Agriculture Canada cuts fire up need for crop breeding pivot

Glacier FarmMedia – Prairie farmers are understandably dismayed by the recent cuts to Agriculture Canada’s research and personnel, but what is more concerning is that there doesn’t appear to be any plan to backfill the gaps left by the government’s apparent withdrawal from the kind of research that has helped build the industry into what it is today.

Agriculture Canada has long been the major generator of new varieties of cereals and other open-pollinated crops.

You can follow all our coverage of the cuts to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada here.

To put it into perspective, SeCan’s website lists 30 varieties of the various classes of wheat available through its 500 grower-members. Twenty-seven of those varieties bear either the AAC designation or the older AC designation, both for griculture Canada. The University of Saskatchewan’s Crop Development Centre runs a distant second with just two varieties.

The private sector has proven unwilling to step into that role without significant changes to recoup its investment in research through royalties or limits to farmers ability to save and replant seed.

Fair enough, but are there safeguards to ensure farmers’ interests are protected?

There are some funds for this work outside of the federal government.

In 2025, the Canadian Wheat Research Coalition, which comprises the major crops organizations, pledged $20 million over three years to fund this work.

Annually the Western Grains Research Foundation makes significant investments, funded by its $245 million endowment. Its 2025 annual report notes a total of slightly more than $10 million in total research funding, but much of that went to agronomy research, leaving $2.3 million to put toward variety development.

Variety development is important because it is a fundamental building block of a nation’s agricultural productivity.

As well, the incremental gains that come from it are like compounding interest. Skip making contributions for a few years, and the negative effect begins to snowball.

Agriculture Canada has a proven track record of outsized contributions to this. In 2025, it announced three incoming yield varieties that promise eight to 15 per cent boosts over the check variety, AAC Brandon.

So, what’s going to fill that void? How will the development of new varieties be funded and shaped in Canada if Agriculture Canda is backing away from that role?

It’s a complex question, and how this vital structure is designed is important to the success of Canadian agriculture.

There’s no shortage of other models.

Australia, for example, has the Grain Research and Development Corp. It’s jointly funded by Australia’s federal government and the country’s grain growers through a mandatory levy.

The levy rates vary from crop to crop but are slightly more than one per cent of the value of the crop, in most cases. The Australian federal government matches that with a contribution equal to 0.5 per cent of the crop’s value, based on a three-year rolling average.

This adds up fast. In 2024-25, the GRDC’s total revenue was A$423.1 million.

In return, the GRDC funded significant agronomic research and varietal development.

That’s not to suggest the Australian model is the right one for Canada. It’s been the subject of criticism over the years from various stakeholders and wouldn’t necessarily translate to Canada.

However, Canadian farmers can’t afford to become less competitive. The global grain market is cutthroat at the best of times, and during a time of low margins, productivity is key.

The government’s path is clear. The hard work is just beginning. The industry needs to coalesce around a new strategy — and do it quickly.

Farmers should be leading that charge not waiting for someone else to come up with the answers.