I think they can. I've talked to a lot of farmers who started using GM products and they've stopped, but then they're dealing with the recurrence of those crops, and that's what's led to increased used of herbicides, to deal with the volunteers who have come after they've used GM systems.
I think the question is understanding that you can approach agriculture in many different ways. The farmers we work with have a variety of different skills, and there's a different sweet spot for every scale where you use your equipment and your infrastructure most efficiently but you also have an economy of scope where you're integrating more than one or two types of cropping or livestock systems.
So the farmers we see entering the sector are trying to think of it differently because they don't want to be at the mercy of big corporations who are telling them what seeds to grow and how to feed their animals and what price they're going to get. They want to be more in control of the price they're getting. They want to be more in control of their operating costs and the costs they have to pay off farm to make those costs work.
I don't think our agricultural system that is dependent right now on chemicals and genetic engineering, or biotechnology, depending on how you want to define it, is profitable. We have $1 billion in income support payments and we have $1 billion out in debt servicing payments, not even paying down the capital. So we have a system that is based on debt. I don't think many farmers would say they're making a really good living as it stands; 60% of farmers in the sector are getting out of the business in the next 10 years. Eighty per cent are getting out of the business and 60% don't have people who want to take over their farms.
So I don't think the way we've set up agriculture right now is working for the farmers.