As COVID-19 continues to affect the agricultural industry, research projects are also hit
Staff Writer
Farms.com
The Canadian Barley Research Coalition (CBRC) and the Canadian Wheat Research Coalition (CWRC) recently voiced their concern about the future of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) research projects.
AAFC has research stations in Western Canada that may move to a maintenance-only approach, said Jason Skotheim, the interim chair of the CBRC.
AFFC “have essentially indicated that a lot of the research that (its staff) was going to be doing this year is going to be dropped down to just essential research and maintenance only of long-term projects and long-term plots. (The department is) going almost into a land management type of process,” Skotheim told Farms.com.
Representatives for CBRC and CWRC are concerned that this decision will affect long-term trials, said Skotheim.
“We'd lose the year. Not only that, on some of these projects that are long-term rotation studies, we might lose far more than just the year. Now, you're introducing a variable that might not be accounted for within the research,” he said.
Both coalitions want AAFC to reconsider this potential decision, said Skotheim.
AFFC should “look at this on a regional basis or even just establish the guidelines and let the researchers find ways to actually work within those guidelines that doesn't expose them to additional risk, but allows them to get some of this research done,” he said.
Since situations vary significantly from province to province, coalition representatives believe a regional approach would be better than a blanket recommendation for all of Canada.
In a conference call on April 22, AAFC officials did not indicate a timeline for when this potential maintenance stage would occur. However, representatives from CBRC and CWRC urge AFFC to consider other options, said Skotheim.
Universities “have come up with plans that they're going to do the vast majority of the research that they had scheduled for this year. Obviously, some things will have to get shelved. But, the vast majority of what they're expecting to do, they're finding a way to get it done,” said Skotheim. The universities have “been sending that signal to us for quite a while and we're just wondering why AAFC can’t do something similar.”
Skotheim credits AAFC as well as the provincial governments for working with the coalitions and hearing their concerns. As the situation is fluid, coalition representatives know things will change. But they want to work with AAFC to continue research trials this year.
We wanted to get this on “everyone’s radar because we think it's incredibly important that this moves forward. … We're fighting to make sure that we have this data so we can release new crop varieties in the future,” said Skotheim.
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