Sowing seeds of excellence in Lacombe

Mar 20, 2024

Alberta is a global leader in agriculture research, which results in tangible benefits for farmers, like higher profits and a more abundant food supply at an affordable cost for consumers.

To help further the development and continued innovation of agriculture research, the Field Crop Development Centre (FCDC) has been relaunched as Western Crops Innovations, a non-profit corporation with an interim board. A new structure will revitalize this organization, promote a renewed vision, and better position Alberta to meet the agriculture industry’s needs.

“It’s an exciting time for crop research in Alberta. Western Crop Innovations will carry on the Field Crop Development Centre’s substantial legacy, ensuring its work is addressing the issues farmers are facing in the fields.”

RJ Sigurdson, Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation
Officially starting up April 1, WCI will carry on the FCDC’s important research, including its well-known barley breeding program. Its current programming will undergo a review, and where necessary, will be transitioned to ensure crop innovations support Alberta’s farmers’ needs now and into the future.

The interim board, made up of representatives from government and industry, will lead WCI and the transition process. The new model will include integrated funding that connects government, industry, and post-secondary institutions.

“Considering my farm’s proximity and history with FCDC, I’m happy to help guide Western Crop Innovations to conduct research and development leading to commercialization of superior crop varieties that will benefit Alberta and western Canadian agriculture sectors.”

Jason Lenz, chair, Western Crop Innovations

Click here to see more...

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators