CFA Summer Meeting 2026 Sets Priorities for Canada's Farm Future

Jul 17, 2026
By Farms.com

Farm leaders and government officials discussed shared solutions to boost productivity, support innovation, and build a more resilient agriculture sector.

The Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) wrapped up its 2026 Summer Meeting in Halifax, Nova Scotia, bringing together agricultural leaders, industry representatives, parliamentarians, and federal, provincial, and territorial agriculture ministers to discuss the future of Canada's farming sector.

The gathering focused on establishing shared priorities for the next Agricultural Policy Framework through the CFA Policy Summit and the annual Federal-Provincial-Territorial (FPT) Ministers Roundtable.

The 2026 CFA Policy Summit, centred on the theme Building Canada’s Agricultural Growth Engine: Policy Priorities for the Next Policy Framework, provided a platform for discussions on strengthening the competitiveness, sustainability, and resilience of Canada's agriculture and agri-food industries.

“The conversations held during this year’s Policy Summit and FPT Roundtable demonstrated the strong commitment across the sector and government to building a more productive, resilient, and sustainable future for Canadian agriculture,” said Keith Currie, CFA President.

“As governments begin shaping the next policy framework, farmers are ready to work collaboratively on solutions that strengthen competitiveness, support innovation, and create opportunities for growth across rural Canada.”

Sessions explored ways to increase productivity, encourage innovation, expand value-added agriculture, and support long-term economic growth.

Speakers and panelists highlighted the importance of targeted investments, modern regulatory systems, effective business risk management programs, and policies that encourage on-farm innovation. They also emphasized that future agricultural policies should deliver measurable benefits for producers while strengthening Canada's food security.

The discussions continued during the FPT Ministers Roundtable, where government officials and farm leaders examined shared priorities for the next policy framework.

CFA says conversations focused on addressing economic uncertainty, adapting to changing market conditions, improving productivity, and supporting environmental sustainability through collaborative policy development.

The Federal Governments reports the gathering identified four core priorities aimed at strengthening the competitiveness and long-term success of Canadian agriculture:

Boosting economic growth and competitiveness by expanding domestic capacity, increasing productivity, and improving farm and agribusiness profitability.
Expanding market opportunities and trade diversification by strengthening existing export relationships while pursuing new markets in an increasingly complex global trading environment.
Supporting science, research, and innovation through targeted investments and collaborative efforts that help accelerate the development and adoption of new technologies and practices.
Building a more resilient agriculture sector by enhancing the ability of producers, processors, and supply chain partners to anticipate, withstand, and adapt to economic, environmental, and market-related risks.

Hosted in partnership with the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture (NSFA), the event also celebrated the province’s agricultural diversity. Participants toured local farms to learn about innovative production practices before attending a farm-to-table dinner that showcased Nova Scotia’s farmers and locally produced food.

The Summer Meeting reinforced the value of a united national voice for Canadian producers. Moving forward, the CFA will continue working alongside its members and government partners to advance the priorities identified during the event and help ensure a strong, competitive, and sustainable future for Canadian agriculture.

Photo Credit: CFA

Last updated: July 4:10 PM

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.”