Seed royalty

[wd9]

Great points Vicki.


Levy collecting groups should be the key funders and supporters of providing legitimate and comprehensive third party evaluation of all crops.

Included in these trials we must also have all commercially grown varieties no matter how long they have been around to properly benchmark the new ones on a variety of factors not just yield.


Our various levels of government have backed away from funding these endeavors so farmers with their levy funded organizations need to step up.

Even for the trait and hybrid business of canola and soybeans. we still do not get enough good third party data on these products.

We need a more robust and competitive marketplace for the development and commercialization of all major and minor crops to remain competitive globally.

Forget about government and public breeding. The government is backing away from this and it is not coming back. I am all for government funded open source research for the benefit of industry and agriculture especially, but public breeding with limited germplasm crosses and siloed research are simply often not competitive enough as opposed to privately funded research and varietal development, IMHO.

Just do your own trials on your own fields using your own methods. You can generally get demo bags if they know you are doing comparisons. Get together with a few neighbors even.

What we don't need is more useless plot data.

[bucket]

Governments are not backing away from funding research.....they just announced 18 million within the last month and 153 for the super cluster**** and a billion more for that earlier.....

[northfarmer]

I cannot speak for SK but I know Alberta they have gutted the variety trialing program and levy groups are trying to pick up the slack.

It is important for farmers to field trial varieties but that is no replacement for properly replicated third party trials that are done in numerous locations and varying geographies.

I tire of farmers comparing one field of this variety to another field of that variety. Not that there is not some value in those comparisons in a general sense, but not nearly enough valid info. I have planted 32 crops now hope for another dozen more but properly run trials can give me many more plot years of data than I can produce on my own.

We have put a lot of stock in some of the well run trials by regional research groups that form a subset of the data that goes in the provincial seed guides. It has formed the basis for variety selections that have performed well for us.

We farm in some of the more northerly latitudes of the prairies and there is no question that results vary based on day length and other factors from one region and province to another.

These recent announcements for research funding pale in comparison to the inflation adjusted value of primary research, public plant breeding and research farms that the various levels of government once funded, and that money from the government is just not coming back, and as such would not necessarily get my support if it did IMHO.

[westernvicki]

Producers fund millions every year in levys & royalties a greater % of the money collected needs to be invested in rigorous variety testing, & transparent data with the objective to validate the seed choices we are offered.

[bucket]

Producers fund millions every year in levys & royalties a greater % of the money collected needs to be invested in rigorous variety testing, & transparent data with the objective to validate the seed choices we are offered.

Won't happen ...the saskpulse boards attitude is ....if you don't like pulses don't grow them.....they can't be bothered about value as long as they can grow more while making less....

Mostly because ....whether the board is full of scientists or agrologists or university grads....they have an inheritant sense of being better than every one else....that common growers like myself think that value for my checkoff dollars is still important....and shouldn't bother them....guess what I am not going away....


How about this ....if I don't like the direction of my checkoff dollars I can have those dollars back....then see what common growers think of their incompetence. ....

[jimmy]

I don’t think the big yields are a 100% result of these new varieties, I am not a scientist but have read a couple of views from some scientists claiming the higher C02 levels are making crops more water efficient making them yield more. I for one can’t buy new seed every year it would be convenient but it just doesn’t pencil out. Getting to be way to many parasites in agriculture these days.

[sumdumguy]

We should give them their royalties, RIGHT UP THEIR KEASTERS FOR EASTER! Plant breeding has played right into the cheap food policy and farmers are the losers.

[Oliver88]

We should give them their royalties, RIGHT UP THEIR KEASTERS FOR EASTER! Plant breeding has played right into the cheap food policy and farmers are the losers.

👍🏻
There has been too much taking from the farmer.
End point royalties will be the issue that virtually every producer will oppose.

[jimmy]

👍🏻
There has been too much taking from the farmer.
End point royalties will be the issue that virtually every producer will oppose.

I don’t think we will have a vote on this it will be like everything else we do what
We are told.

[SASKFARMER3]

and us sheep keep getting taken to the slaughterhouse by industry. Sooner or later they won't leave us with anything. Sad when China and Russia and Ukraine and South America are handing our idiotic country there lunch. We have one parasite in Canada its industry that feeds off us.

[farmaholic]

.....sounds like we'll just have to pass that extra cost down to our customer, what choice do we have?

I didn't think I could be that sarcastic this early in the morning.

[Rareearth]

Every one assumes w3 have the best and are the best. Like Alberta beef or Black Angus.

Maybe we should have free and open access to varieties from other countries?
Vs
We are exporting our varieties and levy dollars to fund competition in other countries.


Fertilizer is a “free trade commodity “ import from else where if local pricing doesn’t work?

Chemicals, herbicides and insecticides should be fre3 and open trade between counties, vs our captiv3 premium extract maximum profit possible. They manufacture these products in other countries and they are imported exclusively by the majors for distribution.

For all the Organic growers, or Austanada types “ carefull what you wish for”. The next step in “specification farming” is microbiological testing, this is not done or very selectively and is limited in use. Grain will be rejected at source( grain bin door or first delivery point) in mass. They the question, if it’s not safe or fit for humans how can it be used for livestock feed?

