The federal government should increase research funding, invest more in publicly funded variety development and make the variety registration system more flexible, says the House of Commons agriculture committee.
In a report on agricultural competitiveness more than a year in the making, the committee said in a report published May 6 that the sector is worried about the decline in core public research funding.
It picked up on a call from Grain Growers of Canada for an increase in basic research funding.
“The base budget for research has probably shrunk in real terms and the number of researchers has probably declined,” said the report tabled in Parliament. “The industry is very concerned that many researchers, particularly plant breeders who are expected to retire in the near future, will not be replaced in time. It could take years to rebuild all that expertise.”
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The committee acknowledged that Agriculture Canada has committed to a research strategy but insisted “the research action plan will have to be combined with a substantial increase in the federal government’s research capacity.”
An underlying theme of the report’s section on research was that the emphasis on long-term basic research has been eroded as the government looks for private sector matching funds that emphasize short-term projects that can bring relatively fast market returns.
MPs on the committee said there is disquiet in the industry about the decline of federal investment in research.
“Despite farmers’ efforts and federal government funding, all the witnesses insisted that publicly funded research at AAFC (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada) research centres must continue to play a leading role,” said the report. “The AAFC research centres are an invaluable source of expertise and many witnesses expressed concern that that source was gradually disappearing.”
The committee recommended that Ottawa introduce legislation to update seed developers’ intellectual property protection to strengthen existing rules from their 1978 base while considering “the farmers’ ability to save their own seeds.”
The committee did not explain how improved seed patent rights can be reconciled with some farmers’ demands that they be able to save and replant their own seed and not be forced to buy new seed each year from companies with patent or intellectual property protection rights on the seed they sell.
The committee said variety registration for canola and soybeans is flexible enough to allow reaction to niche market varieties while the system for approving western wheat varieties is more bureaucratic and less flexible.
“The committee recommends that the government introduce a new variety registration system and work with the variety recommending committees to make that selection criteria more flexible,” said the committee.
It complained that while American flour flows north, “the Canadian wheat variety approval system prevents Canadian farmers from growing for food purposes almost all the cultivars used to produce that imported flour.”
