Canada Farm Organizations Push for Data and Investment

Jul 18, 2024

CFA Joins Ag Data Transparent to Boost Canadian Agriculture

Prior to the recent CFA FTP Roundtable, the CFA Board solidified its dedication to data transparency by officially becoming an industry member of Ag Data Transparent.

During the recent meeting, CFA underscored the significance of data and innovation in enhancing productivity within Canadian agriculture. Emphasizing better economic results, responsive risk management, improved sustainability metrics, and superior protection for animals and crops from diseases.

“Data is critical as farmers continue to explore opportunities to increase efficiencies and measure their sustainability. Creating the conditions to optimize access to and use of on-farm data is needed to harness the sector’s astounding potential as a driver of environmental solutions, economic development opportunities, and a significant contributor to food security in Canada and abroad."

"At CFA we truly believe that Canadian agriculture is uniquely positioned to feed Canadians and the world while delivering climate solutions. Investing in data and data-driven solutions is the critical lynch-pin to achieving that goal,” said Keith Currie, CFA President.

The CFA presented several key recommendations to Ministers for maximizing data's potential in agriculture:

Develop a Pan-Canadian Data Strategy to bolster public and private investments in research, programming, digital skills, and outcome-based metrics and reporting.
Increase investment in rural connectivity to provide adequate in-field network access, supporting emerging agtech opportunities for farmers.
Create programs that facilitate the adoption of connectivity solutions and ensure legislative support for farm equipment interoperability.
Enhance capacity building for farm organizations that can safeguard farmers' data and invest in standards and new agricultural extension services to aid agtech adoption.

The board also addressed the disparity between available investment and the needs of Canadian farmers, given their contributions to the national economy and global food security, and their role as environmental solution providers.

To maintain competitiveness, drive innovation, and attract investment, the board urged for substantial government investment in Canadian agriculture.

Additionally, the CFA discussed its international role through leadership in the World Farmers’ Organization (WFO), engagement with the World Trade Organization (WTO), and participation in United Nations climate negotiations.

Emphasis was placed on maintaining a resilient domestic agricultural sector while also focusing on dynamic export opportunities. The board agreed on the necessity of collaboration and presenting a united front on key trade issues, including the forthcoming CUSMA review.

Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”