Source: Western Grains Research Foundation - Research Magazine

Today's grain producers face "more crocodiles than Kakadu National Park," says Dr. Bill Scowcroft, native Australian and Director of the Canadian Grain Commission's Grain Research Laboratory. Canada's success through research will depend on farmers speaking loudly and firmly on direction, to anchor national progress.

Call it the good, the bad and the ugly.

If Canada gets smart about its approach to grains research and provides the right balance of strategy and support, it can maintain its standing as the world's leading quality supplier and ensure a front line position to capture new opportunities. If it doesn't step up, Canada will put its position in jeopardy, yielding precious ground to Australia and other key competitors who are already quickly catching up. If that continues longer term, competitors will topple Canada to a far lower position and grab all new opportunities for themselves.

Lost on the election radar

During Canada's recent federal election campaign, beyond token mentions of the BSE crisis, rural voters were hard pressed to find any mention of agricultural issues or policy. But perhaps equally troubling was the relative silence from agricultural producer groups, says Scowcroft.

"As someone in this business, I was looking very hard for statements about agriculture policy from the various parties and, at the same time, for statements from the producer community. What I didn't see was the producer community saying to the government: 'this is what we need.' In the little bit I did hear, they were saying, 'what are you going to give us.' In my opinion, that's the wrong attitude."

A much better approach would be producers having a clear, self-driven strategy for what they want to achieve and how they want government to fit in with that strategy, he says. "I would like to have seen agricultural producers from the various commodity sectors saying: 'This is what we need. If you want our vote, this is what you've got to do.'"

For Scowcroft, more aggressive, producer-driven approaches are critical for Canada's grain industry to keep pace with that of Australia, which has used that type of approach to make impressive gains in research and broader industry progress.

Australia leaping forward

Both countries have similar histories as innovators and beneficiaries of research and development, he says. "Australia and Canada have for decades pioneered many developments in the use of science and technology in agriculture, and both countries' industries are very strongly science-based. In fact, there's a remarkable parallel tracing back to nearly 100 years ago between the work done in Canada to develop the variety Marquis wheat, and the work done in Australia to develop the variety Federation."

But Australia's progress over the past 10 to 15 years has it threatening to move far ahead, he says. In 1990, Australia founded the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC), a heavily grower-driven statutory corporation that has become one of the world's leading grains research funding organizations. The GRDC's mission is to invest in research and development for the greatest benefit to its stakeholders - grain growers and the government - with a mandate spanning 25 crops.

Funding is provided through a levy on grain growers, determined each year by the grains industry's top body, the Grains Council of Australia. Government matches this funding up to an agreed ceiling. Overall, the GRDC now has an annual budget of over $120 million - $70 million from a one percent levy on farmers' production and $50 million from government partial matching, based on a crop value averaging $7 billion annually. The vast majority of those funds are directed toward research. By comparison, a rough estimate of Western Canada's grower funding of research for the same crops is less than $20 million annually, based on an average annual crop value of about $10.5 billion.

"It was the producers who really got behind the Grains Research and Development Corporation when it was instituted," says Scowcroft. "And they're the ones continually pushing it forward."

In the GRDC structure, Australia is divided up into the three regions: northern, southern and western, each represented by strong and influential panels of producers, who make decisions on where to invest research dollars, he says. "The research people, the technology people, and other experts are brought in as resources, but producers control the process. And that's for good reason - it's the producers' money that's being dished out."

Aggressive, business-driven

Using a similar approach, Australia recently unveiled a document titled "Toward a Single Vision for the Australian Grain Industry, 2005-2025," which was developed by the Grains Council of Australia and the GRDC.

Now, the industry is rapidly moving toward it calls a "whole value-chain system." This would be a integrated approach to strategy and development that would include a chain beginning with input agents and suppliers of technology - including researchers - on through to producers, handlers and marketers, further on to the retailers and consumers. "The focus is to add value at the end of the chain, rather than to focus solely on enhancing the supply," says Scowcroft. Scowcroft attributes much of Australia's progress to the aggressive pro-research, business-driven approach of Australian producers. "Australian agricultural production is very much a product of innovative science and technology. It has had to be because the country is a much tougher environment to be successful in agriculture than it is in Canada. Australian soil is not as good and its rainfall is not as reliable - it's basically a desert climate. So with all the success they've achieved, Australian producers have really profited from the benefits of research and development, and the producers recognize this. You see this attitude in all Australian agricultural sectors."

