CWRC Commits Nearly $20 Million to Ag Canada Wheat Breeding Programs

Jun 11, 2025

The Canadian Wheat Research Coalition (CWRC)) has committed nearly $20 million over the next three years to a core breeding agreement with Agriculture Canada for the development of field-ready wheat varieties.
The new agreement will ensure Prairie farmers can continue to access high-quality wheat varieties and associated genetics from Ag Canada’s breeding programs for years to come, said a statement Tuesday.

The CWRC is a collaboration between Manitoba Crop Alliance, the Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commission and Alberta Grains aimed at improving the net relative profitability of wheat for western Canadian farmers.

The CWRC’s $19.9-million investment through the new core breeding program is divided among the organization’s founding members by a funding shares agreement. The CWRC also maintains breeding agreements with the University of Saskatchewan Crop Development Centre, the University of Manitoba and the University of Alberta.
“This agreement is about making sure Canadian wheat farmers continue to have access to top-quality varieties that perform in the real world,” said Dean Hubbard, CWRC chair and a farmer near Claresholm, AB. “By supporting (Ag Canada’s) breeding work, we are helping tackle some of the biggest challenges on the farm, like disease, pests and tough weather, while keeping our focus on the quality standards our customers count on.”
CWRC funding via the 2025-28 core breeding agreement will support the development of field-ready Canada Western Red Spring, Canada Western Amber Durum, Canada Prairie Spring Red, Canada Western Soft White Spring and Canada Western Red Winter wheat varieties that reduce business risk and enhance competitiveness for western Canadian farmers.
Ag Canada will aim to develop wheat varieties with strong resistance to diseases such as Fusarium head blight, rusts and leaf spotting diseases, as well as insect pests such as orange wheat blossom midge and wheat stem sawfly. Ag Canada will also prioritize new varieties that can withstand adverse environmental conditions such as heat and drought stress. Strict quality standards will ensure all new varieties address market needs, the statement said.

Source : Syngenta.ca

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators