Some farmers and seed industry officials suspect Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s (AAFC) variety development work, along with many other programs, will be on the chopping block post-COVID-19 as the government tackles its biggest budget deficit since the Second World War.

“We are serious when we say that we believe science and innovation is important and we want to continue investing in that,” Bibeau said during an online session with several CFWF members.

In late 2018 the federal government started consulting with farmers about a seed industry proposal to implement either an end point or trailing royalty to collect additional money from farmers to encourage private and public plant breeders to produce even more improved varieties.

It’s commonly referred to as ‘value creation.’ The argument is that while farmers would pay more for seed, they would also be more profitable.

A lot of farmers oppose both options, saying if they have to pay more they want some control over both how their money is spent and the varieties that spring from it.

The consultations stalled and COVID hit, becoming the government’s main focus.

“The idea (of the consultations) was to find the best approach working closely with the industry, but no way was it the intention to get the government out of these investments,” Bibeau said.

Despite Bibeau’s reassurance, government priorities sometimes change and so do governments.

Publicly developed varieties, including AAFC’s, currently make up most of what SeCan, a not-for-profit seed distribution company, sells.

No entity supports public plant breeding more than SeCan, its business manager for Western Canada, Todd Hyra, said in a recent interview. But he also noted AAFC’s plant breeding funding has been declining for years.

The status quo in plant breeding wasn’t sustainable even before COVID-19, Tyler McCann, interim executive director of the Canadian Seed Trade Association, said in an interview Aug. 11.

Should the government stop or curtail plant breeding, farmers will need private plant breeders to step up, Hyra said.

— Allan Dawson is a reporter for the Manitoba Co-operator at Miami, Man.

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As a result, some products could be sold to farmers without a USDA review — a move that comes despite concerns by consumer groups over biotech crops.

The final rule is the first major overhaul of USDA’s regulations over biotech plants, seeds and microbes since 1987, the agency said. Previously, USDA’s review system focused on genetically modified organisms, where a gene is added from another organism.

Existing regulations have not kept up with emerging technologies such as plant gene editing, which works like the find-and-replace function on a word processor: It finds a gene and then makes changes by amending or deleting it.

Scientists can edit genomes more precisely and rapidly, and altered agricultural products could get to market more quickly and cheaply, say biotech advocates.

If a company uses biotech to create a product that has traits that could have been achieved through traditional plant breeding, it would no longer have to go through a pre-market review through USDA, the agency said.

Such products typically require USDA to conduct a risk assessment of whether they can cause or spread plant diseases, among other vetting. Some of those products also are reviewed or regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, which has oversight over food safety, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

“If it’s a GMO, that’s basically what they’ve been looking at over and over again for the past 20 years, they’re saying they don’t need to look at new examples,” said Clint Nesbitt, senior director of science and regulatory affairs with Biotechnology Innovation Organization, an industry group that represents companies such as Bayer.

“If what you’ve done with gene editing could have been done with plant breeding, you’re good to go,” Nesbitt said.

The change, first proposed during the Obama administration, comes after U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order last summer directing federal agencies to streamline the review process for agricultural biotechnology including genetically modified livestock and seeds.

Consumers have pushed for years for greater transparency over what is in their food, fighting for GMO labeling on consumer products against pushback from farmers, biotech firms and food companies that argue such genetically engineered ingredients are safe.

Genetically modified crops were a sticking point between the United States and China during their trade war. Beijing took years to approve new strains of those crops, which U.S. companies and farmers have complained stalls trade by restricting the sales of new products.

— P.J. Huffstutter reports on agriculture and agribusiness for Reuters from Chicago; additional reporting by Tom Polansek in Chicago.

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To be clear, only 10 per cent of the seed on those acres was susceptible to midge, and that’s been the reason for the continued success of the other 90 per cent in keeping the critters at bay. If 100 per cent of the varieties were tolerant, the small percentage of midge that could avoid the resistant trait would survive and reproduce, eventually becoming the dominant population, similar to how weeds become resistant to herbicides.

This approach is important because there’s only one gene — Sm1 — with the resistant trait. Its continued success depends on growers signing agreements that limit the use of farm-saved seed to one generation past certified.

Todd Hyra, western business manager for SeCan, says the program has been a success because 98 per cent of producers in the system have complied with the agreement. “They see the value, and we want to encourage that continued spirit of co-operation that’s kept this valuable trait in play.”

These agreements recently went digital and are logged in an electronic database, says Mike Espeseth, Western Grains Research Foundation communications manager and co-chair of the Midge Tolerant Wheat Stewardship Committee. The program ensures the products’ built-in portion of “refuge” seed stays at 10 per cent in order to maintain Sm1’s longevity.

