A Canada without canola?
Canola, which began from a few selected seeds low in erucic acid that were shepherded through more than a decade of expensive plant breeding research, is arguably one of Agriculture Canada’s greatest achievements.
Such an achievement might not be possible in today’s research climate.
Keith Downey, who along with the late Baldur Stefansson of the University of Manitoba is credited with developing canola, began the work at Agriculture Canada in 1958.
“Under today’s systems of funding, public or private, it would be difficult to generate any enthusiasm for such a long-term effort with costs that high,” said Downey.
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And while the costs were high, the returns on that investment have been stellar. The canola industry is now worth more than $2 billion annually.
The breeding and market development effort led by Agriculture Canada, with investments by provinces and universities and later the private sector, improved the viability of prairie farming, especially in the cooler, northern grain belt.
The oilseed created a new income source that slowed the shift to larger farms and fewer producers, say agriculture economists.
Few investments offer the returns that agricultural research provides.
Canadian agricultural research has generated a return of more than 20 to one, according to a paper by George Brinkman, an ag economist recently retired from the University of Guelph.
Downey, now a research scientist emeritus at the University of Saskatchwan, said strategic, public investment in agricultural research is the greatest form of government support available to farmers.
Historically the benefits of public research investment have favoured primary producers, but with growth and shifts of investment to privately funded research, the returns to producers’ bottom lines appear to be levelling off.
Stewart Wells, farmer and president of the National Farmers Union, fears it’s no accident.
“Governments look to reduce costs wherever they can get away with it. Large, long-term investments in agricultural research that pay dividends more than two elections down the road don’t yield the kinds of ballot box return on investment they’re seeking these days,” he said.
“It’s sexier for them to say they’ve successfully shifted research to the private sector, as though the marketplace will look after what needs to be done.”
Brinkman said public research needs to supply not only innovation, but also competition to the private research system.
He worries that commercial research, which protects its investment by patenting technologies, will stifle research.
