The federal government has released an executive summary of a year-long review process aimed at modernizing Canada’s variety registration system.
Out of 140 responses that were submitted by farm groups, seed companies, plant breeders, producers and processors, 37 percent preferred that the current variety registration process be maintained as is, allowing inherent flexibilities already built into the system to take effect.
Another 27 percent of respondents said the current variety registration framework should be retained as is, but all crop kinds currently covered under Parts 1 and 2 of the system should be moved to Part 3, making merit assessments optional.
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Seventeen percent of respondents supported the continuation of some level of government oversight in the variety registration process but favoured the outright elimination of merit assessment or performance data.
Thirteen percent of respondents said government should have no role in overseeing the variety registration process.
When Canada’s current variety registration system was established in 2009, most crop kinds were placed by default under Part 1 of the system, which requires mandatory merit assessment.
Merit assessment ensures that new crop varieties are, in general, as good or better than existing varieties based on agronomic characteristics, end-use quality disease resistance and other important factors.
It was initially expected that many crop types placed under Part 1 would migrate to Parts 2 and 3 of the system, which have less stringent merit assessment requirements.
By moving all crop types to Part 3, stakeholders for each crop type would have the option of staying in Part 3 or moving back to Parts 1 or 2, depending on the degree of merit assessment that was deemed most beneficial.
An executive summary of the review can be viewed online at bit.ly/1g69Xlc.
Agriculture Canada, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Canadian Grain Commission are now assessing the results of the review to determine what changes, if any, will be made the variety registration process.
Stakeholders from Canada’s crop production sector will be notified of any changes.
