Grainswest - Spring 2025

Spring 2025 grainswest.com 17 BY IAN DOIG • ILLUSTRATION BY SERENA TANG Head of WGRF touts collaborative approach to research that delivers on the bottom-line Funder follows your lead R aised on a mixed grain and pig farm in southeast Saskatche- wan, a career in agriculture was a foregone conclusion for Wayne Thompson. Although he helped raise the pigs and grow the grain, he has always been preoccupied with the issues farmers face and how they can maintain stable, profitable operations. The friendships and connections he formed while a student at the Univer- sity of Saskatchewan’s College of Agri- culture and Bioresources reinforced his early commitment to the farm sector and led him to a job as an agriculture policy economist with the province’s Ministry of Agriculture in 2002. Since leaving gov- ernment, he has worked for farm organi- zations, with ag research being top prior- ity since he became executive director of the Western Grains Research Foundation (WGRF) in December 2022. GrainsWest: In 2014, you began eight years as head of the Saskatchewan Flax Development Commission and later spent two as head of the Flax Council of Canada. What did you take away from your work with that crop? Wayne Thompson: In the flax sector, it’s important that farm- ers direct research so they can grow a high quality and prof- itable crop. It’s also important to bring farmers together with the value chain to understand the needs of the entire sector, because there are a lot of opportunities in the flax industry to increase production and for market development. Similarly, at WGRF, I think about how all these pieces aect the kind of research that’s of interest to farmers. GW: How did your flax industry work contrast with your time as executive director of Saskatchewan Canola Growers Association from 2008 to 2010? WT: The focus for the Canola Growers was on policy issues; working to make sure the canola grower voice around policy issues was heard by industry and government, whereas the Flax Commission touched almost every aspect of the flax sector including trade, market development and research. GW: Flax is a much smaller crop than canola. WT: Yes. The various canola associations were very good at collaboration, as were the flax organizations. At the time, there were just not as many people to work on the issues faced by the flax industry. While budgets were smaller for flax, the collabo- rations helped to be eective and build long-term relationships.