Reprinted with permission from Meristem Land and Science, www.meristem.com

What is the future of public variety development in Canada?

It's a question that in recent years has been a lightening rod for debate in Canadian agriculture.

Despite a strong track record of success and proven high investment value, public variety development has grappled with determining its role and finding stable funding support, as agriculture enters a new era with a range of social, political and economic pressures.

One person in a unique position to provide perspective on the answer is Dr. Gordon Dorrell, the now retired former Assistant Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's Research Branch. Dorrell delivered his views in a plenary presentation at the 2006 Prairie Registration Recommending Committee for Grain annual meeting in Banff, Alta. He recapped the history of public variety development and delivered advice on how best to ensure a strong system for the future.

"You've got a good system that works, but you need more resources," Dorrell told the roughly 300 PRRCG participants, representing a cross section of scientists, farmers and other industry representatives. "You need to replace some facilities, and you need to develop a common plan that can be shared with decision makers at an early stage."

There are a lot of challenges, he says. "At the end of the day though, you need to build on your strengths and consider proposing some serious changes to the way you do business. The status quo is not sustainable."

Adjusting to new playing field

Public variety development has long played a critical role in the success of Canadian agriculture, says Dorrell. However, as governments with limited resources face rising demands for funding from many sectors, agricultural research and development has come to be viewed by some politicians and officials as a luxury they can't afford.

With the farm income crisis of recent years and a host of other challenges such as BSE and avian flu, agriculture is typically considered a problem rather than an economic opportunity.

The result has been a slowdown in both federal and provincial funding of agricultural research and development, he says. The impact has been buffered to some extent by new provincial expenditures in Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, in support of market initiatives such as specialty crops, horticulture and dairy. But overall there has been a fundamental re-balancing of both the funding and delivery of agricultural research and development in Canada.

With the decline in direct federal delivery, the private sector has increased plant breeding in a number of crops. Also, producer associations and commodity groups have raised funds through check-offs to fund or leverage funding for their own specific objectives.

"Clearly, there are more players and there is more research being done," says Dorrell. "Therefore, I would say this re-balancing is a positive element in our history."

Political funding dilemma

Despite this, the fundamental problem of a lack of adequate funding for variety development remains a major issue in several key crop areas. Finding additional public funding to address this need is a difficult challenge.

"Politicians are faced with a serious dilemma," says Dorrell. "They know about the return on investment from variety development. They've heard it before and it makes sense to them. They're constrained however by the finite funds allocated to each so-called political sector. The reality in agriculture is that we are a political problem and opportunities tend to be associated with responding to farm income issues."

Complicating matters is the evolution of public policy. For a long time, there was an understanding that the federal government would conduct research across Canada to introduce, improve and protect crops. Provinces would conduct extension and focus on crops adapted to their region. Universities would educate agriculturalists and conduct academic research.

"It was a very simple policy, with everything neat and tidy," says Dorrell. "However, those lines of responsibility were blurred immediately, and we ended up with a variety of cooperation and competition. This lead to organizations trying to coordinate specific activities across provinces and funding jurisdictions. Typically, cooperation worked when it was in peoples' vested interest to cooperate."

Governments generally adhered to the principle that they would intervene only when there is market failure, he says. Once the private sector demonstrated an interest and capacity to provide competitive varieties in a specific crop area, public programs in those areas tended to be re-focused.

"As a result, public breeding moved away from hybrid crops to open-pollinated crops, and the private sector has filled in very well," observes Dorrell, citing canola and corn.

However, more recently, agricultural research and development policy has been affected by the expansion of crop protection companies into variety development using plant biotechnology. This has contributed new issues related to ownership and access to genetics and genetic processes, which have placed restrictions on variety development and lead to new concerns and new relationships between the public and private sectors.

The result is potential for a continued strong role for public variety development, particularly in areas where the public effort remains competitive and valuable, and in areas that warrant protection of the public interest.

Image problem key hurdle

Maintaining and strengthening this effort where it makes sense is a worthy objective, but the narrow prospects for attracting new funding remain. A key hurdle is the political and public perception of Canadian agriculture as a money drain.

"The farm crises that have occurred over the past few years - BSE, avian flu, droughts, floods, the list goes on, these have costs rising rising to the billions. When you couple this with the costs of the ongoing stabilization of farm income, the average taxpayer is probably surprised that the public funding for variety development is as high as it is."

The bottom line? "I'm not optimistic you're going to have great success asking the public sector to do more of the same with more money, regardless of the return on investment," says Dorrell. "There are just too many people looking for more money at the present time."

Time to act now

There is, however, a silver lining, he says. "Anytime governments change, they're looking for new initiatives. They're looking for new ideas to solve problems and make them look good. We're in one of those times."

Public variety development also has clear strengths to work with, he says. There is broad support of the need for enhanced variety development, and the public network has a good track record of delivering value.

Farmer organizations now have a history of collecting money and participating in strategic decisions on scientific direction. Different levels of government have considerable experience in cooperating with each other. Also, perhaps most important, variety development resources are viewed generally by Canadians and politicians as a political asset.

A vision for a new model

The public variety development sector should build on these strengths and consider proposing some major changes to how it operates, suggests Dorrell.

"You have a tremendous base. I suggest you consider your shared values and your willingness to cooperate. Develop a strategy to develop an integrated public variety development system that combines all your programs, and that moves forward into a common planning basis."

Reducing non-productive program overlap and the duplication of programs and facilities is a key step, he says. "This can be difficult, because we all have particular vested interests. But this is a serious public perception problem that needs to be addressed."

The sector could develop a scaleable plan that was non-threatening and could become a pilot project, he says. "For example, take a particular crop and see how it could be managed as a consortium. Everybody would have their own money, but you would behave as a unit. This would include long-term planning for the replacement of senior staff.

"If I was a producer, I think I might be happier how my money was being spent, if I saw there was a high level of co-ordination and co-operation."

The talent to pull it off

All varieties coming out of this approach could be managed by the consortium, he says. "For once, we would have a common approach to royalties, ownership and issues like that, which have a tendency to confuse producers and others."

Any consortium should be managed jointly by all key players, including senior managers, scientists and producers, he says. End users should also be brought into the decision making process at an early stage. A few institutions operate this way already, but formalizing and promoting that process would improve delivery and address public concerns about duplication. "This can't be seen as just a science undertaking."

When it comes time for attracting new funding, it's crucial to solicit funds as part of targeted initiatives with specific benefits, he says. "Don't simply ask for a 10 percent increase to do more good things - that doesn't work anymore. But people like to support specific things that make sense, improve output and are more efficient."

Being unified, specific, consistent and realistic is critical to success when dealing with politicians and other funding decision makers, he says. "Obviously, there are many challenges, but I think you've got all the talent to pull it off."

View other features in the full 2006 PRRCG Report: Building Canada's new strategy