Grainswest - Spring 2025

Spring 2025 Grains West 36 seed—and that privilege is enshrined in our Plant Breeders’ Rights legislation— they are generally not paying for the use of that innovation,” said Comin. Dean Hubbard, Alberta Grains Region 1 director, has always seen value in the purchase of certified seed but worries privatized cereal breeding will raise the cost of production. Since canola breeding moved to the private sector, he hasn’t seen marked improvement in new varieties. “We haven’t seen changes in yield in many years,” he said. “But the price of canola seed continues to rise every year. When I pencil in canola, I know I’m going to lose money, but I need it for the rotation. That’s the concern a lot of farmers have with private breeding. Having quality product is one thing, but can we afford to grow it?” Hubbard isn’t naive about government’s role and is concerned about its waning support. “Farmers need to be aware of what’s happening,” he said. “We all need to be involved in figuring out a solution.” PRIVATE BREEDERS WEIGH IN As a 2020 Nuffield Canada scholar, independent plant breeder Jodi Souter of J4 Agri-Science examined the opportunities and obstacles faced by Canadian plant breeders. She compared these with the experiences of their peers in Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, the U.S., Uruguay and Zimbabwe. In her preliminary findings, she identified three main obstacles faced by private plant breeders in Canada. These include: onerous regulatory procedures, lack of an industry-wide royalty collection system and skewed perceptions about private plant breeding among industry stakeholders from farmers and funders to public breeders. As a private plant breeder, she finds the excessive red tape and economic uncertainty is worrying. On average, it takes two to four years to register a new variety. The process is expensive, and a private breeder can’t recoup investment until it’s complete. Some argue arbitrary requirements within the registration process increase uncertainty. Some of the countries Souter studied, such as New Zealand and the U.S., don’t require registration trials. In comparison, the multi-year waiting period in Canada is a serious impediment. “For private breeders, especially startups, if you have to be pre-revenue for 15 years instead of 12 years, that could easily be the end of your company,” she said. While registration takes time and money, the merits by which new varieties are judged is also challenging for private breeders. Much of Souter’s work is in flax development. She said the merits used to determine quality are restrictive and don’t take into consideration regional needs. “If the merits were developed based on my breeding program, its likely competitor lines would not pass,” she said. “Different breeders, farmers and markets value different traits. If we force all varieties to look the same, new and interesting traits for farmers or consumers may not end up being explored.” Souter suggested these challenges could be addressed by the adoption of a registration system that bypasses pre-registration testing and merit assessment. It would instead require only basic registration now laid out in the Seeds Regulations. “Western Canada is big enough we could sustain more options,” she said. “With competition, we’ll get more options, more traits of interest.” Jim Dyck of Oat Advantage in Saskatchewan has made similar observations about the registration process, but he’s less critical than others. He and his wife Laura-Lee have been breeding oat varieties since 2008. Being a small-scale breeder has allowed them to explore new and groundbreaking territory. For example, they’ve developed varieties with high oat kernel uniformity and high protein, traits that garner considerable interest from millers. They’re also developing Farmer and Alberta Grains director Dean Hubbard believes farmers must be aware of government’s retreat from breeding and work to find a solution. He took part in a panel discussion on the subject at Prairie Cereals Summit 2024. FEATURE