Can you talk a little bit about what the lab has accomplished during that time?

Yeah, so a couple of directions.

identifying really one of the choke points for the development of soybean in sub-Saharan Africa.

And there were essentially four, and they were seed.

So when we talked to industry, we identified the four choke points.

As I was discussing, the lack of seed was something the industry said that just wasn't available.

Yields were incredibly low, 700 to 800 kgs per hectare, which are not sustainable for a farmer to take the risk to switch into a new crop and especially a commercial crop that they're not directly eating, not part of their crop.

So what is the new company? What do you plan to do over the next several years?

Peter, as we're talking about what's the next big market for U.S. growers, there's quite a bit of background history of how this research started.

Yeah, yeah.

It started back in 2012 when representatives of the U.S. government came out to Illinois looking to understand soybean and the potential to develop the soybean market in sub-Saharan Africa in particular.

They had seen high growth, high opportunity, export growth, and wanted to establish and invest directly in the soybean market development in Africa.

So we have a well-versed team.

So we began in essentially in 2013.

So we've been at it for about 12 years.

So I think from a strategic perspective, it's just real important that we're there and have a presence because Africa has the potential to be larger than the Chinese market in the not too distant future.

On the theory that nature abhors a vacuum, uh, now that America is departing the field, uh, in so many fields, but specifically now soybeans, leaves an opportunity for others, right? The Chinese, the Europeans.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And those of us, I mean, we're- we're on the ground in 31 countries and both the- the Chinese are quite active, other countries as well. And there- there isn't a plan B. Europeans, for example, they have a preference for, uh, non-GM products. Uh, the US industrial standard is- is based on GM technologies and as you said, nature abhors a vacuum. Uh, all countries outside of South Africa currently are non-GM. That means US beans are not welcome. Uh, and that, to me, would be a problem and that's what is the, kind of the opportunity lost.

So how you feeling now?

Uh, it's- it's rough. I mean, I think not only did we know we were having impact, uh, but we were doing a good thing. There are really no losers. Uh, private sector was taking over in a number of places, uh, and, uh, US growers were- were potential winners in the future. US industry was already, we are closely partnered with them, they were already, uh, intrigued. It was just win, win, win all the way around. Uh, and we just got caught up in- in, you know, an unfortunate storm that- that, uh, yeah, we're- we're, uh, dead in the water.