The biggest stage for the best in Ag

Jun 20, 2022

Exhibitors for Canada's Farm Show in Regina are busy putting the finishing touches on their displays, making sure all the equipment is washed, shined and ready to go for opening day tomorrow.

Show hours are 9 am to 5 pm on Tuesday and Wednesday, and 9 am to 4 pm on Thursday.

"The biggest stage for the best in Ag" is the theme for Canada's Farm Show as it encourages farmers to get out of the dirt and come to town to see the latest in dryland farm equipment and technology.

This year Canada's Farm Show celebrates 44 years.

One of the highlights for the show is that for the first time in the show's history all of the 500 exhibits in the trade show are now inside.

With all the exhibits now located indoors there's lots of free parking on site for visitors.

Visitors to the show can purchase a three day pass online for $15, otherwise daily admission for adults at the gate is $20. Daily admission for children 12 to 17 is $15 or you can buy a three day pass for $10. Children 11 and under visiting the show are free.

An always popular stop at Farm Show is the new innovations area, this year that can be found in Hall A in the Viterra International Trade Centre.

New for the show this year is the Launch Pad featuring the latest in new and emerging technology and innovations, as well as engaging topics on education, innovation, and collaboration.

The show features a wide variety of presentations from Enhancing the exploration of the Canola Chain to investing in Ag Tech, Transportation in Agriculture, and the latest news from Fertilizer Canada.

Visitors to Canada's Farm Show can also check out the Agri-Value Pavilion focusing on the opportunities for lentils, peas, canola, flax, oats and wheat. The province's agri-value industry continues to grow, last year, more than $1 billion in canola crush investment was announced for Saskatchewan.

For ladies the "Empowering Women in Ag Conference" is set for Wednesday, June 22nd, ticket holders will have a chance to hear guest speaker Darci Lang who will be sharing insights from her latest book "Embracing the 90%".

Another highlight for Wednesday is the PBR (Professional Bull Riders) Regina Classic Event which goes inside the Brandt Centre at 7 pm.

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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.”