A federal cereal breeding program has reached a funding deal with the Alberta Wheat Commission and Canterra Seeds, a Winnipeg-based seed company.
Under the deal, Canterra and the wheat commission will contribute cash and resources to Agriculture Canada’s Canada Prairie Spring Red wheat breeding program at its re-search centre in Lethbridge.
The resources will allow CPSR wheat lines from the Lethbridge program to be tested at more sites in Western Canada and give the program’s senior breeder, Harpinder Randhawa, access to performance data collected from a wider range of growing conditions.
In return, the commission will receive a share of royalty revenues derived from new lines developed by Randhawa’s program. Canterra will secure exclusive distribution rights to some of the registered CPSR varieties developed at the research centre.
The arrangement, which is being billed as an example of a public-private-producer research partnership, will add $3.4 million worth of additional resources to Lethbridge’s CPSR program.
The commission is expected to contribute about $750,000 over five years.
