A collection of prairie farm groups has joined forces to look for new ways to fund public and private cereal breeding programs in Western Canada.
Lethbridge farmer and pedigreed seed grower Ryan Mercer said work is underway to identify a new funding model for cereal variety development in the West.
A steering committee has been formed to oversee the initiative.
The committee has commissioned a report that will examine different funding mechanisms used in other major cereal producing and exporting nations.
Dorothy Murrell, former director of the University of Saskatchewan’s Crop Development Centre, and Carman Read, an Alberta consultant who is helping establish new wheat and barley commissions in Saskatchewan, will help prepare the report, which is expected this fall.
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Mercer said it will help identify a new funding model and assess a variety of mechanisms, including end-point royalties, that encourage private sector investment in cereal breeding.
He said the new funding model must ensure that seed companies have a reasonable opportunity to generate positive returns on their plant breeding investments.
“Funding models are changing and it looks like the regulatory environment may be changing over the next year or so as well,” said Mercer, who is president of the Alberta Seed Growers Association.
“Discussions of adopting UPOV 91 (enhanced plant breeders’ rights protections) are on the table as well so things are changing quickly.”
The Alberta Seed Growers Association is chairing the initiative, but Mercer emphasized that groups sitting on the steering committee represent a cross-section of farmer interests across the Prairies.
Farm groups involved include Keystone Agricultural Producers, the Alberta Barley Commission, the Western Barley Growers Association, the Alberta Wheat Commission, the Western Grain Research Foundation, the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association and provincial seed growers associations from Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
The initiative is the latest move in a flurry of organizational restructuring that has taken place since the elimination of single desk marketing last summer.
The federal government is also revamping the Canadian Grain Commission, streamlining operations within the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and reassessing Agriculture Canada’s role in the development and commercialization of new crop varieties.
Ottawa is also looking at amending plant breeders’ rights legislation and reforming the regulatory environment under which plant breeders must work.
As well, provincial governments are facilitating the establishment of new wheat and barley commissions in the three prairie provinces.
