An OP ED by Glenn Tait of the NFU.
"Closure of Cereal Research Centre part of Federal
UPOV ’91 Agenda
The Cereal Research Centre (CRC) is being closed this
month, marking the end of nearly a century of public
plant breeding in Winnipeg. It is another sorry
landmark on the Harper government’s systematic
path of destruction through Canada’s public
agriculture institutions.
Publicly funded plant breeding at the CRC, along with
other Agriculture Canada research stations and
several Canadian universities, has produced most of
Canada’s cereal crop varieties, which are the
foundation for our multi-billion dollar grain industry.
According to Industry Canada, approximately 50% of
wheat and oat acreage in Canada is seeded to
varieties developed at the CRC -- varieties that
represent a farm-gate value of close to $2.5 billion.
The federal government is not only closing the CRC,
but is winding down all public funding for spring
wheat plant breeding to make way for private sector
investment. Ag Canada will allow scientists to
continue work already in progress, but will not
support new breeding, nor allow the current work to
proceed to the final stage of producing the actual
varieties that farmers can buy. The CRC’s top-notch
spring wheat team has been broken up, and only a
handful of Ag Canada wheat breeders remain at the
Brandon, Swift Current and Lethbridge research
stations.
At a 2013 meeting of the Canadian Seed Trade
Association, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
(AAFC) Director General Stephen Morgan Jones laid
out the federal government’s vision: AAFC would
“vacate” variety finishing; germplasm developed by
AAFC scientists would be sold to private companies;
intellectual property rights rules would be redrawn to
benefit private breeders; and variety registration rules
would be revisited.
Yet public plant breeding gives a very high return on
investment. Studies by University of Saskatchewan
agricultural economist Dr. Richard Gray show that
every dollar invested in cereals breeding returns at
least $20, and often more. When the federal
government invests $30 million annually in wheat
breeding it creates at least $600 million in value that
is distributed among farmers in the form of better
crops, providing income to pay wages, taxes, and
check-offs for additional research, while supporting
agriculture-related businesses in rural communities
and helping processors and consumers who benefit
from better wheat.
When private companies invest, however, most of
these high returns go to private shareholders – a
majority being wealthy non-Canadians. In the case of
genetically modified canola, soy and corn, gene
patents, hybridization and contracts ensure
companies can hold onto most, if not all of the
returns by forcing farmers to buy expensive new seed
each year.
Dr. Gray’s research not only shows high returns to
investment in plant breeding, but also documents
that when private seed companies are involved (as is
the case in canola) they reinvest only a small portion
of their returns into new research. Research by Dr. R.
J. Graf shows that private breeding is also less
economically efficient – a comparable yield increase
was achieved in wheat for a $25 million annual public
investment but required $80 million private dollars in
canola breeding.
Whether the federal government has decided to bring
in UPOV ’91 via Bill C-18 in spite of -- or because of
-- this disparity in how returns to plant breeding are
distributed, it will guarantee the likes of Bayer,
Syngenta, Monsanto and Dow a massive new revenue
stream. By de-funding and vacating public spring
wheat breeding, the federal government is handing
these companies an incredibly lucrative new source of
profits.
Under this new funding policy and the UPOV ’91 Plant
Breeders Regime that underpins it, Canadian grain
farmers not only lose the future varieties that the CRC
would have developed, but will pay higher seed prices
and increased royalties, whether on the purchase of
new seed or as end point royalties on crops harvested
from farm-saved seed. If changes to variety
registration rules proposed in May 2013 are adopted,
companies will be able to deregister older varieties
that no longer provide them with royalties, forcing
farmers to choose among fewer and more expensive
varieties.
When the Dominion Rust Research Laboratory, the
CRC’s predecessor, was established in 1925, Prairie
farmers were fighting for a fair share against the
oligopolies of the banks, railways and grain
companies, and we eventually built the Canadian
Wheat Board as a counterweight with power to act in
the farmers’ interest. Today, in the shadow of the
economic disaster the Conservative government
unleashed by tearing down the CWB, it is now adding
insult to injury by creating a new seed oligopoly.
