The future of Canada’s seed industry regulations are on the table. Farmers still have a chance to weigh in.

Calling grain farmers: Feedback needed on seed modernization next steps

Online survey next step in debate over who should control what under seed regulations, and how that will affect farmers

[UPDATED: Apr. 23, 2024] As farmers enter one of their busiest times, they’re being asked to help shape Canada’s future seed regulations via online survey. The survey (found at the Government of Canada website) closes May 1 and is part of the seed regulatory modernization (SRM) process launched in September 2020 by the Canadian Food

The entrance to BrettYoung’s NorthCore facility.

BrettYoung flags efficiencies with new seed plant

Company says turf-focused addition will open space at legacy facilities for ag-related products

The new jewel of BrettYoung’s Winnipeg operations will focus on the turf side of the seed company’s business, but executives say improved efficiencies will carry into the rest of the firm. The new NorthCore seed processing plant is a $20-million investment for BrettYoung, whose business includes forage and turf seed, crop inputs and professional turf


‘There are reams of data in the report, particularly in three key focus areas: seeds, meatpacking, and food retail. We — the “us” outside of the USDA — need to draw our own conclusions.’

Comment: Agribusiness competition and the danger of the middle road

Hemming and hawing avoids tougher action and ‘us’

After plowing through a 57-page U.S. Department of Agriculture report titled “Concentration and Competition in U.S. Agribusiness,” I asked an agronomist friend who had also read the report why it seemed that its writers used so much “hem-and-haw” language in analyzing, for example, the rise of today’s powerful seed companies. “I’m less interested in the

Critics of the existing regulatory framework say cereals productivity has lagged, while others say the numbers don’t support this assertion.

Analysis: Seed Summit long on rhetoric, short on specifics

Seed firms may not like the rules, but they don’t seem to have much sense of what they’d like to see replace them

Three meetings, over three weeks, and a total of nine hours later, Brett Halstead says he still doesn’t know what regulatory changes the seed industry wants. “I still haven’t really heard what the problems are,” the Saskatchewan farmer and chair of the Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commission said during the final online Seed Summit meeting Feb.

Seed regulation discussion has a long history

This conflict has been raging for years with few answers

Questions about what seed companies want aren’t new. Multinational firms have pushed for less regulation for years. The issue came up at the Prairie Recommending Committee for Wheat, Rye and Triticale’s (PRCWRT) meeting back in February 2013, in Saskatoon. “What is the one thing you think we should stop doing?” Stephen Fox, who at the


"...the likelihood of an industry-wide agreement on either of the proposed models is low..." – Western Canadian Wheat, Barley and Oat Commissions.

Comment: Farmer push-back on cereal seed royalty proposals

Most people don’t like change or paying more but a lack of trust could be a factor too

Western Canada’s wheat, barley and oat grower commissions say it’s unlikely farmers will accept either one of the two options to get farmers to pay more royalties for cereal seed. Some push-back was to be expected, but the seed industry no doubt was, and likely still is, hoping its arguments, including that farmers will gain

KAP passes resolutions on seed royalties

Delegates are apprehensive about changing the system and want to preserve publicly funded plant breeding

The Keystone Agricultural Producers (KAP) doesn’t have a policy on proposed new royalties for cereal seed, but delegates passed two resolutions at their advisory council meeting Nov. 12 offering some direction. The first says KAP should lobby to have federal government oversight and a periodic review if one of the proposed new royalty schemes is

A soybean field in Abbott County, South Carolina. U.S. soybean producers 
are about to have an unprecedented host of options to choose from.

Battle of the beans

Monsanto faces a tough fight for the soybean market

Monsanto is facing major threats to its historic dominance of seed and herbicide technology for the US$40-billion U.S. soybean market. Rivals BASF and DowDuPont are preparing to push their own varieties of genetically modified soybeans. At stake is control over seed supply for the next generation of farmers producing the most valuable U.S. agricultural export.


Comment: Closing the barn door after the fact

Sudden concern about mergers on the part of politicians is too little, too late

One of the oldest truisms agriculture offers is the simple, rock-solid advice that the time to close the barn door is before the cows get out. Closing the door afterwards, as everyone knows, is pointless because the cows are already long gone. Everyone, except of course, the U.S. Congress which, on Sept. 20, hosted a

Monsanto is dead. Now what?

The lightning rod for resentment won’t be there to kick around anymore

It seems Monsanto is finally out of its misery. Arguably the most detested company in the world, it will likely cease to exist with Bayer’s acquisition. Monsanto’s own attempt to acquire Swiss-based Syngenta not only failed, but also was received with extreme prejudice. But now with Bayer’s acquisition of the St. Louis-based company, Monsanto, or