After 40 years of agricultural and biotechnology research, Ashley O’Sullivan is stepping back.
The scientist and administrator’s career spanned the development of canola, the adoption of reduced tillage and herbicide resistant crops, and the creation of a centre of excellence in agriculture and biological research in Saskatoon.
O’Sullivan, who will retire as president of Ag-West Bio in April, plans to take on an easier workload.
“Some project work, maybe, and maybe a bit of sleeping till the crack of noon.”
O’Sullivan’s career began as a teacher at the University of Alberta after obtaining a PhD in his native Ireland.
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After working in research and development at Monsanto in the early days of Roundup development, he joined Agriculture Canada in Lacombe, Alta., in the late 1970s, taking over as head of soil science while conservation tillage was in its infancy.
“They were exciting times. We made great strides in a short time,” O’Sullivan said.
By now his experience with dryland agriculture made him valuable not just to Canadian farmers but elsewhere in the world.
He moved his family to India for a three year Canadian International Development Agency project developing crops and agricultural practices.
As co-director of an Indian research initiative with Canada, he oversaw Canada’s withdrawal from that role and presence in Indian agriculture.
Upon his return to Canada, O’Sullivan took over as assistant director of Agriculture Canada’s research centre in Lethbridge.
“Lethbridge was an exciting place,” he said.
“Beef, dairy, sheep, pulses and cereal breeding, forage, irrigation, vegetables. There was agronomy and soils. It was a good spot to be in.”
It also led to one of O’Sullivan’s crowning achievements.
“We transferred technology from a federal research lab to a private company. It wasn’t something that happened in those days,” he said about the 1986 licensing of Penicillium bilaii to Philom Bios.
It resulted in that company commercializing PB50, or Jumpstart, in 1991 – the world’s first phosphate solubilizing crop inoculant.
O’Sullivan then became head of research at Agriculture Canada’s Semiarid Prairie Research Centre in Swift Current, Sask.
“We made some significant investments in Swift Current at that time. We diverted research resources to develop alternative crops such as pulses, to give producers more choices besides cereals.”
The research included work that led to the adaptation of Brassica juncea canola to the Prairies.
“Southern Saskatchewan and southeast Alberta wasn’t going to be cattle and wheat anymore,” O’Sullivan said. “But we didn’t give up on wheat and had a very successful durum and utility wheat program.”
O’Sullivan moved to Saskatoon in the 1990s to head Agriculture Canada’s research centre in that city, along with facilities in Melfort, Scott and Regina.
The Saskatoon centre was rebuilt from the ground up at a cost of more than $50 million and at a time when deep cuts were being made to all federal budgets, beginning in 1995.
Plant gene resources were transferred to Saskatoon, making the research centre home to the nation’s agriculture genetic bank.
Bringing organizations, ideas and companies together had become O’Sullivan’s trademark.
During his tenure, the National Research Council combined its plant gene transfer technology with gluphosinate resistant genes from Agrevo and Agriculture Canada’s canola germplasm.
In 2003 he left Agriculture Canada and helped amalgamate the Saskatchewan Nutraceutical Network and Bio Products Saskatchewan into a single agricultural biotechnology economic development organization.
“The province was the core funder for each and wanted to see them combine their resources and boards. We took the chair and vice-chair from each board and created Ag-West Bio.”
O’Sullivan said the success of the biotechnology research cluster in Saskatoon, with Ag-West Bio at its heart, is still in its early stages.
“Health and nutrition, fuel. The Saskatchewan government, and (its) ag (department), had the foresight to see what had to be done here and did it.”
While the not-for-profit company relies on project funding for about half of its budget, O’Sullivan said the other provinces are looking at Ag-West Bio as the model for their own research organizations.
O’Sullivan said the board will soon be seeking a new leader to take over in the early part of 2008.
“It’s been a great career serving prairie agriculture, but I’m tired of getting up at 5:30 in the morning,” he said.