[HITTGrapevine]

Same old story…

Once upon a time, Saskatchewan farmers were sick of selling their grain to unscrupulous grain buyers and profiteers. So they formed their own elevator company. It was called Saskatchewan Wheat Pool (SWP). Eventually, the SWP became the biggest grain marketer in Western Canada. It even had its own export terminals on the West Coast and at Thunder Bay. And it gave farmers complete control of their own supply chain, from the field to the end market. The concept was called co-operative marketing. Farmers pooled their grain and sold it at competitive prices, based on volume, using their own elevator network. But alas. Over time, farmers fell asleep at the wheel and let a bunch of "executives" gain control of the Sask Wheat Pool. Under poor executive leadership, Sask Pool made a series of bad investments and managerial blunders, took on a mountain of debt and was eventually swallowed up by a private sector competitor for pennies on the dollar.
Moral of the story: Farmers had control of their own industry, but they gave it away through complacency.

Fast forward to today …
Like the SWP marketing story, the debate about seed royalties is a story about control.
Specifically, who has control of the seed industry? Who is trying to get it? And who's been asleep at the wheel?
To illustrate, consider this question:
What farmer in his right mind would invest in a plant breeding program (ie provide check-off levies and other forms of financial support) without demanding a share of the profits generated by new seed varieties?
Who in his right mind would agree to provide financial support for the development of an innovative product, without demanding a share of the profits that it generates? This is basic stuff. But somehow, it's happening right before our eyes.
To be clear:
a) farmers today are providing front-end financial support for seed research, development and the commercialization of new seed varieties;
b) they're demanding no return on their investment;
c) they're negotiating no ownership stake in the products that their investments help to develop;
d) they're paying up-front royalties for the right to use the products that they have already paid to develop, and;
e) and they're now facing the possibility of additional back-end or trailing royalities for the use of farm saved seed.
This is absolute lunancy.
But it will happen … unless someone takes the bull by the horns and organizes an opposition.

Here's the solution, IMHO …
• Stand up for your interests.
•*Get organized.
•*Demand respect from your elected parliamentarians
•*Use your monetary investments as a bargaining chip.
•*Demand to become an owner or shareholder of the products that you pay to develop.
•*And if you can't negotiate a deal that satisfies the interests and needs of grassroots farmers, then withdraw your financial support, en masse
•*Use your checkoff dollars to start your own farmer-owned plant breeding program.
•*Hire your own group of plant breeders.
•*Develop your own seed products that can be used by shareholders on a royalty-free basis.
•*And perhaps most importantly, put aside your petty ideological differences and work for a solution that benefits all farmers, whether they vote Conservative, Liberal, NDP or otherwise.

[Guest]

Same old story…

Once upon a time, Saskatchewan farmers were sick of selling their grain to unscrupulous grain buyers and profiteers. So they formed their own elevator company. It was called Saskatchewan Wheat Pool (SWP). Eventually, the SWP became the biggest grain marketer in Western Canada. It even had its own export terminals on the West Coast and at Thunder Bay. And it gave farmers complete control of their own supply chain, from the field to the end market. The concept was called co-operative marketing. Farmers pooled their grain and sold it at competitive prices, based on volume, using their own elevator network. But alas. Over time, farmers fell asleep at the wheel and let a bunch of "executives" gain control of the Sask Wheat Pool. Under poor executive leadership, Sask Pool made a series of bad investments and managerial blunders, took on a mountain of debt and was eventually swallowed up by a private sector competitor for pennies on the dollar.
Moral of the story: Farmers had control of their own industry, but they gave it away through complacency.

Fast forward to today …
Like the SWP marketing story, the debate about seed royalties is a story about control.
Specifically, who has control of the seed industry? Who is trying to get it? And who's been asleep at the wheel?
To illustrate, consider this question:
What farmer in his right mind would invest in a plant breeding program (ie provide check-off levies and other forms of financial support) without demanding a share of the profits generated by new seed varieties?
Who in his right mind would agree to provide financial support for the development of an innovative product, without demanding a share of the profits that it generates? This is basic stuff. But somehow, it's happening right before our eyes.
To be clear:
a) farmers today are providing front-end financial support for seed research, development and the commercialization of new seed varieties;
b) they're demanding no return on their investment;
c) they're negotiating no ownership stake in the products that their investments help to develop;
d) they're paying up-front royalties for the right to use the products that they have already paid to develop, and;
e) and they're now facing the possibility of additional back-end or trailing royalities for the use of farm saved seed.
This is absolute lunancy.
But it will happen … unless someone takes the bull by the horns and organizes an opposition.

Here's the solution, IMHO …
• Stand up for your interests.
•*Get organized.
•*Demand respect from your elected parliamentarians
•*Use your monetary investments as a bargaining chip.
•*Demand to become an owner or shareholder of the products that you pay to develop.
•*And if you can't negotiate a deal that satisfies the interests and needs of grassroots farmers, then withdraw your financial support, en masse
•*Use your checkoff dollars to start your own farmer-owned plant breeding program.
•*Hire your own group of plant breeders.
•*Develop your own seed products that can be used by shareholders on a royalty-free basis.
•*And perhaps most importantly, put aside your petty ideological differences and work for a solution that benefits all farmers, whether they vote Conservative, Liberal, NDP or otherwise.

Ditto
Demand your check off $ back today
Quit letting them use our own money against us

[fjlip]

You can only get a refund IF applied for in August, once a year.