Agricultural research requires investment, but it takes many years to develop a higher yielding crop variety or one with improved disease resistance.
Recently announced funding and job cuts by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada are expected to impact the quantity and possibly the quality of new research in both the crop and livestock sectors.
Richard Gray is a professor and grains policy chair at the University of Saskatchewan and was a key note speaker Thursday at the Top Crop Summit in Saskatoon.
"I think the lack of a plan to how they were actually going to do some of the activities that were happening on those farms, that's a problem, and second, I don't think there was enough thought given to whether the sites that they were closing down were important for overall productivity of the researchers that remain." Gray said of the pending closures of research sites across Canada.
The Indian Head research site represented about 35 per cent of the crop area in the province and was located in the black soil zone in the east-central region, he noted, while the Scott site represented about 27 per cent of the crop area and located in the dark brown soil zone in the northwest.
Researchers outside those areas often utilized the sites to test varieties to see if they work in the field.
"In fact, the soils are different as well. The four sites that they've retained actually have considerably lower soil pH than what Indian Head represents, for example. Different soils will mean different responses, and certainly you also get different weather conditions over those soil zones as well. So it does matter where you locate these sites, and you need sites that are representative of where the producers are actually growing grain." he explained.
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