Saskatchewan Pulse Growers is considering farming out a portion of its pea breeding business to international firms.
That would be a departure from the grower group’s long-standing tradition of directing all levy money into domestic programs.
“We’re in negotiations with European pea breeding companies,” said executive director Garth Patterson.
“They have been so critical to the development of the pea market here we want to invest in some of their breeding.”
That doesn’t mean the old partnerships are dead.
“We’re certainly not stepping away from our investment at the Crop Development Centre,” Patterson said.
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With the implementation of a new one percent checkoff on Aug. 1, the association has twice as much levy money to spend than it did a few years ago.
That influx of new cash allowed the board of directors to ponder expanding the association’s pea breeding support beyond public institutions such as the Crop Development Centre and Agriculture Canada and into the private sector.
Talks are under way with Svalof Weibull Ltd. and Cebeco Zaden B.V., two European companies responsible for an estimated 70 percent of commercial pea seed sold in Saskatchewan.
Patterson wasn’t ready to divulge how the proposed funding arrangement will work, other than saying it will be an incentive-based system.
“If you perform well here, we’re prepared to invest,” he said.
Pulse Grower chair Shawn Buhr said the industry has already reaped rewards by using European pea genetics. Varieties such as Delta, Eclipse and Carneval originated in Europe.
“We know that European pea genetics is working because they have good market share and there’s good varieties coming out of there,” Buhr said.
“Anything we can do to provide access to those genetics is a good idea.”
To develop suitable lentil and chickpea lines, the association has to rely on domestic breeding programs because there is little private interest in those crops. As well, seed from public programs in other parts of the world isn’t well adapted to the Canadian Prairies.
That is not the case with peas.
“Peas tend to travel fairly well across the latitudes,” Buhr said.
Crop Development Centre pea breeder Tom Warkentin doesn’t see the grower group’s negotiations as a threat to his program.
“I don’t think it’s a shift in saying they want to support private breeding over public breeding. I don’t think it’s really that at all.”
He said the association is just trying to find the “widest pool of varieties” it can for its members.
Patterson said Saskatchewan Pulse Growers will announce details of the new arrangement at its annual Pulse Days convention Jan. 12-13, if everything is in place by then.
He also hoped to release the results of a report on producer payment security options at that time.
The group has hired Kelly and Associates of Winnipeg to review fund-based, insurance-based and clearinghouse alternatives to the current system of licensing and bonding pulse buyers.
