January 16, 2012

Canadian government research helps build wheat industry

Wheat breeding programmes initiated by the federal government have helped build a multi-billion dollar industry, says a research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

Dr. Gavin Humphreys, a research scientist with the Cereal Research Centre in Winnipeg, notes Agriculture Canada's wheat breeding research is conducted by about eight wheat breeders working out of three research facilities: the Cereal Research Centre located on the University of Manitoba campus and centres in Swift Current, Saskatchewan and Lethbridge, Alberta.

Dr. Gavin Humphreys of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada said: "Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has been working to develop new wheat varieties for western Canadian producers for about close to 80 years, very much from the beginning of the opening of the west.

"The wheat industry is about a CAD4 billion (US$3.91 billion) industry in Canada and Agriculture Canada occupies about 70% of the wheat varieties produced. The significance is that in order to maintain that industry we need to be competitive in terms of keeping farmers competitive.

"We need to support the rural industry in Canada and the wheat varieties that allow farmers to be competitive and to make a living producing wheat allow us to support the rural industry.

"The other thing is people need to be fed. A lot of what we produce goes elsewhere in the world to feed countries such as Japan, such as China, such as multiple countries in South America and that's important as well particularly in light of the fact we now have six billion people living on this planet."

Dr. Humphreys notes with 70-75% of the wheat varieties grown in western Canada having been derived from the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada programs, the effort has been highly successful as demonstrated by the fact that we've been able to build a CAD5 billion (US$4.89 billion) wheat industry in western Canada.