Agriculture committee  Most of the advantages for GM products have been designed to help improve productivity at the farm level, so a lot of the technology to date that has been brought forward, let's call it the biotechnology tools, has been to improve things like weed control, disease control, insect control, but we are now seeing advances being made through biotechnology in improved water use efficiency.

Agriculture committee  Thank you.

Agriculture committee  I think we're not yet seeing the potential for the biofuels industry. When I look at wheat, I think we have to look at it in terms of what we can get from that crop. Of course, the obvious ones are things like milling wheat for breads, cookies, cakes, and pastas. We need to look at how we can develop the markets to increase the accessibility for our commodity and the end use functionalities.

Agriculture committee  As I mentioned earlier, we have to be able to demonstrate to the customer, the consumer, the benefits or value that the GM technology brings to them and to the market. Also, I think we need to implement an education program that not only demonstrates the value, but really deals with the risk and benefit of GM wheat crops.

Agriculture committee  We're not, to my knowledge, building any more area to produce crops. For wheat, for example, as I mentioned in my brief, it's expected by the year 2050 we're more or less going to have to move from about 660 million tonnes to 880 million tonnes to feed the nine billion people on earth.

Agriculture committee  I'd also like to—

Agriculture committee  In terms of reduction in red tape, I think any time we can let the market sort things out, versus regulating it, is always a good thing. I would like to see an environment that actually encourages investment in innovation here, particularly with our crops and in particular with wheat.

Agriculture committee  I think the marketplace will dictate, determine or specify what we need to grow. As you know we currently grow nine different classes of wheat in western Canada. I think in many ways that provides us with a lot of strength because we have a lot of different opportunities for those nine different classes.

Agriculture committee  The Alberta Wheat Commission started four years ago with a resolution that was tabled at an AGM asking the board to investigate producer interest in creating an all-wheat commission. At the time there were two producer commissions in the province, one representing winter wheat and the other representing soft wheat.

Agriculture committee  I believe GM wheat will come eventually. I'm not sure when exactly that will be; some predict within the next 10 years. We know there are developments currently under way. It will be done in a coordinated fashion in concert with a lot of the companies in the major wheat-producing areas in the world.

Agriculture committee  I can't give real life examples currently because I think it's still early days yet. From what I understand, Alliance Grain's plans are still to go ahead. They've just been delayed due to other business reasons. I expect that we will see, as the marketplace sorts itself out in terms of what the customers actually want, some further interest in developing value-added processing facilities across western Canada, but there's nothing current.

Agriculture committee  First of all, just to clarify, I'm not a farmer. I grew up on a small farm in eastern Ontario, moved west in 1980, have been involved in the agricultural corporate side of things for 34 years, and took early retirement, but all during my career I worked with some great farmers. I think Brian is the best one to answer that question.

Agriculture committee  They saw the change in the marketplace as benefiting their farming operations financially.

Agriculture committee  Yes, 84%. That is correct.

Agriculture committee  Yes.