ALMOST two decades ago, Agriculture Canada published 100 Harvests, a triumphant history of the first century of its research branch.
It was a book brimming with optimism and pride in past accomplishments. The branch was coming off a period of increased funding and attention under former minister Eugene Whelan and it was considered one of the government’s most prestigious research centres.
It is impossible to imagine that author T.H. Anstey would be able to write the same book now with the same optimistic tone.
Hard evidence is difficult to obtain, since government claims progress and researchers are loath to be critical for fear of retribution but anecdotally, the department’s research division has fallen on hard times.
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It has been a long decline through both Conservative and Liberal governments.
To begin with, Agriculture Canada scientists are now fund raisers.
For a decade, funding for most projects depends on scientists finding private sector co-funders to fill the gap of lower government budgets. Industry priorities have become the new test of relevance for proposed research products.
It means that for successful scientists, a degree in marketing and self-promotion is as important as a PhD in plant biology.
The result has been less emphasis on core research that lays the groundwork for the next generation of discoveries and more emphasis on projects that help create marketable products to attract industry interest.
Meanwhile, research station infrastructure – buildings and equipment – often has been allowed to run down. It is becoming difficult to recruit replacements for a retiring generation of scientists and more Ottawa-centred control over national research priorities has made regional research stations less relevant.
It adds up to a research branch malaise that could benefit from some healing tonic, encouraging words and an injection of money and purpose.
All of which makes last week’s announcement of a science policy review pregnant with possibility for Agriculture Canada researchers.
Agriculture minister Andy Mitchell called the review and says it is open ended. He could use it as an opportunity to reflect on whether his department could and should play a stronger and more independent role in the research business.
But the review also could easily be hijacked by other agendas.
The private sector is happy to see tax dollars spent to promote bottom-line oriented research interests. Its representatives will be making a strong pitch to continue that market-friendly research emphasis while few groups will come forward to argue for spending on pure research that might not produce tangible results for decades.
Senior Agriculture Canada bureaucrats will be reluctant to see any erosion of the centralized power they attained in the past five years to set national priorities and to tell research station managers and regional research officials where they fit in.
The review could be an opportunity to reassess the reasons for decline, despite the continued presence in the system of top-rate scientists.
Or more predictably, it could become an exercise in reinforcing old divisions and new realities.
