Why Should Consumers Care About Certified Seed?

May 15, 2023

For most consumers, food is just something they buy in the grocery store. They don’t always consider all the work that went into producing that food from the truck driver that drove it to the store, to the factory worker who oversaw the production line for it, to the farmer who grew the ingredients, to the seed grower who produced the seed for the farmer. At the end of the day there wouldn’t be food on grocery store shelves if it wasn’t for seed production.

On the May 17 episode of Seed Speaks, we’re taking a closer look at why consumers should care about certified seed and all the work that goes into producing it. We’re joined by Andrew Dawson, president of the Ontario Seed Growers Association; Sarah Wilbanks, CEO of the Association of Official Seed Certifying Agencies (AOSCA); and Todd Hyra, business manager for Western Canada with SeCan.

Dawson grew up in Peterborough County, Ont. on a mixed farm. Following graduation from the University of Guelph, he moved to eastern Ontario to farm. Dawson and his wife Julie purchased their current farm, RiverRun Farms, in 2004. They now producing over 750 acres of crops including corn, soybeans and wheat, while also growing strawberries and running a beef cattle operation. Dawson has been a pedigreed seed grower for 15 years.

Click here to see more...

Video: What’s at Stake in Every Slice | On The Brink: Episode 7

Six hundred Canadian farms grow grain for Warburton's under custom contract — and that partnership exists because of Canadian plant breeding. Now the man responsible for maintaining it is sounding the alarm.

Adam Dyck is the program manager for Warburton's Canada, a company that produces over two million loaves of bread a day for more than 20,000 retail locations across the UK. He's watched Canadian wheat deliver thirty years of yield gains and quality advancements that make it worth sourcing at scale — and shipping across the Atlantic. But he's also watching the investment conditions that produced those gains come under pressure. Dyck makes the case for a new funding mechanism that brings both public and private dollars into wheat breeding before Canada's competitive window starts to close.