Debate on financing future cereals R&D at stalemate Canada cannot afford

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/04/2025 (344 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There’s lots of talk this federal election campaign about pipelines — usually in the context of more efficiently moving Canada’s vast stores of energy to markets.

There’s another pipeline that deserves our political leaders’ attention, one that’s older than our energy sector and arguably as important to Canada’s prosperity.

The agricultural innovation pipeline has underpinned western economic growth from the time the first Dominion Experimental Farms were established in 1886, shortly after the national railway was completed to move people and commodities between the East and West.

It was the work of those early plant breeders and extension workers that fed the sector’s rise to where it now contributes seven per cent of the country’s GDP and makes Canada one of the world’s top-five food exporters.

Our largest commodity exports by volume, wheat and canola, came about as a result of varietal development by publicly funded researchers.

It takes about 10 years to develop a new wheat variety. Breeders painstakingly select for yield improvements and agronomic performance such as straw strength and disease resistance. They also look for improved milling and baking qualities. Potential new varieties are rigorously tested at multiple sites. If they aren’t equal or better than those already in use, they never see the farmer’s field.

Canola is a Canadian invention, the result of genetic selection to reduce the high levels of erucic acid and glucosinolates that limited its parent rapeseed’s usefulness as food or animal feed. It is now considered one of the healthiest vegetable oils, is the top cash earner on Canadian farms and is second only to wheat for the number of acres grown.

There is no denying Canada’s agricultural innovation pipeline has also benefited greatly from private- and public-sector investments in research and technology dedicated to crop nutrition, production management, a robust quality control system and an increasing focus on environmental sustainability.

However, Canada’s commitment to agricultural research, in particular the pursuit of continuous genetic improvement at the front end, appears to be losing momentum.

Last month, the University of Calgary School of Public Policy released a report documenting a declining commitment to agricultural research in Canada.

In the report, “Canadian agriculture and food research effectiveness and competitiveness,” researchers Sabrina Gulab and Guillaume Lhermie reviewed Canada’s public and private research priorities and spending over the past decade, comparing those results against those of other leading exporters.

“While countries like China, Brazil and Australia have made strategic investments that drive innovation and sustainability, Canada’s agricultural R&D spending has declined significantly, falling from $0.86 billion in 2013 to $0.68 billion in 2022,” the report says. “This reduction has left Canada ranking lowest among the top seven OECD countries in agricultural R&D expenditures, jeopardizing its global competitiveness and resilience.”

This report looks at research spending overall, but within that there has been a shift in priorities towards more emphasis on helping farmers meet environmental and climate change objectives.

Canola breeding has already shifted to the private sector. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has been signalling it wants cereals development to do the same.

There’s a problem with that.

Trait improvements in canola can be readily accomplished through genetic modification and hybridization, techniques that require farmers to purchase new seed every year. That makes it possible for private breeders to recoup their research costs.

Cereals are more genetically complex, which makes them harder to manipulate. Although some companies have tried, wheat has not responded well to hybridization. Farmers contribute to variety research through checkoff-funded commodity organizations, but they have been reluctant to give up their ability to save wheat seed from one year to plant the next.

The industry’s debate on how to finance future cereals research and development is at a stalemate with no solution in sight. Meanwhile, sector observers see signs of the federal department’s quiet withdrawal from plant breeding, mainly through attrition.

At a time when Canada must invest in a bold new vision for its future, it can’t afford to let a pipeline that has kept this country on the leading edge for more than century rust away.

Laura Rance is executive editor, production content lead for Glacier FarmMedia. She can be reached at lrance@farmmedia.com