Private sector investment is one of the main drivers of seed research in Canada despite unhelpful government policy and a public perception that it is largely government driven, says a seed industry official.
Industry investment will continue to expand in crops where certified seed sales are strongest – canola, soybean and corn, said Bill Leask, executive vice-president of the Canadian Seed Trade Association.
Meanwhile, the industry is projecting that investment in cereal variety research will fall over the next five years, he said.
“Companies will invest in sectors where there is an expanding market for their product,” he said. “In cereals, there is a limited demand because most acres are planted with farmer-saved seed and there is little incentive for companies to invest there.”
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Earlier, Leask told a meeting of the Canadian Agricultural Economics Society that a 2007 industry survey showed 39 percent of plant research and development investment in Canada came from private companies.
Core federal government funding accounted for 21 percent while federal grants largely to universities accounted for almost as much. Provinces were small players at six percent and check-off funds were “under the radar” at four percent, he said.
The industry projects investment in canola variety research will almost double in five years to $80 million. Over the same period, investment in cereal research is projected to fall from $3.3 million to $2.7 million.
Leask told society members in Ottawa at a workshop that federal intellectual property rights and plant breeders’ rights laws should be updated to make it more attractive for private companies to invest in variety research.
He said he is “disgusted” when he hears the argument that there is conflict or competition between public and private research funding. Leask said some argue that privately funded research comes at the expense of public funding, and public research is better because results are common property.
“I don’t agree that there is a conflict between public and private and argue that they have to co-exist,” he said. “There is no reason they cannot. They must.”