Mr. Speaker, there is a difference between farmers' rights and farmers' privileges, and we prefer to think of them as farmers' rights.
One of the problems we have with the farmers' privilege part of this bill is it means that plant breeders could potentially generate revenue on a farmer's entire production, not just on the initial seeds that have been sold to the farmer, but throughout the whole production cycle rather than just on the seed produced to grow the crop. This could significantly impact the profit margins of farmers.
Some farmers in my riding say that maybe that is not all bad, that if they want to end load the royalties to the actual result of the crop, maybe that is a good thing if the crop fails. Maybe they would save some money. That is certainly a consideration. I have talked to a couple of farmers about that. If farmers harvest poor crops, they would pay less on the end point.
The worry is that it just will not be one or the other; it may be all along the whole line, not only royalties on the seeds and the harvest, but everything in between. That is a real concern because it is one of those grey areas that I talked about in my speech.