Thank you very much.
I don't know where to start, actually.
If you think about crop plants in Canada, if you think about the field crops such as canola, soy beans, and corn as a measure of success, these crops have definitely benefited from plant biotechnology research to the point where about 90% to 95%—depending on how you count them—of the varieties grown today have enjoyed the benefits of plant biotechnology. In other words, farmers are choosing these crops over other varieties. The reason is that these varieties perform at a better rate than the previous varieties in better controlling weeds—and if you don't get ahead of weeds in fields, they'll choke away the yields and so on from the crop plant you're trying to grow—and insects, particularly in corn, with the Bt corn varieties.
In that sense, we view that as a great success. And that success has been built on by combining these different traits in these particular crops—in the industry they call it “stacking” of traits—to provide farmers with even more choice.
In terms of success for the future—I know you didn't ask this, but just glimpsing into the future—this is, in our view, just the tip of the iceberg. Touching on what our colleagues from Genome Prairie are talking about in terms of genomics, and marker-assisted breeding and other ways of creating new characteristics in crops, we're going to see an acceleration in how varieties are developed and in the range of new traits going into different crops, way beyond just insect and weed control. I think fairly soon we're going to be seeing successes in drought tolerance, which is going to be particularly important in certain parts of the country for corn.
Further into the future, maybe in five to 10 years, we're going to start seeing some traits that are going to be of direct interest to consumers, like reduction in allergens, different oil profiles. In fact, we already see that in canola.
I hope I've answered your question.