There are all sorts of possibilities for new technologies to replace the kernel visual distinguishability or KVD system.
But if they don’t help farmers, they aren’t worth developing, University of Saskatchewan agricultural economist Hartley Furtan told a Canadian Grain Commission conference in Winnipeg June 29.
“We have to focus on profitability at the farm level,” said Furtan, who was one of the leaders of discussion during the two-day conference that brought together grain quality officials from around the world.
“There simply isn’t enough profitability in the farming system. Our policies are not designed to enhance that.”
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Furtan said finding a replacement for KVD is “one little wee piece” of addressing farmers’ problems in the grain industry.
KVD has been the basis for crop variety development in Canada for decades, but recent advances in science have allowed breeders to develop superior varieties of crops much faster than in the past.
But because each new variety has to visually conform to the characteristics of its class to be registered, breeding can take longer and cost more than if a more objective variety regulation system was in place.
The conference was designed to give breeders and regulators a chance to discuss various approaches to future variety regulation and to learn what other countries are doing.
It was apparent no country yet has a definite solution to the problem posed by the KVD system.
The most exact DNA-based systems can be expensive and don’t fit well with the grain industry’s need for quick, cheap and easy tests that can be done in elevators. Many scientific systems were discussed, but none are free of significant problems.
Robert Cooke of the United Kingdom’s National Institute for Agricultural Botany said countries should not look for a single solution.
“We would advocate not concentrating specifically on one particular approach but on keeping the options open,” said Cooke.
“We quite like the idea that we can still do phenotyping, we can still do variety identification on the basis of visual characteristics.”
Cooke said a variety of tests can be used for various purposes.
“It depends on the nature of the question and depends on what you’re willing to pay,” said Cooke.
Malcolm Devine of Canada’s Plant Biotechnology Institute said the Can-
adian grain industry first must determine what a new system will attempt to do before it focuses on technology.
“We have a tremendous capacity to test for things,” said Devine. “What do we want? What do we need? … And what are we prepared to pay for?
“The more we want, and the more specific it is, the more we need those tests, the more precise we want those tests, the more we’re going to have to pay. And someone, or some combination of people in this room and overseas, are going to have to figure out how those costs get added on.”
Canadian Wheat Board director Bill Toews, who attended the conference, said it is essential that a new system not add to farmers’ costs.
“There need to be compensatory benefits. We shouldn’t be trying to just break even,” said Toews. “It should be two to one, or three to one. You don’t make changes just to stay even. You make changes to move ahead.”
Furtan said a new variety registration and quality control system that fails to make farmers better off will not likely happen.
“The grains industry is in serious trouble in Western Canada, and in parts of Ontario and Quebec as well,” he said. “If farmers can’t make more money and can’t get a fairer deal out of the production of grains, then we’re going to have a serious problem and it’s going to be impossible to forecast what’s going to happen.
“I think it is the need of farmers to make more money that is going to drive the change.”