Two years ago, when it was discovered that older varieties of soft white spring wheat also contained the Sm1 gene, producers were asked to voluntarily remediate products with a 10 per cent refuge while seed suppliers caught up. These days, all new midge-tolerant wheat (MTW) varieties contain refuge in the bag.

Adding tolerance to more varieties

The proportion of CWRS seeded to MTW has dropped over the last few years due to relatively dry weather which in turn meant lower midge pressure. Last year about eight per cent of total Prairie CWRS acreage was midge tolerant. Hyra says the “real home” of MTW is Saskatchewan, while acres have been lower in Alberta and Manitoba. “Seed customers are getting by on midge and have migrated to other varieties that provide shorter, stronger straw or better fusarium suppression.”

That might change if wet conditions continue this year, and breeders have been working on introducing the Sm1 gene into varieties which also offer higher yield and fusarium resistance.

“We expect the total percentage of MTW acres to increase again as varieties with short strong straw and improved fusarium tolerance hit the market in 2020 and 2021,” Hyra says.

For example, AAC Alida VB has short straw, low DON accumulation and is midge tolerant, he says.

AAC Warman and AAC LeRoy are two more CWRS varieties that combine midge tolerance with fusarium and lodging resistance, says Santosh Kumar, a wheat breeder at AAFC in Brandon. His program focuses almost entirely on CWRS wheat for Western Canada.

Another new variety, AAC Magnet, is rated moderately resistant to fusarium but is lacking on the midge-tolerance side, but not all producers want both.

Harpinder Randhawa is an AAFC Lethbridge spring wheat and triticale breeder responsible for soft white and Canada Prairie spring classes. He says in recent years his program has focused on providing options that tick as many boxes as possible for producers.

In the CPS class, Randhawa recently registered AC Crossfield and AAC Entice. Both are susceptible to midge but have an intermediate level of fusarium resistance. A third, AAC Castle, has midge tolerance as well as intermediate fusarium resistance and good straw strength.

In the SWS class, he’s currently looking for midge-susceptible varieties to use as refuge for new varieties.

Finding promising candidates for MTW refuge is a key breeding challenge in every wheat class. Kumar says there’s a lot of complexity around finding a refuge variety because it has to look very similar to the MTW variety in maturity, height, yield and test weight.

Both breeding programs try to provide choice to farmers.

“If the farmers want fusarium and midge tolerance combined, there are good varieties to choose from. As public breeders, we want to provide better and appropriate choice to farmers so they don’t have to compromise,” Kumar says.

Randhawa says producers look at the whole agronomic package when making seeding decisions, and midge is just one variable. “In some areas with a lot of midge pressure where there are yield losses you don’t really have a choice (but to plant MTW), but in other areas without much pressure, you can decide.”

How midge tolerance works

Santosh Kumar, a wheat breeder for AAFC’s Brandon Research and Development Centre, says there are two mechanisms for midge tolerance in wheat. The first is Sm1-based resistance, which kills the larvae once they start feeding on the developing wheat kernels. This Sm1-based resistance mechanism is called antibiosis.

The second mechanism involves chemical compounds in wheat that inhibit the female midge from laying eggs on wheat heads. This mechanism is called “oviposition deterrence,” and isn’t as common in wheat breeding. Most programs rely on Sm1-based resistance.

But along with other AAFC, University of Manitoba and CDC Saskatoon scientists, Kumar’s program is working on alternatives and screening germplasm for additional sources of midge tolerance. Recently, a team of scientists discovered a promising gene in germplasm from southern Asia, although it’s too early to confirm its efficacy.

Once an alternative to Sm1 is discovered, Kumar says the plan is to bring additional sources of resistance together in new varieties to make midge tolerance more durable.

The post A decade of midge-tolerant wheat appeared first on Country Guide.

The science of genetic alterations — RNAi silencing or CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) technology — has also come with great potential for improving plant breeding and enhanced traits. But it too has its challenges, including regulatory agencies in Canada.

The field of genomics is still in a state of growth as it searches for the best ways to enhance plant performance and productivity. At the same time, regulatory agencies are still haggling over definitions and applications. When is a genetic manipulation a “plant novel trait” (PNT)? When is the precautionary principle impairing scientific discovery to its detriment?

Epigenetics has been around for decades but it’s only been recently that researchers have started to manipulate it for field crop advantages, including the development of plants capable of withstanding stress such as drought, heat or cold.

Although there are questions surrounding the reaction of Health Canada or the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), one U.S. researcher has uncovered a world of potential for this form of genetic manipulation.

