Ontario’s Innovative Farmers and the Soil Network join forces

Nov 27, 2025
By Farms.com

Ontario farm groups unite to strengthen soil health and innovation efforts

The Innovative Farmers Association of Ontario (IFAO) has played an important role in helping farmers adopt new practices and strengthen their commitment to soil health. Its journey began in Huron County, guided by agricultural leaders who believed farmers should take the lead in developing solutions.

Early innovators, including pioneers in no till farming, worked with limited tools but brought strong creativity, determination, and a passion for progress. Their efforts helped shape modern practices such as no till, strip tillage, and cover cropping, which today are widely accepted and easier to implement.

A defining feature of IFAO was its farmer-led model. Instead of waiting for research institutions to deliver solutions, farmers conducted their own trials first. Researchers then responded to these real on-farm questions. This unique approach encouraged practical learning, information sharing, and a culture of continuous improvement.

Over time, equipment knowledge also advanced, and dealers became strong supporters of conservation practices, helping farmers adopt new methods with confidence.

As agriculture continues to evolve, IFAO recognizes that innovation must also expand to include soil protection, water quality, and environmental stewardship. This shift has encouraged a natural partnership with the Ontario Soil Network (OSN). Both groups share similar values, members, and goals, making the decision to join forces a logical and forward-looking step.

The merger represents an important transition from one chapter to the next. By combining the strengths of both organizations, the new united effort will bring farmers a wider range of tools, ideas, and support systems. Leaders believe this change will increase effectiveness and help the agricultural community respond to emerging challenges with stronger farmer-led solutions.

The new partnership aims to continue the legacy of initiative and learning established by IFAO while embracing OSN’s focus on soil and clean water. Together, they plan to maintain a practical, science-based approach that reflects the needs of Ontario’s farmers.

This next chapter promises greater impact, stronger collaboration, and a unified effort to protect soil, support clean water, and promote long-term sustainability across Ontario’s agricultural landscape.

Watch the video below about Ontario’s Innovative Farmers and the Soil Network joining forces.

Photo Credit: OSN-LOGO

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.”