While the puppets play

[vvalk]

Again nothing is stopping the government from continuing on as before or the wgrf. If there are cuts to public breeding it's not the Syngentas that are at fault. Grassfarmer you always have the choice to buy whatever seed at whatever price. Isn't it amazing how the most expensive canola seed sells first and that canola is the #1 crop in the west. Those evil private companies!!!

[grassfarmer]

In two words vvalk "variety deregulation"

I came across an interesting piece in a 2004 NFU paper on the Seed Sector Review going on at that time.

"Removal of "merit" as a registration requirement.

Until recently, new varieties of wheat and many other grains had to pass a merit test. On a balance of factors - yield, disease resistance, agronomic performance - new varieties had to be an improvement of existing ones. Recently, for some grains, the merit standard was watered down: new varieties did not need to be superior to existing ones, only equal. The review suggests that the merit criteria might be dropped altogether. "

What is the status of this merit requirement now? and does it add legitimacy to the claims of SF3 and others that question the improvement of newer varieties?

I ask because I was researching meadow brome grass seed and found a new wonder variety on the market that boasts a 1% yield improvement over the old staple variety that has been on the market for 20 years.

[samhill]

I would like to add that the leap from ****seed to canola was funded by our government and most if not all new varieties are founded on that. Which trait is the most valuable, I guess the market answers that. We can still return to pre canola and pre herbicide tolerant.

[vvalk]

So don't buy the new seed. Are you suggesting farmers need the govt to save themselves from themselves. Why do we need 100 industry "professionals" accepting varieties or declining them. No one knows better then I do on my farm. Also with many of the grading methods put away in the coffin as they should have decades earlier this merit based registration is as archaic as the papers the nfu put out. If it was up to the nfu we would use oxen to plot down our fields

[grower99]

So let me get this straight. A seed company can produce a new variety,talk about its wonderful traits...but because the feds have eliminated the necessity of the company proving the variety's merits (yield...) I'm buying a pig in a poke.The statement "I know what's best for my farm" rings a little hollow when the new variety yields 20 bu per acre on 1000 acres.All because we have an ideologically driven govt that does not see the need for govt oversight in the seed industry,foreign workers,environment...Ask many Albertans what they think of the deregulation of electricity.