A long-term funding agreement for pulse breeding at the University of Saskatchewan gives global distribution rights of new varieties to producers.
In exchange for a $21 million funding package stretching over 15 years, the U of S Crop Development Centre has provided Saskatchewan Pulse Growers the exclusive right to distribute new varieties it develops of peas, lentils, chickpeas, dry beans, soybeans and fababeans.
Dean Corbett, SPG chair, said the farmer association is also providing 640 acres of land for additional breeding work and funding that will establish a third pulse breeding position at the CDC.
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Rick Holm, CDC director, said the long-term nature of the agreement is a good fit for the type of work in which plant breeders are engaged.
“When you match funding stability to plant breeding, you increase your ability to create the results farmers and the industry are looking for,” he said.
“Plant breeding takes time. Technology has shortened things up, but these things don’t happen overnight.”
Holm said the CDC’s objectives are to improve economic returns for producers through the development of new varieties.
“That means many things, both agronomic and in the creating of products that will find a home in the marketplace,” he said.
That marketplace has made Saskatchewan farmers the world’s largest suppliers of lentils and peas and major shippers of chickpeas.
The CDC breeding program will be funded by producer checkoffs on the crops sold from the five million acres of pulses planted in the province.
Garth Patterson said the CDC’s breeding work has created huge opportunities for producers.
“More than 90 varieties released by the CDC since 1971. Imagine what the next 15 years is going to look like,” he said.
