effective weed control—this is up in Ontario here, northwest of here—especially for dandelions. We were aiming primarily for the U.S. horse market, and you don't want those weeds in there, so we would have loved to have had a good weed control.
The facts, as we understand them, on Roundup Ready alfalfa are that it's found to be safe and has full food, feed, and environmental release approval in Canada; however, it cannot be sold in Canada. The variety is not registered, and the commercializing company—and they're not a member of our organization, so I can't speak for them—has indicated that it will not seek variety registration in Canada until, first, it is requested by farmers, which I think has been the standard procedure in the industry; second, there is a clear and acceptable co-existence policy developed and in place; and third, that it's fully deregulated in the U.S.
In terms of stewardship and management of the crop, the U.S. forage sector developed stewardship programs, which they feel, with proper agronomic practices, will manage gene flow in alfalfa. As we've been stating all along, a policy to manage trace or low-level presence of products for approval in one or more countries will mitigate issues with international trade. We can't stress enough the importance of that kind of policy.