First of all, the first half of 2010 must be taken in the context of 2009. And we find ourselves here in 2010 with the channels having de-stocked quite a bit from an overhang from 2009. And that has, of course, affected pricing, notably in NAFTA - a very competitive situation there. A lot of that de-stocking now hopefully is behind us but, nevertheless, underneath that the overall demand for our products remains very strong, particularly in the second quarter. And we find ourselves now, at the end of the first half, with the volumes up, prices down but, otherwise, good demand.

For 2010 prices were down 7%, but this is on the back of prices having gone up 7% in 2009, so it gives you some indication of the overall quantum for it. But we're very pleased that our gross margin was able to be maintained. And of course this is a consequence of a benefit from raw materials, operating efficiencies, as well as the improvement of our profitability in our Seeds business.

Well, I think you need to put those costs in the context of the growth in our revenues. Over the past five years revenues with Syngenta are up 36% and our operating costs up some 14% so, indeed, the drive for operational efficiency is still well underway. But we have been very public and very committed to making investments in the growth of the business, which is why we continue to make investments in emerging markets - that requires infrastructure and men and women in the field - and we need to make investments in research and development as well.

Research and development is the lifeblood of the firm and when we undertake R&D it's a 10-year proposition, sometimes 15 years. When you think about the long-term prospects for this industry we're going need to raise the amount of food production by some 70% to 80%, and this is going to take new products. And, as I said, these investments are ones that need to be paced and very determined. It is the reason why, of course, we're able to come to market with new products each and every year. 2010 is going to see two new products for Crop Protection and two new products for Seeds, which is why we need to continue to make consistent and paced investments in R&D.

First half sales were up 15% in emerging markets and I would expect that by the end of the year these markets will now account for some 50% of the total Group revenue. So I think it's testimony to the amount of investment that we've made here over the years. We find ourselves now with some terrific leadership positions in these markets. We lead in Latin America, we lead in emerging Asia and we lead in Eastern Europe, and it's these markets that are precisely the ones that continue to offer a great deal of growth well into the future.

Currency affected us favourably in the first half by $53m - a consequence of a number of variables. Emerging market currencies were quite strong in the first half relative to last year. Average Euro was also stronger than a year ago. And, finally, we do undertake to hedge most of the exposure in our major currencies, so that's something which we do each and every year, altogether still calling for the total impact of foreign currency on our Group accounts at about $50m for the full year.

Well, two things. First of all, prices were down in the first half, down 7%, driven mostly by competitive activity in NAFTA, where channel de-stocking was quite accelerated in the first half of this year. Volume, on the other hand, was quite strong. It accelerated in the second quarter and, taken together, volume for the first half was up 3%, so a combination of those two has revenues down 4%.

Well, first of all, market inventories, channel inventories I expect will have declined quite a bit on the basis of strong volume, particularly in the second quarter.

Our inventories are up in the first half of 2010 relative to 2009, but I expect those inventories to fall quite considerably by the end of the year.

It is. First of all, with prices down 7% in the first half, glyphosate accounted for 2% of the 7% decline, but when you take a look at our Crop Protection business with a wide-angle lens, glyphosate accounts for about 6% of our sales and about 2% of the gross profit, so it's not a really material molecule for the Company.

First of all, Amistar is a great product. This product is now over $1bn and the project was completed on time just a few weeks ago. And we're already selling some of the production of Amistar into the market, so this was a very timely investment and we're really pleased with it. We're also the lowest-cost manufacturer in the entire world for Amistar. And it's a difficult compound to make. And it's precisely for this reasons that we have also signed up some generic customers to satisfy some of the market demand for generic products, so onward and upward for Amistar.

Well, there are four that I'd like to highlight. First of all, 2010 saw the launch of Avicta in corn, where sales there have already doubled. The second is we've got our registration for Isopyrazam on barley in the UK, and that's an initial launch there. I would also like to point out that this is the first year now, after spending a few years in development, our Invinsa, which is a heat and drought stress-tolerant application in rice, has been introduced in a granular formulation. We've also got Sedaxane, which is very late-stage development, the new fungicide in seed care that's going to go on a whole variety of crops and we're looking forward to binging that to market real soon.

