A more agile system for crop variety registration is emerging, following years of concern that the system was too inflexible and stifled innovation in crop development.
Until now, the system was based around the Prairie Registration Recommending Committee for Grain. It was there that potential new crop varieties were reviewed and recommendations made about whether those cultivars should be registered for release to prairie growers.
There were four subcommittees within the PRRCG, each dealing with different categories of crops. However, the procedures for reviewing and recommending candidate varieties did not always suit the needs of individual crops when it came to how many years a potential variety should be in trials and how the trials should be conducted.
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During the PRRCG’s recent annual meeting in Banff, three of the four subcommittees approved procedures that will allow each to become its own committee: wheat, rye and triticale; barley and oats; and pulse and special crops.
Outgoing PRRCG chair Scott Duguid said the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has recognized their status as individual committees, which means they will no longer operate under the PRRCG’s umbrella.
“This new process gives flexibility,” said Duguid, who is a flax breeder at Agriculture Canada’s research centre in Morden, Man.
“As the (agriculture) industry changes and evolves with new innovation, then the committees can respond quicker, versus having that other level.”
Duguid said the oilseed subcommittee also approved the procedures that will make it an independent recommending body, but the CFIA has still not approved them.
The four committees will continue the important role of assembling experts to review candidate varieties and to make recommendations on whether the seed should be registered for commercial release to growers.
“The process is still there,” Duguid said. “It’s just the way the organization is set up that has really changed.”
A new organization named the Prairie Grain Development Committee will oversee some of the work previously done by the PRRCG. Chaired by Agriculture Canada researcher Kelly Turkington, it will help bring the recommending committees together on issues of common interest, but it will not have a direct role in reviewing and recommending candidate crop varieties.
“Its mandate is basically to bring together the recommending committees to hold the meeting (where varieties are reviewed) and to organize forums on issues of common interest among the committees.”
