If you asked a consumer who produces their food, they would likely answer “the farmer.”
But the farmer is only one cog in the chain of the food production system.
One key piece of that chain — one that often goes unappreciated — is the plant breeder.
Those in the agriculture industry know the monumental impact breeders have had on our industry and the lives of Canadians: generating billions of dollars for our economy; helping establish multimillion-dollar markets for Canadian crops; driving improvements in human and animal health; and changing the foods and products available at our grocery stores.
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But the public doesn’t necessarily make these links.
Although public perceptions of plant breeding technology appear to slowly be improving, there remains a high level of public skepticism among Canadian consumers, not to mention a general misunderstanding of the important role plant breeding plays in our food systems.
But at a time when public concerns over food security, food affordability and climate change are peaking, support for plant breeding should also be rising. Plant breeders should be revered on the same level as tech icons and rock stars, in my opinion.
The fact that they’re not represents a major missed opportunity.
We have evidence of the value of plant-breeding programs, in terms of agricultural sustainability and combatting issues related to climate change. In Europe, plant-breeding efforts to date are thought to have saved the emission of four billion tonnes of carbon.
We are even leading world research in this area. Researchers at the Global Institute for Food Security in Saskatoon are in the preliminary stages of breeding plants with their own built-in capacity to capture carbon and more efficiently use water and nutrients, all while increasing yields.
We also have evidence that plant-breeding programs benefit Canadians economically. A 2022 study from University of Saskatchewan economist Richard Gray showed that the $370.6 million in public investments in wheat-breeding programs in Canada between 1995 to 2020 generated an increase in gross value of wheat production of $12.9 billion, with $11.8 billion of that occurring in Canada. That represents a 31.8:1 benefit to cost ratio — imagine getting those levels of returns from the stock market.
Given all this, you’d expect plant-breeding programs, and plant breeders, in Canada to be well supported, at least by the federal government.
In fact, funding for Canadian plant-breeding programs is decreasing. While a decade ago Agriculture Canada funded about 75 percent of cereal-breeding programs, that share is now closer to 50 percent and the future of federal funding is murky.
Diminishing public support for plant breeding especially threatens smaller crops in Canada, such as oats, despite the fact that these smaller crops are critical to our ag industry.
Pulses are a prime example: now thought to produce 0.9 million tonnes of nitrogen in Canada each year, these crops weren’t even part of farmers’ rotations in Canada until about 40 years ago.
I recently asked Bryan Harvey, a now-retired plant breeder, what he thought of public perception of plant breeding in Canada.
He believes that if the benefits of the work were more tangible and immediately apparent, people would be less critical.
“If I can produce a gene in barley that will grow hair on bald men’s heads, they won’t give a damn if it’s genetically engineered. They’ll buy it.”
But Harvey believes the agriculture industry is partially to blame for this disconnect.
“We’ve always done a poor job of blowing our horns in agriculture in general.”
As we face growing global food security issues and strive to meet ambitious climate change goals, perhaps now is the time to start blowing our own horns. Canadian plant breeders are doing amazing things, and they deserve to be acknowledged and supported.
Delaney Seiferling is a freelance writer and communications consultant based in Regina.
