Grainswest - Fall 2026

Fall 2026 Grains West 18 PERSON PLACE & THING 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 devel- opment and introduce better products to farmers so they can compete globally. That helps make Canada stronger. GW: Speaking of the need to strength- en 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 interna- tionally want to invest in Canadian agri- culture because the market and the acres are so big. We need to make sure we’ve got the regulation and policy environ- ment right. That may have stood in the way in the past. It’s making sure regula- tions 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. Every- body’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 modern- ization 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 (See pg. 11) . And for me, it’s building an ecosystem in which competition exists, there’s a re- turn on investment for all the players and to set up to a sustainable system. Wheth- er 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 plat- form. 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 lat- est 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 prop- erty must be managed so people get that return on their investment. For me, it’s how do we do these things and have peo- ple 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?