Breeding battleground. Experimental grain lines in breeding programs, such as these barley lines pointed out by Dr. Mario Therrien at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Brandon, will play a key role in Canada's future competitiveness.

Canada's challenge

Despite the challenge Australia presents today, Canada has more than held its own over time and is arguably still the top supplier of high quality grain, says Scowcroft. "Canada has been a superb quality supplier - no question about that. Knowing both systems intimately, I argue that Canada has been the best supplier of high-quality grains consistently over time compared to anybody else.

"This has been the case way back from when the Canadian breeder, Charles Saunders, first incorporated the hardness characteristic of Red Fife wheat into an early maturing wheat variety from India. This allowed Canada to take advantage of the new demand created for hard wheats that could now be milled by European mills using the new steel roller mills to handle small grains. It has carried on through to the implementation of the Canadian Grain Commission, which provided the country with a third party, autonomous, impartial assessor of quality, and we've managed to maintain that leadership position today."

But how long can Canada hold on, given the massive, co-ordinated strategic and research effort Australia has undertaken?

Scowcroft says there have been positive steps, such as the farmer-funded grains research effort through Western Grains Research Foundation (WGRF). A board of producers representing 18 diverse agricultural organizations from across the Prairies directs WGRF. It administers two check-offs that are collected from Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) final payments to producers - one for wheat, collected at $0.20 per tonne, and one for barley, collected at $0.40 per tonne. Funds based on those check-offs allocate $4 to $5 million annually to breeding programs developing new wheat and barley varieties.

"WGRF is a good example of producers taking charge and being progressive in the research area," says Scowcroft. "We need more of that in our grains industry."

Scowcroft would like to see commodity check-offs like those administered by WGRF and other Canadian organizations increasingly brought together to improve strategic cohesion for the agricultural industry as a whole, similar to the Australian model. Also similar to Australia, he'd like to see government take a stronger role in leveraging producers' investment and providing further incentives for a more coordinated, producer-driven agricultural research effort. "These steps would take some time, take some effort, and take some strong persuasion, but I think they would help a great deal."

Producers anchor success Whatever the system, having producers in the drivers' seat is critical, says Scowcroft. "Success comes from an industry putting together a strategy for the future, and working towards that strategy with long-term continuity. If your strategy is driven by the government of the day, you may not have the continuity you need for long-term success. "That's why the producers have to really be, part and parcel, the drivers of their future. The fundamental route for success lies in the continuity of those who are actually the producers of the products you're selling. If that producer side of your industry is strong, committed and unified, my feeling is government will go along with you." The process won't be easy, he says. "I was a part of it during the '80s and '90s when Australia tried to develop a national vision for agricultural research, and there's no doubt it struggled to accomplish that. You often have conflicting issues between organizations and regions, and it takes a lot of time and hard work to pull it off, but the end result is well worth it." Grass roots vision critical One area where Canada has pursued its own national vision is through Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's Agricultural Policy Framework (APF). Scowcroft sees this as the right idea coming from the wrong end of the spectrum. "My hope is that APF is the beginning of the type of national vision we need. But what APF is lacking at this stage is full participation and commitment from producers - it's government driven, not producer driven. I think we have to do whatever we can in Canada to try and turn that around, where we get the producer driving the agenda and the government coming in to support that agenda."

A strong future for Canadian grains. Kane, Man., producer and WGRF Wheat Advisory Committee Chair Bill Toews inspects wheat lines at the University of Saskatchewan. Farmer funded and directed organizations such as WGRF are a good example of what Canada needs - producers taking charge and being progressive in the research area, says Scowcroft.

With a showdown in grains research set to re-define the competitive balance in global grains markets and other key agricultural sectors, he says, that turnaround can't come quickly enough.

See more of Scowcroft's views in a related article: Wading softly into GMO waters