In the marketplace in this country today, and more so in the U.S., a lot of the private sector companies have gone to GMO because they have a return on investment. The conventional farmer's right and privilege to keep his own is an issue, so you don't always get returns.
There is in the world.... In North America, we have a large percentage of the conventional soybean business breeders. We have four. That's it. The U.S. has a lot of public breeders, but their percentage is so small, so we have European countries coming to us looking for conventional soybeans because they're restricted with IP.
But again, in regard to the way research has changed in my 30 years in the agriculture business, and in four years of university before that, we have fewer researchers at the university levels. We're having fewer bodies. It's just a sign of the times. Agriculture Canada is no exception—right or wrong—but we have less research all the time.
One of our breeders at the Ridgetown college campus in southwestern Ontario died two years ago. He was a very renowned breeder—world renowned. It has taken me two years to work with the university to get him replaced. It was just posted 10 days ago, knock wood, and we may have a new breeder in place by spring.
But that kind of lag time and slowness.... It's because they couldn't find the funding, even though industry is putting a lot of money into that program. My organization alone is putting half a million dollars a year into the University of Guelph on royalties and levies to keep breeding going, because that's how we survive in the public sector.
So it's infrastructure. It's lack of bodies. It's retirements not getting replaced. It's just getting harder for these guys to do it. And that's just the basic research. That's not the value-added stuff to see what the traits are going to bring or all this kind of stuff. Fortunately in this country, in southwestern Ontario we do have a good team. At Agriculture Canada there are still two breeders, and at the University of Guelph there is one and a new breeder coming.