Canadian governments invest C$6.5 mn into crop research

Canadian Federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz and Saskatchewan Agriculture Minister Lyle Stewart have announced C$6.5 million in funding for 38 crop-related research projects.

"The crop research being done in Saskatchewan helps keep Canadian agriculture growing and contributing to a strong economy," Ritz said.

"These projects will help improve methods of crop disease control and weather tolerance that will make Saskatchewan farmers more productive and profitable."

"Saskatchewan has a reputation as a leader in crop production and research and these new projects will help to ensure this continues to be the case," Stewart said. "These projects will help to achieve goals set out in our Growth Plan and help our farmers meet the growing world demand for safe, reliable agriculture products."

Crop-related projects receiving funding in 2013 include:

• Improved weed management;
• Improved yields for wheat;
• Genetic mapping of blackleg disease in canola;
• Disease resistance in cereals and pulses;
• Improvements in the nutritional value of oats;
• New technologies to assess sprout damage in wheat;
• Herbicide tolerance in mustard varieties;
• Addressing genetic and disease obstacles to canary seed production; and
• Methods to control and eradicate clubroot in Saskatchewan canola.

Funding for these projects is provided from the Saskatchewan Agriculture Development Fund (ADF) and is part a record CC$20.4 million provincial agriculture research budget in 2012-13, which is an increase of over 50 per cent since 2007.

More than CC$57 million in research project funding has been provided through ADF since 2007.

This investment in agriculture research will help achieve goals set out in the Saskatchewan Plan for Growth, such as establishing Saskatchewan as an international leader in biosciences, increasing crop production by 10 million tonnes and increasing provincial agriculture exports by CC$5 billion by 2020.

This ADF project funding will help to leverage additional third party funding of more than CC$3 million from organizations such as the Western Grain Research Foundation, the Saskatchewan Pulse Growers, the Saskatchewan Canola Development Commission, the Saskatchewan Oat Development Commission and the Canaryseed Development Commission of Saskatchewan.

"Research has been vital to the growth of the canola industry," SaskCanola Chair Brett Halstead said. "We appreciate the funding announced today and look forward to the benefits it will create for canola producers in the future."

"The research announced today will play a pivotal role in advancing our industry," Saskatchewan Oat Development Commission Chair Dwayne Anderson said.

"We are pleased to partner on these projects and thank the federal and provincial governments for their support."

"We appreciate the funding announced today for wheat research, which will benefit the industry and producers for years to come," Western Canadian Wheat Growers Chair Gerrid Gust said.

"We are pleased that the federal and provincial governments have agriculture research as a priority and we look forward to a continued partnership that brings new technologies to Saskatchewan producers and the world," Chair of the Western Grains Research Foundation Dave Sefton said.