It's absolutely critical. Basically where the innovation is in agriculture, at least on the plants side, is all delivered in that tiny seed. The way I like to describe it, the seed is basically the microchip that makes your computer work. It's the Intel processor. When you put it in perspective, a bag of canola seeds sitting on this table is more than an acre's worth of production. That gives you a sense that the innovations delivered there really go far forward.
In Canada alone, our members do about $100 million a year in private sector research. Canada is coming into compliance with what's called UPOV 91, with plant breeders' rights legislation that came into effect in 2015, so I think we're going to see that increase exponentially by.... I couldn't guess. We'll do our survey this fall.
We're doing the research on our side. Where the concerns come is that it's very easy to throw around, “We need to use science,” but it's really important that we continue in the Canadian and U.S. tradition to use risk-based science and not hazard-based science. Risk-based science is a much more fulsome discussion. Hazard-based science identifies the hazard, “Is there a hazard? We should stop.” Risk-based science says, “There's a hazard. How do we mitigate it? What are the potential ways you interact with that hazard?”
What we've seen is a bit of a creep towards more of a hazard-based, precautionary approach. We need to continue doing the research, but there is such a thing as good and bad science. I think we see a lot of mistruths. Documentaries such as Food Evolution are coming out to combat some of those. We're doing the research, but our governments are the ones that regulate us, so we really need to make sure that risk-based decision-making is the science that's used.