With regard to access to capital, there are two things in place. Access to capital is one of the components. More important is the access to the technology, and the companies that are required to be successful as you want to move that ag tech forward.
I think the ISI program, the innovation superclusters initiative, which was announced in budget 2017 was a first step in really forcing a collaboration among academia, research, and business.
From a capital perspective, what we find too often is that stage one and stage two companies that are in the ag tech area do not have the Canadian investors there to support them through stage two and stage three. What typically is happening is that they are looking to the U.S. I will give you an example. In the last two months there was close to half a billion dollars invested in Silicon Valley in ag tech alone. I'd be scared to imagine what the number is in Canada today. It's not very high.
What we've taken upon ourselves is to work with the provincial government in Manitoba, and we're talking to organizations in Saskatchewan. I believe the federal government could play a co-partner role in helping to establish a broader venture capital strategy for ag tech as we go forward.