Thanks to public breeding, Western Canadian wheat yield gains due to improved seed varieties increased 0.7 per cent per year between 1991 and 2012.

Editorial: Getting it right

It’s early in the winter farm meeting season but already seed royalties are promising to be one of the year’s evergreen topics. That’s hardly surprising, after all, seed is a fundamental building block for any grain farm. It’s also something that’s seen a lot of changes over the past few decades. Most of the crops

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


Minto farmer David Rourke told KAP’s advisory council meeting Nov. 12 he’s reluctant to support one of the two royalty options being proposed when there could be a third option. Rourke said the publicly funding cereal variety development system has served farmers well and said he’s skeptical about how much more value the private sector can deliver.

KAP has no position on proposed seed royalty options yet

Delegates raise concerns about higher seed costs ahead of the first consultation meeting in Winnipeg Friday

The Keystone Agricultural Producers (KAP) is still working out its position on a proposal for seed companies to collect more royalties from farmers on cereal seed, which proponents say will aid farmers by encouraging more variety development. Meanwhile, the first of the federal government’s four consultation meetings on the proposal is being held at the

Deadline Nov. 2 to register for seed royalty meetings

The proposal is for farmers pay more for seed, but the proponents say the payoff is better varieties

The deadline register to attend meetings to discuss ways for farmers to pay more for cereal and pulse seed so plant breeders have more money to develop superior varieties is Friday Nov. 2. The consultations being led by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) focuses on two options —