These difficult but necessary actions will enable the crop protection business to provide an even stronger base in support of the other parts of our agricultural enterprise.

Business conditions in the first half have been some of the most difficult that we have experienced in recent years,

A company can operate successfully for 200 years only by continually reinventing itself,

What Todd went through was an aberration. He makes it easier for me and (Atkins) because he's on base every time we come up.

With these actions, we are attempting to achieve channel inventories that support ODM by the end of the second quarter. Our outlook for the second quarter is cautious as we continue to assess the North American commercial market environment.

We knew it would be a difficult operating environment in the first quarter, and I am very encouraged by the better than expected performance of our company. I am especially pleased with how our people delivered these results. We are fully committed to growing revenue, controlling costs and improving return on assets across all of our businesses.