A lack of federal support for research is jeopardizing the future of the prairie oat sector, says an industry leader.
William Wilton, president of the Prairie Oat Growers Association and operator of a 1,400 acre farm south of Winnipeg, recently told MPs on the House of Commons agriculture committee that the cereal research infrastructure is declining, key researchers are nearing retirement and federal spending is shrinking.
“Recently, we have become concerned about Ag Canada’s ongoing commitment to oat research,” he said.
“Long-term commitments are necessary to encourage agricultural research. It is apparent that A-base funding budgets at Ag Canada are shrinking in real dollar terms. Without committed long-term A-based funds to provide the facilities and human resources, research will stagnate for many crops that do not have the volume to attract industry investment.”
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Wilton made special reference to the deteriorated state of the Cereal Research Centre in Winnipeg where researchers “have a facility that they don’t know whether it will be standing, almost literally, when they go to work in the morning.”
He also worried about “the impending retirement of a significant number of experienced senior oat researchers since there is no apparent process to replace these researchers when they retire.”
Working in a suspect building only makes it more likely they will decide to retire as soon as they can, he added.
“The potential loss of their experience and knowledge is frankly alarming.”
Wilton said the oat industry has been a prairie success story in the past decade as exports doubled and domestic oat milling increased by 50 percent.
Alberta Conservative MP Brian Storseth tried to tie the success to the decision by an earlier Progressive Conservative government to remove oats from the Canadian Wheat Board jurisdiction.
“Would you consider oats to have been a success since it came out of the monopoly?” he said.
Wilton deflected the impact of the move from the CWB.
A 1988 drought in the U.S. oat growing region led American millers to seek supply in Canada, he said.
“We’re still living with that legacy.”
Shortly after the move from the CWB, a Liberal government changed transportation policy to allow oats to be shipped directly to American mills rather than being routed through Thunder Bay and back to the Prairies again. It made them more competitive.
As well, U.S. farmers abandoned oats for more subsidized crops as the American farm bill directed support to wheat, soybeans and corn.
The result, said Wilton, is that Manitoba and eastern Saskatchewan have become “the supplier of human consumption oats to North America.”
Good varieties developed by public research were also at the root of the success, he added.
Now, a de-emphasis by Ottawa on the research effort is jeopardizing that progress, he said.
