So you think you know Canadian soy?

Apr 13, 2023

New voluntary program will ensure Canadian soybean growers, grain handlers and exporters meet the needs of premium markets.

By Andrew Joseph, Farms.com; Image by CJ from Pixabay

In case you missed it, Soy Canada is offering a new voluntary program it believes will benefit the soy and grain markets of this country and globally.

The Sustainable Canadian Soy program has been designed for Canadian soybean growers, grain handlers, and exporters to better meet the needs of global soybean customers—which will ensure continued access to premium markets and help drive new market opportunities for Canadian soy.

“Customers have been asking for a verifiably sustainable program,” stated Brian Innes, the Executive Director of Soy Canada. “Sustainable Canadian Soy is a market-driven solution that will enable our industry to compete for market share and enhance the sustainability of Canadian farms and the entire soybean value chain.”

Soy Canada said that its program utilizes the Farm Sustainability Assessment (FSA), a globally-recognized whole farm sustainability benchmarking and assessment program that focuses on meeting customer needs and values.

Innes said that the FSA aligns with Sustainable Canadian Soy priorities, including land-use efficiency, climate-smart farming, soil health, water stewardship, biodiversity, and habitat.

As noted, grower participation in the program is voluntary. Participants will have to complete an on-farm sustainability questionnaire about economic viability, social responsibility, and environmental stewardship.

“At this time, interest in the program is coming from users of food grade and Identity Preserved soybeans,” said Innes.

The new Sustainable Canadian Soy program was developed by Soy Canada with extensive farmer and industry consultation and is funded in part through the Canadian Agricultural Partnership’s AgriAssurance Program. The Sustainable Canadian Soy program will be available for the 2023 growing season.

“When it comes to market growth and innovative gains in quality and production, soybeans are a Canadian success story,” added the Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, the federal Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food. “This investment will enhance Canada’s reputation as the best source of sustainably produced soybeans in the world and create new market access opportunities.”

The program will be managed by participating grain exporters and handlers serving customers asking for sustainability verification.

Innes noted that the Sustainable Canadian Soy program has already been welcomed by international customers in discussions with the exporters and handlers during a recent Indo-Pacific mission.

“Canadian soybean growers are already following sustainable practices, and many participate in value-added programs that meet the needs of customers and offer premiums,” Innes commented. “Sustainable Canadian Soy is one more way we can provide value to our customers, keeping access to markets that add value to Canadian soybeans.”

Formed in 2014, Soy Canada is a national value-chain organization for the soybean sector, including seed companies, and Canada’s 30,000 growers, exporters, and processors. www.soycanada.ca.

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.”