You're right. It is quite a challenge. The dairy industry uses alfalfa very aggressively and takes two, three, four cuts a year, and then replants every four or five years to maintain that productivity. There's a fairly robust market in alfalfa. I think it's true though that most of the genetics that are grown in Canada originate in the U.S. initially.
When we talk about perennial grass seed and some of the longer lived legumes, it's quite an economic challenge to build that business case to put the time and energy into producing a new variety. For instance, if it's a 10-year life cycle for a stand, or in some cases, if managed appropriately on the right kind of land, it can be...in my case, I have some 15-year-old pastures that are doing very well, thank you, so there's a real challenge there.
The key is for industry to identify the go-to traits that would have the most impact, and then work out a strategy with government to help deliver those traits. We're not talking about developing a new variety of canola every year; we see several varieties coming out every year. We're talking about if we had one good product every two or three years, that would take us a long way. The lifespan of a particular variety is much longer in the forage industry than it would be in the annual cropping industry.