Western Canadian farmers invest in variety development research

Feb 10, 2016

WGRF will work together with the Ministry of Agriculture

By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com

A multimillion dollar investment by the Western Grains Research Foundation (WGRF) will help fund Canadian wheat and barley development.

WGRF will invest more than $21 million over the next five years to support the Ministry of Agriculture’s western wheat and barley breeding programs until 2020 in Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Approximately $20 million will be used for wheat breeding research and $1.4 million to fund wheat breeding initiatives.

The investment is a result of farmer check-offs on wheat and barley and represents the largest industry investment into government agricultural research.

In a statement, Minister of Agriculture Lawrence MacAulay said it can take up to 13 years for a new variety to become available and WGRF’s investment will provide research facilities with the funding to continue working on new varieties.

The research will also investigate:

Potentially devastating wheat and barley diseases including Fusarium Head Blight
Enhancing insect resistance
Environmental stresses including drought and flooding
Developing genetic markers for plant breeding selection

Research from the University of Saskatchewan says farmers could expect a good return on investment. It states that for every check-off dollar invested into wheat and barley has returned $20.40 and $7.56 respectively.

“Check-off investments of over $90 million since 1994 have resulted in the development of 120 wheat and barley varieties,” Dr. Keith Degenhardt, Vice-Chair, WGRF said in a release. “Our new investment of $21.4 million provides stability to AAFC wheat and barley research until 2020 and ensures that AAFC (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada) will continue to develop new varieties for many years to come."

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