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Spring
2018
grainswest.com39
T TOOK MANY YEARS FOR CANADA TO
become aligned under UPOV 91, the International
Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants.
The international framework allows nations to build an
environment for investment and innovation in the seed
business. It encompasses all types of seeds, including
ornamentals, fruits, vegetables and grains.
Canada amended its Plant Breeders’ Rights Act to comply
with UPOV 91 in February of 2015 and ratified it four months
later. By taking these steps, it meant Canada could unlock a
critical access point to put exemplary varieties into the hands
of farmers while simultaneously increasing investment from
seed companies. Currently, Canada has a mechanism in place
to collect royalties on the sales of certified seed, however it
does not provide a suitable return on investment since there is
roughly about 20 per cent participation in certified seed use
in cereals. Regarding farm-saved seed, there is no legislated
trailing royalty. As the conversation continues, questions
have arisen on how to increase private investment in order to
morph that into the production of varieties farmers would be
willing to pay for. Many industry players have been working
to make tangible recommendations to government that are
amenable to all, especially farmers.
Tom Steve is GM of the Alberta Wheat Commission. He and
Erin Armstrong, CANTERRA SEEDS director of industry and
regulatory affairs, co-chair the Value Creation Working Group
(VCWG), a sub-committee within the federal government’s
Grains Round Table (GRT). The VCWG was struck in spring
of 2016 with a mandate to inform the federal government in
November 2017 as to the potential for a new royalty system for
cereals such as wheat and barley.
Stakeholder consultations were held in Red Deer, Saskatoon
and Ottawa in late March and early April of 2016 with the only
result being mixed feelings.
“We got a lot of interesting feedback from those meetings,
but certainly no consensus on a path forward,” said Steve.
“In fact, part of what we heard from some of the groups was,
‘Why are we having this conversation at all? Is there a problem
in cereal variety development?’ Other groups were saying,
‘We absolutely need a new model, there’s no return on
investment for private or public breeders.’”
Following the meetings, a report was written that included
a series of four options: continue as is, try to increase
government funding levels to ensure that breeding programs
are well funded, increase check-offs and funnel more money
into breeding or, finally, determine a new method to create a
more robust seed sector.
The report went out to seed companies, farmer-run
commissions and individuals at the GRT with only more non-
consensus produced by the summer of 2017. The VCWG was
at a loss.
“We looked at those findings … and said, ‘What do we
do now?’” explained Steve. The answer? Hold another
meeting, of course. Two days in Winnipeg would be just
what the doctor ordered. Based on the summer feedback,
Steve and the group presented two broad models. The first
was a farmer-enabled endpoint royalty (EPR) that essentially
has royalties flow back to breeding institutes based on
market share. The second was a contract-based system
to allow farmers and the seed developers, or retailers, to
have an agreement in place that would limit the use of farm-
saved seed to potentially one or two years. Later, a trailing
royalty could be imposed, with the idea that it would push
farmers to purchase new certified seed, which is currently
hovering around 20 to 25 per cent of Canadian wheat seed.
In both cases, scenarios could be concocted where private
investment occurs, and new, high-performing varieties are
made available to Prairie farmers.
“Those two were put out as options, not endorsed by any
sort of consensus among any working groups and reported
back to the GRT,” said Steve. “Coming back to the round
table, it was decided in a series of action items, to ask [the
government] to do further analysis on those two models,
including the economic viability of them.” However, Steve is a
student of history and had read reports like this before.
“This topic has been debated a number of times in the
past,” he said. “In the end, the government has not moved
forward. Do they have enough to move forward this time?
You’re going to be criticized if you do nothing and criticized if
you do something. It’s a topic that can be somewhat divisive,
so, unless there’s somebody willing to make a tough decision
and to move the dial on it….”
One of the people who may affect such a decision is
Anthony Parker, the commissioner of the Plant Breeders’
Rights Office at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).
“It doesn’t surprise me that it’s difficult to come to consensus
on the right model, and I think that’s OK,” said Parker from his
Ottawa HQ. “Every country goes through this and you can’t
take a model from one country and superimpose it. No two
countries look exactly alike. Agriculture Canada has already
gone through the GRT. It’s remarkable when parties can come
together with different perspectives and be very altruistic
about solutions. Maybe it makes them uncomfortable, or
difficult given their history, but there seems to be a willingness
to find a path forward.”
Parker notes that just by having the UPOV 91 legislation
ratified, Canada has already seen a massive shift in plant
breeding interest and investment. “Wheat, barley, oats,
soybeans, canola and pulses and other crops; we receive
on average, 93 [total] applications per year,” he said. “That
number jumped to an average of 123 since UPOV 91, a 32 per
cent increase.” Potato genetics have jumped from an average
of 26 applications annually to 40, a cumulative effect that
Parker describes as substantial.
The increase in varietal applications to the CFIA will
ultimately create greater choice for farmers and has brought
I