Government of Canada invests in food research to support disease prevention

Oct 07, 2022

Ottawa, Ontario – Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

The Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, the Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, announced an investment of up to $106,000 to the Prairie Oat Growers Association for new research trials to better understand the role oats play in disease prevention. Findings from this project will help create new market opportunities for Canadian oat producers.

With funding under the AgriScience Program, the St. Boniface Hospital Research Centre in Winnipeg, Manitoba is working with the association to conduct animal feeding trials with oats. The goal is to determine exactly how oat protein is digested and what effect it has on reducing cholesterol and blood glucose levels. The data, which is expected to be published and peer-reviewed by early 2023, is part of a verification process needed to make a health claim that oat protein can positively affect cholesterol and blood glucose.

Oats are already recognized as a healthy food because of their soluble fibre content. Consumer interest in the health benefits of the grain have helped Canadian oat producers transform their sector from a bulk exporter 30 years ago to one that today is largely selling value-added products and ingredients. A new health claim about oat protein could help the industry further diversify market opportunities, stimulate increased demand and economic benefits for Canadian oat growers, while contributing to healthier diets for consumers.

The Government of Canada is committed to supporting research that explores the full nutritional and health benefits of Canadian agricultural products, recognizing the positive impact it has on consumers and the Canadian economy.

Source : Canada.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