Many growers of Canada’s Cinderella crop have lamented that too often the slipper has gone to seed and input companies rather than to them, but that may soon be changing.
Laurie Hayes of the Saskatchewan Canola Development Commission told growers attending Canola Days during Crop Production Week in Saskatoon last week that her organization is working on an initiative that will hopefully deliver crop traits that would benefit producers.
“There are traits that will benefit producers that are sitting on the shelf over at (the National Research Council’s Plant Biotechnical Institute),” she said.
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“The problem with them? They only benefit producers. They don’t benefit the big boys and so they aren’t commercialized.”
The Agriculture Canada-funded project will complete Phase 1 in May. It will identify crop traits that would benefit producers and recommend strategies to commercialize them.
She said producer groups need to work with groups such as the Plant Biotechnical Institute, Agriculture Canada, the University of Saskatchewan and Genome Canada to create inexpensive ways to commercialize the crops.
“There isn’t going to be much interest from the big boys because higher yields, frost resistance and natural disease resistance aren’t things that will make them money,” she said.
The project hopes to create a farmer-owned seed company to license new varieties and fight for market share. It is examining similar farmer initiatives in the United States, Brazil, France and Israel.
“Other countries have different regulatory frameworks for getting (varieties and traits) approved. We need to understand that as well,” Hayes said.
Phase 2 of the project will create an entity to establish a multi-commodity set of traits that will be targeted for development.
Another hurdle to be crossed will be international acceptance of the new traits.
