A Western Grains Research Foundation survey indicates wheat growers strongly support increased funding for public wheat breeding in Canada.
On Tuesday the WGRF released results from its survey of 600 wheat and barley growers in Western Canada.
In the March telephone survey, conducted by a Saskatoon research firm, 84 per cent of producers said funding for breeding programs by public organizations, like Agriculture Canada and universities, should increase with the goal of developing new and improved varieties.
A month after the telephone survey the federal government cut Agriculture Canada’s budget for wheat breeding, including the closure of a major wheat breeding facility – the Cereal Research Centre in Winnipeg.
Read Also
Agriculture, agri-food groups make bid for spot in Carney’s economic agenda
A coalition of producer and agri-business groups is calling on Prime Minister Mark Carney to make Canadian agriculture part of his economic agenda.
“Unfortunately, it looks like the spring wheat program for the black and dark brown soils zones has been slashed by about one third at a time when the world needs more production,” said Grain Growers of Canada president, Stephen Vandervalk, following the government cutbacks.
Besides expressing support for public wheat breeding, cereal growers who responded to the WGRF survey said disease and weather is the number one threat to wheat production on their farm.
Twenty three per cent of growers said weather was their number one wheat production concern and 23 per cent said disease was their number one worry.
As well, even though canola may have, or will soon overtake wheat as the number one crop on the Prairies, 92 per cent of growers in the survey said they had grown wheat in the past three years. Seventy five per cent said they had grown canola over last three years and 57 per cent had grown barley.
Further, 90 per cent of respondents said wheat was a very important or somewhat important part of their crop rotation.
On the negative side for wheat, when growers were asked why they grew it, 64 per cent said they planted wheat for crop rotation. Only 18 per cent said they grow it because of price or market demand. A mere six per cent plant wheat because it’s cheaper or easier to grow.