Better yields and resilience

Epigenetics is defined as “the study of heritable changes in gene expression that do not involve changes to the underlying DNA sequence.” In effect, it changes gene expression without altering the genetic makeup of the plant. These changes occur naturally and often in an organism. In humans, as we know, genes can be silent during childhood, then be “activated” as a person ages, and vice versa.

Another example is that some genes are active in an eye cell, for example, yet are completely silent in a kidney cell. Epigenetics is the vehicle for different tissues taking on specialized functions.

In plants, epigenetics can oversee alterations that shift reactions from normal growing conditions to ones that adapt to more stressful conditions, such as drought or cold tolerance. A control point for influencing these epigenetic traits was recently discovered in the plant gene MSH1, a discovery made by Dr. Sally Mackenzie and her colleagues in 2012. Mackenzie had been studying the role of the mitochondria that are responsible for respiration and energy generation in plant cells, trying to understand their influence on plant fertility and their ability to disrupt pollen development.

“It was only later that we found out that MSH1 operates not just in mitochondria but in a different compartment: the chloroplasts,” says Mackenzie, a professor of biology and plant science at Penn State University. “That compartment has an ability to trigger epigenetic changes, and it was purely serendipitous that we discovered this, and we were off and running in a totally different direction.”

In effect, her method silences the MSH1 gene in plants growing under normal conditions. Because of this, the plant behaves as though it’s growing under stressful conditions and it activates compensatory mechanisms that allow it to cope with temperature, drought and pathogen stress.

Manipulating these “reprogrammed” plants through crossing or grafting results in higher yields and greater resilience.

In a one-year trial with an elite tomato variety, Mac­kenzie saw a 29 per cent yield boost under ideal conditions. Researchers have also seen striking gains in tomato plant resilience under heat stress conditions in the field.

Mackenzie believes that genetic enhancements under less-than-ideal conditions will result not only in better yield stability, but also enhanced resilience in the plant.

Although the MSH1 gene was originally cloned in 2003 for mitochondrial research, it wasn’t until 2011 that Mackenzie and her lab colleagues made the discovery about its influence on chloroplasts. Since then, she’s successfully applied the MSH1 method to sorghum, tomato and soybeans for enhanced field performance, and has begun greenhouse work in canola and strawberries. She’d also like to test alfalfa for increasing above-ground biomass, as well as grapes, various tree crops, cotton and potatoes, although for that she requires more funding.

The climate threat

There’s an urgency to Mackenzie’s work, as she believes agriculture isn’t adjusting rapidly enough to really address climate change.

“In the next 30 years, it’s clear that crop production strategies will have to adapt, but there isn’t a lot invested in what that process should look like,” Mackenzie says. “I’m hoping that people will reflect on the idea that epigenetics is one tool that we haven’t had in our toolbox that might offer, not a full solution, but at least one potential remedy. I worry that we’re going to keep our strategies the same and we’re going to get caught with larger losses each year when that flood or that drought comes, and we haven’t come up with crops that have a level of resilience to tolerate those changes.”

The right method

The method by which these genetic manipulations can occur allows for two different breeding approaches. The first — and the fastest — is to graft an MSH1-modified line as rootstock to an unmodified line and harvest the seed from that combination. The modification has been introduced already, so imparting a genetic enhancement occurs by the next generation. The second approach is through conventional crossbreeding.

“In crops that can be grafted, which would apply to soybeans, tomatoes and any dicot species as well as grapes and tree crops, it works wonderfully, and that’s the most rapid way to introduce the method,” says Mac­kenzie. “There are lots of crops that offer something valuable to our studies as we find out how much impact this system can have on any individual crop that has the cultivation properties. Potatoes would be great because they’re vegetatively propagated, so once you carry out the manipulation and find the perfect crop features, you can propagate that in perpetuity because they never go through seed.”

Although she’d like to work with wheat and corn, the two crops present different challenges, over and above sufficient funding. The wheat genome is a polyploidy, so it is unclear how effectively the current gene silencing method would work. On the corn side, she concedes there’s reluctance within the sector’s research and breeding efforts to focus on much aside from yield and the current F1 hybrid model. She notes that recent yield improvements in corn have been largely due to increased plant densities.

“To me, that is not a long-term strategy, but as long as the industry is fixated on that, I don’t see them looking for innovations in other areas,” says Mackenzie. “And because they’re so recalcitrant to change, we’ve been slower to move into corn.”

The one constraint to introducing methods designed to stabilize yield in the face of climate instability (instead of just increasing yield) is that the industry is not yet open to novel, out-of-the-ordinary breeding strategies for stability. Newer methods, like MSH1, must conform to the standard breeding protocols within each crop. If the tomato sector uses a hybrid, then the method has to be hybrid-ready; if it’s a plant that breeders don’t want to graft, then Mackenzie has to shift to crossing.

