Canadian Grain Commission Launches of Soy Quality Program

Oct 25, 2024
By Jean-Paul McDonald
Assistant Editor, North American Content, Farms.com

Canadian Grain Commission partners with Soy Canada

In collaboration with Soy Canada, the Canadian Grain Commission has launched the Soy Quality Program, which provides essential quality assessments that the Canadian soy food sector relies on for global exports.

Previously managed by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Harrow Research and Development Centre, this program has long supported Canada’s reputation as a trusted supplier of premium food-grade soybeans worldwide. With its expertise in quality assessment and a strong international standing, the Canadian Grain Commission is well-positioned to carry forward the program’s legacy.

Dr. Ning Wang, Research Scientist and Program Manager for Pulse Research at the Canadian Grain Commission’s Grain Research Laboratory, said “My team and I are excited to bring the Grain Research Laboratory’s expertise to a program of such value to the soy food industry, and look forward to receiving the first samples.”

Under its new administration, the Soy Quality Program will continue offering rigorous quality testing for food-grade soybean varieties, as well as performance evaluations for soy-based foods like soymilk, miso, and tofu.

Alongside these assessments, the Grain Research Laboratory team will offer scientific guidance to strengthen ties with key stakeholders, including Canadian exporters, seed companies, and academic researchers.

Each year, the Canadian Grain Commission will analyze up to 2,300 soybean samples collected from trials in major producing regions: Ontario, Quebec, and Manitoba. The insights from these trials will ensure that the soybean varieties available to producers consistently meet the quality standards expected by global customers.

Furthermore, the program will include performance testing for approximately 100 samples of soymilk, miso, and tofu made from this year’s soybean harvest. These results will be instrumental for marketers and exporters in promoting Canadian food-grade soybeans on the global stage.

Dr. Wang will lead the program from the Canadian Grain Commission’s Grain Research Laboratory, with support from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and Soy Canada.

“We’re confident the Canadian Grain Commission will continue the proud Canadian tradition of measuring soy quality," said Brian Innes, Executive Director, Soy Canada. "We’re committed to continuing to provide our customers trusted information on how our varieties will perform in their soy food manufacturing facilities.”

Photo Credit: Pexels-Pixabay

Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”