Well, we had a very strong second quarter. Sales were up 14%, largely driven by our Corn and Soy Bean business where, as you know, we've now been on track to introduce a lot more triple-stack product into the marketplace. And triple-stack now accounts for about 60% of the sales in North America. And, finally, of course the progression of our Vegetable Seed business - a very high margin, high growth business - yet again turned in a great performance in the first half.

Well, the gross margin driven by the triple-stack, as well as growth across all of our business, including Vegetables which we just mentioned, absolutely keeps us right on track for delivery of that margin target.

I don't know about increasingly. I regard the markets out there as having always been competitive. And in the US Corn and Soy Bean market, as has always been the case, strong traits and strong germplasm always do, and I think always will, continue to command a premium. So as we bring more of that product to market, of course we're going to get the benefit from that. But looking just ahead, we have two new products coming to market in our US Corn Seed business. Both of them are very exciting. The first is the commercial launch of a product known as Viptera, which has the best control now in the market for a broad lepidopteran of pests which are particularly acute in several segments of the United States as well as Brazil, so that's going to be a big opportunity for us. The second opportunity is we will now, in the 2010/2011 crop year, be the very first company to market with a drought-tolerant corn seed. We refer to this as Artesian and it's going to more broadly address what Syngenta refers to as the water optimisation market, which is about a $0.5bn market opportunity, and the initial launch in 2011 represents our first entry into this important segment.

Well, there's part of it that is quite welcome. The part that's welcome is the part that gives the European Food Safety Authority more prominence in being sure that people understand that this technology is safe, and this proposal goes a long way towards doing that. What I think it doesn't do is unblock things. Because the idea of taking cultivation decisions out of Brussels and then moving them into all of the different member states is going to involve a great deal of complexity. And I think if we go down this avenue I fear that many of these files just won't progress at all.

Pricing is difficult, if not impossible, to call. What I do know, though, is that this industry over the past 10 years has been broadly characterised by prices hovering around broadly unchanged. And this past year has seen quite a bit of variability in pricing. But we were the company that did lead some of these prices up and we're a company that has premium pricing for our products around the world, and we're proud of that. I do know also that we are very determined to be sure that we defend all of these hard-fought market share gains that we've made and we intend to continue to do that, not only in our developed markets, but the emerging markets as well. So I look forward to the second half with the same sort of competitive vigour that we brought to the first half as well as, frankly, the last 10 years.

Look, we're six months into it now and our first half sales in the Northern Hemisphere, as you know, was characterised by pricing that, frankly, is more disappointing than we had set out. Nevertheless, having said that, we've got some terrific markets to face now. The Latin American main season's coming up. Asia Pacific, where we've got good positions and some growth, are in front of us as well. And, of course, I don't want to discount the continuation of cost and operating efficiencies that has been a hallmark of the company. So the next six months we're looking forward to facing with a lot of determination. And, as I said this morning, I expect that our full year operating income is going to look a lot like 2009, which is, I think, a good out-turn.

Well, in November of this year we're going to be celebrating our 10-year anniversary as a company, and if I think about the last 10 years it has had important elements of both of those things. Strong cost cutting and strong operational efficiency has been a hallmark of the firm, but then we've taken some of the benefits of those and put them into investments. Investments in R&D has made some strong products' portfolio, investments in emerging markets and, frankly, I think about the next 10 years as precisely another 10 years of doing exactly the same thing - keen attention to operational efficiency, but also of course investments in defending our shares in developed markets, but continued investments in these emerging markets. Let's face it, these emerging markets are where a great deal of the population of the earth is today and it is set to only further expand. The opportunity for technology in these markets is terrific and we've got a head start. And I think we're going to continue to invest in that head start and I look forward to the future with a great deal of confidence.