CCFI takes over Ag More Than Ever

May 12, 2021

The Canadian Centre for Food Integrity hopes to act as an unbiased platform for information about agriculture and food

By Jackie Clark
Staff Writer
Farms.com

Two Canadian agricultural organizations have come to an agreement to transfer the Agriculture More Than Ever advocacy platform from Farm Credit Canada (FCC) to the Canadian Centre for Food Integrity (CCFI).

CCFI is excited to assume leadership of the forum, John Jamieson, president and CEO of CCFI, tells Farms.com.

“As we were looking at CCFI’s role in connecting the food system with the consumer, one of the things that we’ve talked about over the last year is for CCFI to play a stronger role in being a trusted third party that can provide neutral information to the consumer,” he explained.

“Agriculture More Than Ever has a very strong following. Across the social channels there’s 94,000 people that follow it and I think it’s a really good opportunity,” he added.

The Agriculture More Than Ever platform is a space where CCFI can provide unbiased communications about the scientific, economic and social realities of the food system. The organization can collaborate with industry partners to do so, Jamieson said.

“One of the things that we’ve been hearing very consistently over the last year is an interest in the industry to have a united voice to speak to the consumer on certain things,” he explained. If the agriculture “industry sees value in speaking with a united voice, I think an opportunity exists for CCFI and our industry partners to really take a strong ownership of communicating in one voice to the consumer and I think there’s a huge value in that”

CCFI also plans to continue to use the Agriculture More Than Ever forum to promote and engage with farmers and consumers around Canada’s Agriculture Day, he added.

“We really appreciate the fact that we came to this agreement with FCC,” Jamieson said. “FCC were also kind enough to provide us with a secondment of one of their employees that will help with the transition.”

CCFI leadership is currently working on hiring someone to manage and grow the platform, he explained. “We’d love, in the short term, to hit six figures in followers.”

The organization established a steering committee to generate a growth strategy.

“We’re at the point where we need to roll up our sleeves and decide how we can take it to the next level,” Jamieson said.

JamesBrey\E+ photo

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.”