GrainsWest Winter 2017

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BY ALEXIS KIENLEN
organization is dedicated to solving the problems that impact pro-
ducers’ bottom lines.
The group is also intertwined with the province’s crop com-
missions. ACIDF’s board of directors is made up of producers
who represent di erent sectors of the agriculture industry in
Alberta—from oilseeds and cereals to special crops and forages.
Board members make all the final decisions on funding. “We
don’t spend a dollar that doesn’t go through the board,” said
Walkey. “The resources go to where the crop industry deems
them necessary.”
And the impact of that investment has been felt. Dean Spaner,
a wheat breeder and professor at the University of Alberta, said
he would go to bat for the organization if needed. “ACIDF has
been instrumental in my program and in many programs at the
university in terms of providing funding and vetting funding
proposals and finding out which ones are most appropriate for
industry,” he said. “They’ve been an extremely valuable organiza-
tion to plant agriculture in Alberta over the last number of years.”
Spaner said the organization has been instrumental in develop-
ing and maintaining the wheat breeding program at the Universi-
ty of Alberta.
ACIDF also helps foster collaborations within the industry, and
its ability to fund long-term projects sets it apart. “Developing
crop varieties takes many years. It can’t really be done in a time
frame of three to five years,” said Spaner.
“Their expertise, their long-term vision, their collaboration
with industry and their long-term reach within the industry has
made them important for funding agricultural initiatives and
extension initiatives,” he said. “I feel strongly that they are a vital
part of the Alberta agricultural community.”
Ruurd Zijlstra, chair of the department of agriculture, food
and nutritional science at the University of Alberta, and professor
of swine nutrition, has also seen the value of ACIDF firsthand.
“ACIDF has done quite a bit, particularly in helping research that
is relevant to crop producers themselves,” he said.
The research has been conducted not just at the University of
Alberta, but also at research stations across the province, and by
scientists linked to both the provincial and federal governments.
Zijlstra’s own work is in feed research, and ACIDF has been an
important supporter in that area—fostering links between the
crop and livestock industries and helping to establish key infra-
structure as well.
Zijlstra also appreciates the way the group is structured, and
finds that it works well relative to the crop producer. “There
are primary producers on the board, and ACIDF had grants for
very specific research outputs that had to be produced,” he said.
“Overall, they did a good job in managing those funds and maxi-
mizing the output of funds they had available.”
In the past, ACIDF has worked to match funds from industry,
which maximizes the use of government funds and makes sure
that industry follows up on research so it has a bigger impact on
producers and society as a whole.
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If ACIDF is discontinued, its absence could have a lasting
impact on industry.
“If ACIDF ceased to exist, crop research would go forward on
a much smaller scale. The challenges would be quite significant,”
said Walkey. “Right now, ACIDF is putting considerable money
into the Field Crop Development Centre [in Lacombe].”
Walkey added that without ACIDF, there would be a lot of
downsizing in crop research at Alberta Agriculture and Forestry
and the University of Alberta, and a certain amount of private
funding would disappear. The crop commissions do contribute
funds to research, but may not be in a position to completely
fill the void left by ACIDF. “If we cut back on research, you can
cruise for a little bit. But sooner or later, everyone is going to pull
away,” said Walkey.
Walkey sees ACIDF as a well-oiled machine that has been up
and running for almost 20 years. If that machine grinds to a
halt due to a lack of funding, getting it started again would be a
di cult and lengthy task.
“We’ve got some critical mass. If you take away the critical
mass, you don’t just put it back next year. Some of the people
we’re dealing with have been doing their work for 25 years and
that’s a lot of knowledge, networking and collaboration. If you
take that away next year and bring back replacements the year
after that, you’re behind 10 years because you have to rebuild.”