CANADA’S grain and livestock industries must make it a priority to find a technological alternative to Kernel Visual Distinguishability.
Funding a much increased effort will not be easy, but the alternative is a much larger cost in lost opportunity and competitiveness.
The industry has known for years that KVD must be replaced, but has exerted inadequate effort. The task may not be as big or important as the commitment to put a man on the moon, but we may take a page from that single-minded effort that overcame seemingly insurmountable odds.
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KVD is the foundation of Canada’s wheat grading system and a critical part of variety breeding. In grading, it is quick and cheap. Each wheat class has distinctive visual characteristics in kernel colour and shape that grading staff use to determine whether the grain in the delivered load meets the class standards.
It has worked, keeping inferior varieties from the grain delivery pipeline and preserving this country’s reputation as a producer of consistent quality.
But many breeders bemoan KVD’s limitations. They might be able to develop a new variety that meets or surpasses a class’s standards in yield, milling characteristics or agronomy, but if its appearance varies from the KVD standard, it will be rejected for registration.
The Canadian Seed Trade Association estimates that the cost of KVD has risen to $200 million a year in lost opportunity. For example, no new winter wheat varieties have been registered for Western Canada in five years. The improved lines that breeders produced failed the KVD requirement.
The expanding hog industry needs fusarium resistant feed wheat but KVD stands in the way. Also, the expanding biofuel economy will need new wheat varieties with a range of characteristics, such as ethanol producers’ demand for high starch wheat.
Meeting these needs will be unnecessarily difficult and perhaps impossible as long as KVD remains a key hurdle of the system.
Suggested non-technical solutions fall short. A proposal to replace KVD with a signed declaration system providing a paper trail from producer to end user was rejected as too costly. And the recent proposal to relax KVD requirements for the six minor wheat classes only partly addresses the problem.
A complete and lasting solution requires new technology. The Canada Grain Commission and other partners started a research program several years ago to find a fast and cost-effective technology to replace KVD, but progress has been slow. The money allocated to the task, while significant, pales in comparison to the lost opportunities.
The industry, including livestock producers who want a reliable supply of feed wheat, must commit the increased money and expertise for a concentrated research program to find a solution quickly, likely through the rapidly evolving science of genetic fingerprinting.
Bruce Dyck, Terry Fries, Barb Glen, D’Arce McMillan and Ken Zacharias collaborate in the writing of Western Producer editorials.