Glenn Tait is a National Farmers Union board
member. He farms grain and cattle on his family farm
near Meota, SK"
"Closure of Cereal Research Centre part of Federal
UPOV ’91 Agenda
The Cereal Research Centre (CRC) is being closed this
month, marking the end of nearly a century of public
plant breeding in Winnipeg. It is another sorry
landmark on the Harper government’s systematic
path of destruction through Canada’s public
agriculture institutions.
Publicly funded plant breeding at the CRC, along with
other Agriculture Canada research stations and
several Canadian universities, has produced most of
Canada’s cereal crop varieties, which are the
foundation for our multi-billion dollar grain industry.
According to Industry Canada, approximately 50% of
wheat and oat acreage in Canada is seeded to
varieties developed at the CRC -- varieties that
represent a farm-gate value of close to $2.5 billion.
The federal government is not only closing the CRC,
but is winding down all public funding for spring
wheat plant breeding to make way for private sector
investment. Ag Canada will allow scientists to
continue work already in progress, but will not
support new breeding, nor allow the current work to
proceed to the final stage of producing the actual
varieties that farmers can buy. The CRC’s top-notch
spring wheat team has been broken up, and only a
handful of Ag Canada wheat breeders remain at the
Brandon, Swift Current and Lethbridge research
stations.
At a 2013 meeting of the Canadian Seed Trade
Association, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
(AAFC) Director General Stephen Morgan Jones laid
out the federal government’s vision: AAFC would
“vacate” variety finishing; germplasm developed by
AAFC scientists would be sold to private companies;
intellectual property rights rules would be redrawn to
benefit private breeders; and variety registration rules
would be revisited.
Yet public plant breeding gives a very high return on
investment. Studies by University of Saskatchewan
agricultural economist Dr. Richard Gray show that
every dollar invested in cereals breeding returns at
least $20, and often more. When the federal
government invests $30 million annually in wheat
breeding it creates at least $600 million in value that
is distributed among farmers in the form of better
crops, providing income to pay wages, taxes, and
check-offs for additional research, while supporting
agriculture-related businesses in rural communities
and helping processors and consumers who benefit
from better wheat.
When private companies invest, however, most of
these high returns go to private shareholders – a
majority being wealthy non-Canadians. In the case of
genetically modified canola, soy and corn, gene
patents, hybridization and contracts ensure
companies can hold onto most, if not all of the
returns by forcing farmers to buy expensive new seed
each year.
Dr. Gray’s research not only shows high returns to
investment in plant breeding, but also documents
that when private seed companies are involved (as is
the case in canola) they reinvest only a small portion
of their returns into new research. Research by Dr. R.
J. Graf shows that private breeding is also less
economically efficient – a comparable yield increase
was achieved in wheat for a $25 million annual public
investment but required $80 million private dollars in
canola breeding.
Whether the federal government has decided to bring
in UPOV ’91 via Bill C-18 in spite of -- or because of
-- this disparity in how returns to plant breeding are
distributed, it will guarantee the likes of Bayer,
Syngenta, Monsanto and Dow a massive new revenue
stream. By de-funding and vacating public spring
wheat breeding, the federal government is handing
these companies an incredibly lucrative new source of
profits.
Under this new funding policy and the UPOV ’91 Plant
Breeders Regime that underpins it, Canadian grain
farmers not only lose the future varieties that the CRC
would have developed, but will pay higher seed prices
and increased royalties, whether on the purchase of
new seed or as end point royalties on crops harvested
from farm-saved seed. If changes to variety
registration rules proposed in May 2013 are adopted,
companies will be able to deregister older varieties
that no longer provide them with royalties, forcing
farmers to choose among fewer and more expensive
varieties.
When the Dominion Rust Research Laboratory, the
CRC’s predecessor, was established in 1925, Prairie
farmers were fighting for a fair share against the
oligopolies of the banks, railways and grain
companies, and we eventually built the Canadian
Wheat Board as a counterweight with power to act in
the farmers’ interest. Today, in the shadow of the
economic disaster the Conservative government
unleashed by tearing down the CWB, it is now adding
insult to injury by creating a new seed oligopoly.
Glenn Tait is a National Farmers Union board
member. He farms grain and cattle on his family farm
near Meota, SK"