THE NEED FOR SEED
BY IAN DOIG • ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY CHU
Dan Wright has one word for ag professionals who aspire to serve their industry in leadership roles: start. “Whether you’re early career, mid-career or late, just ensure you’re listening to people. Ask questions, seek clarification and respectfully challenge in some areas. Don’t be close-minded; be ready for people to have different ideas and for your own to evolve.”
This approach has taken Wright across senior management positions at Bayer as well as Syngenta where he led its North American Enogen and Canada Seed divisions. He also spent seven years on the board of the Canadian Seed Trade Association and served as its president from 2017 to 2018.
Named Seeds Canada CEO on Jan. 19, Wright continues to serve within the sometimes complex and controversial environment of the nation’s seed sector. Though the organization maintains a small Ottawa office, he lives and works primarily in Ayr, ON, and his colleagues across Canada largely work remotely. In its support for seed sector growth, Seeds Canada represents the ag value chain from breeder to farmer to retailer. Established Feb. 1, 2021, Seeds Canada completed its first strategic plan, which followed Wright taking over from then-CEO Barry Senft.
GrainsWest: You grew up on a mixed farm and your family owned an equipment dealership in Dresden, ON. How did your early exposure to this side of the ag world influence your career?
Dan Wright: It’s just learning the challenges of running a business, and how outside forces can impact it. Their supplier was Massey Ferguson. When your main supplier has financial difficulties outside your control, it’s hard to adapt. That built some resiliency. And watching my parents, who were equal partners in the business, set a big career foundation.
When I was in high school, I spent a summer in Red Deer working for Big Red Industries, also a Massey Ferguson dealer. It was good experience to get that western exposure.
GW: You’ve worked extensively with corporations and industry associations. What insight have you gained about how the two can work together to drive agriculture forward?
DW: My dad was a board member on the Ontario Retail Farm Equipment Dealers Association, so at an early age I saw how members working in an association can help make an industry better. That’s been a real passion for me to engage and be part of the wider industry outside of a single company.
GW: As CEO of Seeds Canada, what have you learned about the needs of seed industry stakeholders?
DW: It’s always changing, but freedom to operate and be as efficient as possible. On government regulations, make sure we’ve got a level playing field and that members have that ability to innovate. I think they all want to invest in research and development and introduce better products to farmers so they can compete globally. That helps make Canada stronger.
GW: Speaking of the need to strengthen systems, what can you say about the impact of the U.S. trade war on agriculture?
DW: A trade war increases the level of uncertainty. It’s making us look inward to be sure we’re doing everything within our control to be set up for success. It is also making sure we attract the investment to make agriculture in Canada stronger and able to compete.
GW: What are the most urgent priorities for the seed sector?
DW: Players domestically and internationally want to invest in Canadian agriculture because the market and the acres are so big. We need to make sure we’ve got the regulation and policy environment right. That may have stood in the way in the past. It’s making sure regulations governing seed commercialization are not overly burdensome.
GW: What promising and emerging technologies may benefit the sector?
DW: Gene editing has got the potential to make a step-change impact. Everybody’s asking, “Hey, where is it today?” But it takes time. Canada’s policy environment for commercialization of gene-edited seed is progressive and science-based. That’s good. However, Canada does rely on export markets, so we need to make sure that export partners around the world have similar science-based policies.
GW: Where does Canada now stand on modernization of the seed regulatory system?
DW: It’s been a long process. The CFIA started the first consultation for seed regulatory modernization in 2018 and had consultations in 2020. Industry and the CFIA spent a tremendous amount of time and energy thinking about the regulations. We hope [the proposed, updated regulations are] published this winter. For us, seed regulatory modernization doesn’t stop there; there is more work to do to improve our system.
GW: As the federal withdrawal from crop research and variety development reverberates through the ag industry, how has this impacted the seed sector and how has it responded?
DW: We’re talking to our members, understanding what’s important to them, making sure any changes the government makes don’t go backwards. We worked very closely with the Canadian Wheat Research Coalition to develop a vision for what a future system could look like, and that has been published.
And for me, it’s building an ecosystem in which competition exists, there’s a return on investment for all the players and to set up to a sustainable system. Whether it’s public or private, there’s all sorts of investment and more competition for farmers. Our Seeds Canada members are eager to contribute and engage in that.
GW: Encouragement of innovation in plant breeding is central to the Seeds Canada mandate, and the organization maintains the digital platform that manages the Variety Use Agreement (VUA). How have farmers and breeders come to view and utilize the VUA since it was launched with a one-year pilot in 2020?
DW: It continues to grow, to add more varieties, distributors and breeders. We’ve worked hard to improve the platform. Full transparency: it was bumpy when we started. Through dialogue, the system has gotten a lot better. People’s understanding of it is better and the latest feedback is going well. More people are coming online to utilize the system. It’s not the only thing that’s out there, so we reinforce to people that it is one option to engage with.
It is important to drive innovation and ensure people have a return on their investment, to get the future yield, better disease and quality attributes. All these things are needed to make an investment in the long term. It’s important that we’ve got something like the VUA to help drive that return on investment and bring more innovation to farmers.
GW: How can the seed sector best assist farmers and strengthen the country’s global competitiveness in ag?
DW: Seeds Canada members having that latest technology will ensure innovation comes. We need adequate protection in place to realize the return on investment, and we need everybody to participate. We can’t have an overly burdensome regulatory system, and intellectual property must be managed so people get that return on their investment. For me, it’s how do we do these things and have people invest in the Canadian market and add more innovation for farmers, which benefits Canada overall.
Just past our five-year anniversary, Seeds Canada is excited to participate in what we see as a huge opportunity for agriculture to have a bigger place in Canadian industry. There’s so much we can achieve together. We believe in partnering with different organizations to help drive that. Seeds Canada thinks everything starts with seeds but doesn’t end there. How do we continue to work with people and build that innovation?
A BETTER SEED SECTOR
Seeds Canada provides advocacy and service
Established on Feb. 1, 2021, Seeds Canada is a relatively young organization. Under former CEO Barry Senft and current president Brent Collins, the organization updated its initial strategic plan early in 2025 to better serve its membership across the Canadian seed sector. At its heart, the plan calls for Seeds Canada to act as a “leading advocate for an innovative and progressive seed industry.”
Membership is made up of a wide variety of agriculture professionals from agronomists, seed growers, developers and retailers to seed analysts and seed crop inspectors. Organizational members also include not-for-profit and public bodies.
Aimed at federal and provincial governments, Seeds Canada’s main areas of advocacy are international trade, plant breeders’ rights and plant breeding innovation and investment as well as seed regulatory modernization. Its various programs address areas from midge-tolerant wheat stewardship to seed testing laboratory accreditation and a suspicious seed activity tip line.
For more information or to become a member of Seeds Canada, visit seeds-canada.ca.
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