Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, witnesses, for being here today.
It's great to be able to talk about innovation. I'm from Red Deer, and Red Deer Agri-trade is probably one of the more amazing types of trade shows. It has all types of innovators; they come internationally, as well, to look at what is there.
When you consider that we're trying to look internationally in scope—we are looking at advanced genomics, biotechnology advancement as far as equipment is concerned in the farms—I think it's something that kind of shows where things are going in agriculture. These are great opportunities to look at this collaboration required. We look at universities and colleges such as Olds College in central Alberta as well as a lot of universities in Saskatchewan and so on that have gone and had agreements with other countries. I had an opportunity to be in China when Mongolia and the University of Saskatoon signed some agreements, so we can see that this research is going internationally.
You've talked about some of the real important issues we have, such as Ug99 and the wheat rust issue, and you also talked about the Western Grains Research Foundation. They're trying to look at higher-yielding wheat varieties and also at those that are more resistant to disease and pests, but we have to work at this at an international level as well.
Could you talk a little bit about that? In that discussion, I know that as was mentioned earlier, you have the nine agriscience clusters and the 14, I believe you said, industry-led initiatives that are there, and we're trying to find people we should be talking to. I wonder if you can talk about some of these groups that might be places where we would want to focus in our discussions on innovation.