The Saskatchewan Canola Development Commission is rethinking the way it spends producer dollars.
A few years ago the emphasis was on market development. Today, the focus is research and development.
Council chair Kelvin Meadows said the group has increased market development spending in conjunction with the Canola Council of Canada to tout the health benefits of the crop.
It was capitalizing on an injection of government funding to promote the qualified health claim that canola received from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2006 for reducing the risk of coronary heart disease.
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These days its sister organizations in Alberta and Manitoba are shouldering more of the market development burden.
“That has allowed us to step back and realize what we really want to do for farmers,” said Meadows in an interview following the commission’s annual general meeting held during Crop Production Week in Saskatoon, Jan. 10-17.
The new focus is on boosting the price of canola through research and development advancements. The most significant expenditure is a 10 to 12 year project that will give producers access to traits that could reduce the negative effects of drought or early frost, improve nitrogen efficiency and reduce shatter resistance.
“Farmers want more traits in the public domain so that there is competition amongst the seed varieties,” he said.
The commission is budgeting $3 million in check-off revenue for the year ending July 31, 2009, $1.3 million of which will be spent on research and $960,000 on market development.
Two years ago, $1.1 million was spent on market development and $707,797 on research, illustrating how the commission’s priorities have changed.
Meadows said a number of multinational seed technology companies are developing beneficial canola traits, but they might not see enough value in some of the traits that farmers desire.
“We need certain traits and if they’re not going to develop them, the canola commission will step out and try to develop them on behalf of farmers,” he said.
The commission’s new focus may create duplication between public and private research programs. For instance, the commission has funded work on a promising nitrogen fixation technology that some seed companies are also working on.
However, Meadows said a little competition is a good thing.
The goal is to develop traits that would be included in the stacked-trait varieties anticipated to be released by seed developers. The commission is working on a memorandum of understanding with Agriculture Canada and the National Research Council to formalize a working relationship on the trait commercialization project.
Meadows said a big concern raised at last year’s annual meeting was the prospect of losing Agriculture Canada crop breeders, so he was pleased to discover that the department will be announcing the hiring of a mustard breeder, a canola breeder and two technicians in February.
The commission will also continue to participate in the North American Canola Oil Promotion Program, a joint effort between Canadian and U.S. canola groups to promote canola’s health benefits.
The program targets health professionals, chefs, food service companies and food manufacturers. The hope is they, in turn, will pass along the message to consumers. Direct contact with consumers is too difficult and expensive.
“We really try to look at influencing the influencers,” Meadows said.
A delegate at the meeting wondered why the 2008 market development expenditure fell $491,617 short of what was budgeted.
Meadows said that was partially because the loonie was trading at a significant discount to the U.S. dollar when the budget was drawn up but had increased to near par by the time the money was spent.
