Proposed Clean Fuel Standard Offers Opportunity for Increased Canola Demand

Jan 12, 2021

The Canadian Canola Growers Association (CCGA) says Canada’s recently published Clean Fuel Standard (CFS) has potential to increase long-term domestic demand for Canadian canola as a feedstock for diesel-based biofuels, while lessening farmers’ reliance on export markets.

“With the CFS, biofuels are expected to play a major role in helping Canada achieve its clean energy targets,” says Steve Pratte, Policy Manager at CCGA. “This has the potential to create domestic demand for canola equivalent to the export market demand of Japan or possibly even greater.”

In a news release, CCGA states the proposed CFS ensures that the current level of diesel biofuel demand is maintained by continuing the 2% federal mandate but offers opportunity for that demand to increase significantly by 2030.

“A minimum content requirement is one element we’re pleased to see in the proposed regulations as it provides a level of baseline stability, while the overall structure of the CFS provides significant upside for increased diesel biofuel use in Canada”, said Bernie McClean, Chair of CCGA. “This not only supports domestic demand for the canola grown on our farms, but also encourages investment in local processing of the crop.”

One area of concern for farmers is how compliance with land use and biodiversity criteria will be achieved under the CFS.

“The proposed CFS includes a partial form of an aggregate compliance approach that the canola industry has been recommending,” added Pratte. “Full aggregate compliance is a streamlined and data-driven way to satisfy specific policy goals of government while effectively recognizing the sustainable land use practices of Canadian agriculture, without the need for farm-by-farm documentation and reporting.”

CCGA says it also better aligns with Canada’s international trade goals and obligations, especially with the United States, as there has been a free-flow of agricultural biofuel feedstocks between the two countries under this approach for years.

“We see some positive steps forward in the proposed CFS but there are areas that still require clarification and more work,” said McClean.

An area of particular concern for CCGA is further understanding the role of “verification and certification” of the feedstock and how this will directly impact farmers.

“We’re seeking clarification on this and will be preparing a substantive submission in response to the formal consultation process for the regulations,” said Pratte.

The period to comment on the proposed Clean Fuel Standard regulations closes March 4.

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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.”