Agriculture sector receives funding focusing on emergency preparedness

May 05, 2022

The agriculture sector has faced a number of challenges over the last few years from a global pandemic to floods, droughts and wildfires.

Federal Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau has announced an investment of over $3 million for two projects to enhance emergency management, develop risk assessments and strategies to mitigate disease outbreaks.

Animal Health Canada will receive over $2.5 million dollars in funding through the AgriAssurance Program for a three year project to enhance Animal Health Emergency Management in provincial and national associations.

The project will help enhance the emergency management capabilities of Canada's livestock and poultry industries, to remain ready in the face of adverse events and a continually evolving disease landscape.

Melanie Barnham, Executive Director Animal Health Canada says now more than ever, we need to ensure we are doing everything we can to support animal health and welfare.

"As we enter into the last year of this project, we're excited to continue working with producer groups in Canada to deliver capacity building resources and training to prepare for and minimize the impact of emergencies. "

The other project sharing in the funding is Swine Innovation Porc which will receive over $446 thousand dollars under the Canadian Agricultural Strategic Priorities Program.

The funding will be used to develop strategies to mitigate the impact of an African swine fever outbreak on the pork sector, and help the industry prepare and manage surplus animals during a potential disease outbreak.

René Roy, Vice-Chair Swine Innovation Porc says past experience has demonstrated the importance of emergency preparedness to respond and recover from disruptive events.

"The Swine Innovation Porc welcomes the support of the Government of Canada in supporting new initiatives to develop innovative methods to face food supply threats such as African Swine Fever outbreak."

Minister Bibeau says Emergency Preparedness Week is an opportunity to review our emergency preparedness plans in the agricultural sector.

"The weather events of the past year and the avian flu we are currently experiencing are some examples of the many kinds of challenges agricultural producers must be ready to face. Our government continues to improve its practices, invest in prevention and support those who ensure our food security."

Bibeau notes producers also have access to the Business Risk Management programs to help them manage risks on their farms.

Last month, the Federal, Provincial and Territorial Agriculture Ministers agreed to extend the enrollment deadline for AgriStability to June 30, 2022.

AgriStability is designed to help protect producers against large declines in farming income for reasons such as production loss, disease outbreak, increased costs and changing market conditions.

Click here to see more...

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.”