Innovation is really about selling something to someone who doesn't know he needs it but he does need it. That's really what innovation is, and I'm not convinced that agriculture in Canada has done a good job recognizing these opportunities over the last few years. We're particularly good at growing things very quickly and producing things, but without really understanding whether there's actually a marketing purpose to whatever we're growing faster and better and tastier.
I certainly agree with JoAnne's comment. We need to assess the marketability of anything we grow and do in agriculture and connect the two ends of the food continuum, as I was mentioning earlier.
The other thing we need to do within agriculture and food is nurture entrepreneurship. Lots of farmers out there have great ideas. At times I just don't feel that they're well supported or recognized as being entrepreneurs. Certainly universities would have a role to play in building or nurturing entrepreneurship within agriculture and food in Canada. Right now there are a lot of folks out there who are just building new products and ideas. They're thinking about certain things, but they're not at the point where they're willing to share all that much. They're not ready to go on Dragons' Den yet, unfortunately. We just need to push them enough so that they actually have the courage to move forward. And of course they need access to venture capital, which is always a big challenge in Canada. There's not a whole lot of venture capital out there. We need to make sure that these entrepreneurs have access to venture capital as much as possible.