Petri dish of grain under a microscope.

WGRF asking farmers big funding questions

Where do farmers want to go with funding research and how do they want to get there?

The Western Grains Research Foundation (WGRF), the farmer-run conduit for most of western grain farmers’ investment in agricultural research, wants farmers’ input on future funding and the foundation’s role. “Breeding is a long-term process,” WGRF executive director Garth Patterson told Winter Cereals Manitoba’s annual meeting March 12. “You have to look 10 or 15 years

AAFC’s Stephen Morgan Jones says private investment is necessary to fill the wheat variety research gap in Canada.  photo: allan dawson

AAFC official says private companies needed to fill wheat research gap

There’s a multimillion-dollar wheat research funding gap in Canada that the private sector needs to fill, says Stephen Morgan Jones, director general of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s (AAFC) Prairie/Boreal Ecozone. It will require stronger plant breeders’ rights rules and partnerships with publicly funded researchers, he told the Grain Industry Symposium Nov. 20 organized by the


Farmers, Ottawa put $25.2 million over five years into national wheat research program

Canadian wheat research is getting a boost thanks to $25.2 million in farmer and federal government investment over the next five years. “The primary output will be new varieties, however, there will be other projects that look at breeding tools to support varieties,” said Garth Patterson, executive director of the farmer-funded Western Grains Research Foundation

Agriculture Canada’s Cereal Research Centre in Winnipeg is being mothballed and its research staff transferred to other locations.  photo: shannon vanraes

Where is AAFC’s wheat-breeding program headed?

After closing Winnipeg’s Cereal Research Centre, the federal government has
invested $85 million in a new wheat research program in Saskatoon

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) has led Canadian wheat breeding for more than 100 years, but recent actions by the federal government have some wondering about its future role. A year ago, Ottawa announced it will close AAFC’s venerable Cereal Research Centre on the University of Manitoba’s Winnipeg campus because it would cost too much


This photo taken at the Saskatoon CanoLab shows resistant kochia in the front tray and susceptible in the rear.

WGRF funding hunt for glyphosate-resistant kochia in southern Manitoba

A search for glyphosate-resistant kochia in Manitoba will be done this fall thanks to $17,000 in funding from the Western Grains Research Foundation (WGRF). WGRF executive director Garth Patterson confirmed the funding in an interview May 6. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Hugh Beckie, a world leader in herbicide-resistant weed surveys, will work with officials from

A million acres of glyphosate-resistant weeds in Canada?

A million acres of glyphosate-resistant weeds in Canada?

More than one million acres of Canadian farmland have glyphosate-resistant weeds growing on them, including 43,000 in Manitoba, according to an online survey of 2,028 farmers conducted by Stratus Agri-Marketing Inc. based in Guelph, Ont. The shockingly high Canadian numbers met with skepticism from some experts who suggest farmers might be mistaking hard-to-kill weeds with


Tax credit for research checkoffs

The federal government annually provides a Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) tax credit to producers offering them a tax credit on their checkoff investments. The tax credit percentage for producers who contributed to the Wheat and Barley Checkoff, administered by the Western Grains Research Foundation in 2012 is 85 per cent for wheat and

A new wheat and barley association another step closer

Manitoba farmers are a step closer to establishing a new spring wheat and barley association to collect voluntary checkoffs for wheat and barley research and marketing. An interim seven-member board of directors met Feb. 15 in Winnipeg and Dauphin-area farmer Don Dewar, a former president of the Keystone Agricultural Producers (KAP), was selected as chair.


Farmers don’t want their research dollars to boost fortunes of big corporations

Head of Western Grains Research Foundation is studying the idea of a farmer-owned 
breeding company, but says any decision is a long way off

Grain producers want their research dollars to benefit them, and not big corporations in the post-single-desk world. “At what point are we going to stop funding research and selling it off and paying for it again and again,” Rob Brunel asked at the recent Keystone Agricultural Producers annual general meeting. He said he doesn’t want

Railway revenues rekindle costing review calls

Canada’s two major railways once again tipped over the statutory cap revenues for shipping grain during the 2011-12 crop year — costing farmers an extra two cents per tonne. “It underscores again the need for a costing review to parallel the (rail) service review,” Bladworth Sask., farmer and agricultural economist Ian McCreary said in an