Agriculture committee  We are trying very hard to do that. You're right. Plant breeding is not really a very sexy thing. Being a trait developer and working in biotechnology is for people who are inclined that way—not me. It is more attractive because it's more high tech. Real plant breeding is diffi

Agriculture committee  On the first statement about all of the innovation that's occurring, I just wanted to point out that there is innovation occurring. Most of it is the result of improved genetics, and genetics are delivered by the seed. The problem is that if it's the private sector, which is my

Agriculture committee  That's probably more of a question for Anne than it is for me. In our industry, although they do build, and are continuing to build, private-public-producer partnerships, it's done with private sector money for the most part. In the case of wheat, for example, Agriculture and

Agriculture committee  In one minute? There is already a voluntary system for labelling of genetically modified products in place under the Standards Council of Canada, and a company can choose to label whether it is or is not a GM product. They just haven't found the need to do that.

Agriculture committee  The reason the private sector invests 84% or 85% of its total investment in corn, soybeans, and canola is that they can recover their costs. Right now, in cereals in particular, they can't. The example I gave you of FT Wonder in Ontario is a pretty good example of that. The priv

Agriculture committee  It's the same situation particularly in the grain industry. We have members who have made deals with European companies to bring varieties to test in Canada, and they have backed out of the deal because we couldn't protect it. Around farm safe seed, there is nothing in this new

Agriculture committee  I really would like to answer that question. The actual language in the UPOV 1991 convention is that it is an exception to the plant breeder's right. No matter what you call it—a right, a privilege, whatever you want to call it—it's still an exception to the plant breeder's righ

Agriculture committee  I'll start on low-level presence. You only have five minutes, right? Low-level presence is a huge issue in the seed industry. I know it's a huge issue in the grain industry as well. However, for the last number of years, our industry has been living low-level presence. With a lo

Agriculture committee  We had a survey done. Human resources, and scientific minds in particular, have been really huge issues for the seed industry, just as they are for the horticulture industry. A few years ago Dr. Bryan Harvey from the University of Saskatchewan did a study for us concerning the

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much for the invitation. Three times lucky: we finally got here. We had cancellations and votes and all kinds of things going on, so it's nice to finally be here and meet with you. I'm happy to come here to talk to you about the role of the seed industry as the fo

Agriculture committee  We have not yet established any threshold that we are ready to say we support at this point. We are saying that we need to get to work on that, so that whatever threshold of low-level presence gets established for grain doesn't impose requirements on us that the seed industry, as

Agriculture committee  No. Given the level of production, where it's being produced, how many acres are in production, and by how many farmers, the increase in research and development, even in developing countries like China and others, of GM or GE products that are meant to serve only domestic market

Agriculture committee  Let's start by looking at the challenges. First of all, the world's farmers, not just Canada's but the world's farmers, need to more than double their production within 40 years to be able to feed the population that we're expecting to have on this lovely planet.

Agriculture committee  We have to more than double our production within the next 40 years. We have to do it on essentially the same land base. There's not a lot of land left that we can bring into agricultural production. There's competition for that land from urban development. We have to do it while

Agriculture committee  In Canada there is a service guarantee for safety assessments. Risk assessments don't take quite as long as a full health and safety assessment for full approval. We have not really had a low-level presence issue in Canada yet, so it's hard to know. We have had a couple of what w