Agriculture Ministers Ready For The Challenges Of 2021

Jan 06, 2021

Saskatchewan's Agriculture Minister David Marit says after 2020 everyone is ready for a new year.

He says there's a lot of issues for the Province to continue working on in 2021 for the Agriculture sector.

Marit says there's always the obvious issues like the B-R-M's, Carbon tax etc, but they'll also continue their focus on research, launching the new irrigation projects and working on attracting new value added processing.

"It's important for us to find ways to attract that investment into the Province of Saskatchewan, which leads to jobs. Leads to a lot of jobs, a lot of skilled labour jobs. I think it's important for us, I think there's great opportunity in the Ag tech sector. I think we are just seeing this grow leaps and bounds."

He says he's also excited about the three new international trade offices opening and what that could mean for the Province and the agriculture sector.

Meantime, Agriculture Minister Devin Dreeshen says attracting more investment in value added opportunities is also on the agenda in Alberta.

"That's everything from fertilizer plants to more cattle processing plants, to canola crush plants, even to hemp processing plants. We're really trying to attract that Global capital that's out there and trying to have them set up shop here in Alberta. It's great for job opportunities, as well as economic opportunities for farmers and ranchers."

He notes obviously B-R-M programming reforms and finding a replacement program for AgriStability is going to be big.

Federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau says she has a number of issues on her plate in 2021.

She highlighted a few of those during her year-end interview.

"I hope I'll be able to finalize the improvement to AgriStability," she said. "African swine fever remains a very important file. We want to work closely with the industry and with the provinces to avoid having this disease in our territory, but if it ever comes, we will be ready. The climate plan will definitely be a big part of my work in the coming months and year."

Bibeau notes it remains challenging to do business with China.

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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.”