Thanks, Mr. Valeriote.
We have always chosen purity of seed in the seed industry. We have always had structures and regulatory systems in place to ensure that as much as possible we can keep seed completely separate; that it is pure; that it is true to its identity.
We have measures in place in the field. The fields are inspected. There are regulatory requirements around buffer zones and isolation distances in terms of seed and the presence of foreign material and other plants. The same thing happens in the laboratories. The same thing happens in the processing plants that package and handle and move the seed.
However, as I've said before, you're in a world where you have so many acres now of GM production—not necessarily seed production, because we also have to remember that grain can be planted and seed can be eaten—and where you have that many millions of acres, in that many countries, that are now planted commercially to GM or GE products. In Canada we're looking at over 29 million acres planted commercially to GE products. They're grain, mind you, and some seed.
I hate to make this rash conclusion that the horse has left the barn, but we are facing the reality that zero is not achievable in seed or in grain. You can have a shipment turned back for 0.00009%, and that can be a piece of dust that was on a glove that cleaned a piece of equipment that grain moved in first.
The other thing is that we have only so much land in the world. It could be that in a field, two or three years before, a GM crop was planted and grown, and then a seed got dropped out of the harvester and ended up in the seed crop.
So no, I don't think it's possible to go to zero.