Funding Future Crop Varieties for Alberta Farmers

How do plant breeders access the funds needed to bring new crop varieties to your fields?

There’s a lot of effort that goes into making a new crop variety, from the research scientists who toil away for years perfecting the traits to the teams who do field trials to the seed growers who multiply the seed and companies that market the new varieties to farmers. All of these components are important but can’t happen if there isn’t money available.

In Canada, plant breeding funding comes from a mishmash of sources. Public breeders at government research stations and academic institutions receive funds from crop checkoff dollars and government funding. Private companies reinvest profits from sales and investor dollars into new varieties. While the formula for funding may seem simple, there’s a lot more that goes into dollar allocation than meets the eye.

“We are heavily investing in breeding programs because we think that breeding is the future and the solution for so many problems. Through breeding we can modify the varieties; we can make them disease resistant; we can improve the agronomic performance,” Nasima Junejo, research manager for Alberta Wheat and Barley commissions, says in a phone interview.