MOOSE JAW, Sask. – Underinvestment in wheat research is causing the crop to lag behind others in yield and return.However, that could change if multinational companies decide to focus on the cereal mainstay of prairie agriculture.University of Saskatchewan agricultural economist Richard Gray said wheat’s share of grain receipts has declined dramatically over the past 30 years.While some attribute that to markets, he believes yield is the problem.Canola yields are up 80 percent and pulse yields are up 60 percent over 1960 levels, he said.“Wheat yields are only up just over 20 percent, or 25,” he said. “If you’re a producer, one of the parts of making money is the quantity itself. Obviously, lower yielding crops become less competitive over time.”Public wheat research has diminished since the 1980s. Gray estimated governments are investing only 40 percent as much as is invested in canola research.He said $20 million per year is spent on wheat projects, compared with $50 million on canola.However, several multinational companies have courted breeders in the last two years and seem poised to focus on wheat. He said the companies have noticed that the government is withdrawing and are attracted by the high rate of return.Gray said these companies want a way to earn money from selling seed to farmers every year, such as intellectual property rights, and will lobby to get these rights.“And they’ll probably get them because the government is saying we can’t afford to invest in wheat research,” he said in an interview during the Farming For Profit conference in Moose Jaw.He said the companies would then ask the federal government to stop producing its varieties.“And before we know it all the varieties will be controlled by the private companies and we’ll end up with something more parallel to what’s happening in the canola sector.”Gray said producers could retain the public hold on wheat research if they were willing to fund more projects.He likes the model used by the pulse growers.Murray Fulton, a professor in the Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy at the U of S, said farmers must realize the significant returns of paying a little more in a levy system.It’s no longer enough to say the government will look after research, he added, because it won’t.He also points to the pulse growers’ levy as a way to boost wheat and durum research.The pulse levy is mandatory, while the one collected on wheat is voluntary.
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