Federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz is right in one sense when he talks about research funding: funding for agricultural research in Canada should favour projects that promise quick benefits to farmers.
However, the government must ensure it does not go too far.
There is a heated public debate now going on that pits some agriculture groups against a federal plan that focuses heavily on funding short-term, profit-motivated research in collaboration with private companies. This comes at the expense of more general, fundamental research that targets long-term benefits, but whose short-term commercial prospects are unknown.
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Assured funding for long-term, core research is vital if Canada’s role as a leading agricultural producer and exporter is to continue. Many of the seed varieties and advances we rely on today had roots in the laboratories and fields of a time before the major research cuts of the 1990s.
Advancements in this building block type of research come in increments. Knowledge developed at one location and released to the public realm is picked up by others years later, who take the old research down new, innovative paths. Discoveries that once seemed irrelevant or insignificant, suddenly are found to have major benefits for farmers that nobody imagined in the beginning.
That is why Ritz’s comments seem overly black and white when he replied to a research funding request last week.
“I want to continue to see a focused funding for research that actually benefits the farmgate. If they (farm groups lobbying for a restoration of research funds) think we are going to go back to this blanket situation where we just dump money in and research is done that doesn’t benefit the farmgate, that’s not going to happen. If they want that, they’re going to have to vote someone else in.”
Nobody is suggesting we wastefully throw money down a black pit of endless, useless research, but by concentrating too heavily on projects that will turn a quick profit, the government ensures those profits go back to its commercial partners. That leaves farmers having to pay if they want to enjoy the benefits of higher yields, disease or cold tolerance, or genetic modification.
By overly emphasizing commercial potential, the government also ensures that crops like wheat, barley and oats continue to be at an economic disadvantage to other main crops. Private companies funnel most of their money to crops that show the most profitable short-term outlooks, and today that is canola, corn and soybeans.
In addition, funding for building block research pays for laboratory upkeep, equipment, staff and facilities, all necessary if we wish to maintain a vigorous agriculture research community in this country.
Some companies and universities have already complained of a brain drain to the United States as researchers and students make their way south for more readily accessible grants.
It is in the best interests of all for the government to set aside a portion of its budget for fundamental research.
The Grain Growers of Canada has asked for just that. It has called on the government to restore $28 million per year over the next 10 years to so-called A-base research funding.
The Western Barley Growers Association, and pulse growers groups have also appeared on Parliament Hill asking for similar assurances.
Plant breeding is a long-term endeavour.
If we carried out research in the 1970s and 1960s under same instant gratification philosophy as exists today, many varieties we have now would not exist. The building block research carried out then continues to serve us well.
We can learn a lesson from that.
Bruce Dyck, Terry Fries, Barb Glen, D’Arce McMillan and Ken Zacharias collaborate in the writing of Western Producer editorials.
