We saw farmers take up the challenge. This year was a little bit different from last year. The final results aren't completely in yet, but of course the yields are down and the acreage is down simply because of some flooded acres in Saskatchewan and Manitoba that were all in production last year. It will change from year to year because of the rotations that farmers use. You don't grow wheat on the same ground every year. You rotate in other crops, so we'll see those acreages change as the years come and go.
The underlying factor is that there's a growing demand for good top-quality milling products. There's a growing demand for barleys that simulate rice in other areas, in the Japan and Chinese markets. We're seeing those develop as we watch. Canola is a fairy-tale story in western Canada. A lot of that was developed because of the intransigence of the Wheat Board. A lot of canola acres went in. The problem was you start putting canola in and you end up with blackleg and problems down the road. You have to have those rotational crops with a return on them so that farmers will grow them.
Now that we're seeing wheat and barley and durum that you can market when you see fit, we're seeing them back in the rotation in a much more fulsome way, which is great. Now we need new varieties to take advantage of that nitrogen that sat so you don't drive the protein level up on malt barley and so on. There's a lot of work being done on fusarium, different things like that, that the industry is driving.
All of our research now is being driven by industry. They decide on the result they want and then the money is put together along with the province, academia, our own researchers at Agriculture Canada and so on. There's a myth out there that somehow we're spending less on research, we're not. We're actually doing it in a different way.