Agriculture This Week: Transforming ag: The search for new crops

Agriculture, like most business sectors, spends a fair amount of resources, both cash and time, seeking what might be the next big thing.

It’s not an easy find in terms of crops for Canadian Prairie Producers.

There are a number of core obstacles to overcome, starting with of course the growing conditions here.

Producers might well wish to add field corn or soybeans to their rotations, but conditions here are not optimum for growing either crop.

So what has to take place is considerable effort in terms of plant breeding trying to create varieties that will produce under conditions here to a level where they are not just profitable in terms of the input of the crop itself, but competitive with long term crops already grown.