There has been a lot of debate over the past several months about new legislation that will update Canada’s plant breeders’ rights legislation and bring it in line with the 1991 international convention on plant variety protection.
Passing this legislation will increase investment in wheat breeding research and improve access to varieties and genetics that make wheat production more profitable.
Eighty varieties of wheat are now eligible for delivery into the Canada Western Red Spring (CWRS) class, most of which were developed at Canadian universities and Agriculture Canada.
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The new legislation doesn’t take away any of those varieties, but it does open the door for new players in wheat breeding research.
Breeding companies have already started to make investments in anticipation of the modernization of our PBR legislation. This will end up giving us more and better varieties from which to choose.
Slightly more than half of the varieties in the CWRS class are protected by plant breeders’ rights, including many that were developed at public institutions. This means I pay a royalty to the developer every time I buy pedigreed seed of one of these varieties. That royalty is usually embedded in the price of seed.
Farmers who grow a PBR variety are allowed to save the seed and re-plant it on their farm unless they agree, by contract, not to do so. Farmers who don’t want to be bound by such a contract can choose to grow a variety that is in the public domain, or a PBR variety where no such restriction applies.
Almost half the wheat varieties eligible for delivery into the CWRS class are now in the public domain, either because the developer didn’t apply for PBR, the PBR has expired within the 18 year time limit or the developer has surrendered the PBR before the 18 year time limit.
As a result, farmers who do not want to use a new variety or pay a royalty for new genetics are under no obligation to do so. The new legislation doesn’t require them to grow a PBR variety.
It also doesn’t take away their right to save their seed. In fact, it enshrines this right, regardless of whether the variety is PBR protected or in the public domain.
Will farmers end up paying more for their wheat seed? Yes likely, but only if they see value. They will buy a new variety of wheat only if they expect it to provide them with a higher net return than an existing variety.
We’ve seen this story before in the canola industry.
Many of us often gripe about the high cost of canola seed, but in reality the benefits have far outweighed the cost. How else can we explain a doubling of canola acreage on the Prairies in the past 25 years?
We wouldn’t have seen canola acreage climb from eight million acres in the early 1990s to more than 16 million acres today if farmers weren’t seeing the value in the new varieties.
Many farmers have seen the benefits of new genetics in canola, corn, soybeans and special crops. We now have an opportunity to see those benefits accrue in wheat and other cereals as well.
The way I see it, this legislation gives us the best of both worlds. Every farmer will be free to choose the varieties that work best for their farm operation, whether that’s the newest genetics or the tried and true varieties. The choice is yours.
Levi Wood is president of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association.