“Often, they will only consider a method that gives them a predetermined yield gain, which doesn’t consider yield stability as equally valuable,” she says. “While this is certainly the decision of an industry partner, it does imply that there is not yet a true sense of urgency regarding climate change.”

Regulatory relief

The good news on epigenetic discovery is in its acceptance from a regulatory standpoint. According to Mac­kenzie, the standard practice when dealing with an agency such as the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA-APHIS) is to fill out a submission form, send it in and await a decision. With her epigenetics method, APHIS representatives asked her to address their officers in person.

“The technology we were using was so distinctly different from anything they’d ever evaluated that they needed to make sure they understood what we were doing,” explains Mackenzie. “I was in front of that panel for more than two hours, with question after question.”

The ultimate question was, “What exactly would we regulate?” Mackenzie’s response was, “Precisely.”

Epigenetic changes in plants are constant. The only difference is the way Mackenzie induces it. The modified plant would be indistinguishable from a plant that’s under extreme stress.

“This isn’t something you could regulate even if you wanted to, insofar as there isn’t a genetic change that occurs, and although gene expression is altered, many of the alterations naturally occur in a plant that’s under stress,” Mackenzie says. “How do you say that a plant undergoing these gene expression changes under stress is compositionally different from a plant where we’re creating that stress using this manipulation?”

It’s why the panel concluded there wasn’t anything to regulate, since there hasn’t been a tangible change in the crop to follow. Mackenzie reasons that if that same conversation played itself out in Canada, regulators might come to the same conclusion.

But it will take leadership, says Mackenzie. “Part of the regulatory terrain has been complicated by the fact that various aspects of CRISPR and other cisgenic technologies are just now coming out, and until the dust settles on all of that, we’re kind of in limbo also.”

The post Is this what farmers have been waiting for? appeared first on Country Guide.

The Keystone Agricultural producers (KAP), Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan and Alberta Federation of Agriculture, launched the online survey July 15 to measure farmers’ understanding of what’s being proposed and get their views, including on whether farmers should “have oversight into how much is collected and what the funds are used for.”

Last fall Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency started consulting farmers on two proposals — trailing and end point royalties. Both are intended to collect more money from farmers to be used by private and public plant breeders to produce improved varieties.

But the options raised concerns among some farmers about eliminating their ability to save seed for free, their lack of control of how the royalties would be used, and the potential impact on publicly funded plant breeding.

That prompted some farmers to suggest looking for a third option.

Prairie wheat and barley commissions also worry that increased seed royalties might drive some farmers to request their checkoff on cereals sales used to fund the commissions, including their research programs, be refunded.

A trailing royalty, also called a Seed Variety Use Agreement, would require farmers who purchased certified seed of UPOV ’91 varieties to annually pay a royalty on seed saved to produce another crop.

An end point royalty would be collected on all harvested grain from farm-saved seed of UPOV ’91-protected varieties.

The latter approach was adopted in Australia, where farmers and private seed developers have formed joint companies to fund varietal development, giving farmers some say in the process, in addition to benefiting from improved varieties.

But Canada’s seed industry prefers a trailing royalty saying it’s simpler to administer and doesn’t discourage pedigreed seed use.

“It is crucial that we hear from farmers and producers on the two new proposed models, because consultation with those who are directly affected ultimately leads to better decision-making,” KAP president Bill Campbell said in a news release. Our hope is that producers will take the time to get involved in this process and ensure their needs are met under a new royalty structure.”

– Allan Dawson is a reporter for the Manitoba Co-operator. His article appeared in the July 18, 2019 issue.

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Jim and his wife Laura-Lee, who farm near Saskatoon, are the owners of Oat Advantage, one of few private plant breeding businesses in Western Canada. This spring, their first registered oat varieties, ORe3541M and ORe3542M, will be marketed by SeCan. There’s enough seed for about 100,000 acres this year, says Dyck, and excitement is building.

ORe3541M and ORe3542M are unique. Along with good agronomic qualities, including high yields as well as standability and ease of harvest management, both varieties demonstrate excellent milling quality — including kernel plumpness and improved kernel uniformity — which have not always been top priorities in oat breeding programs. Further test milling of both varieties will be conducted by oat millers this year.

The plant breeding process for these two varieties, from first crosses to seed ready for farmers’ fields, has taken a decade and cost Dyck a small fortune. “My wife and I sort of joke that we really haven’t paid ourselves yet,” says Dyck.

The Dycks’ operation began without external investment or government funding. Dyck says costs quickly reached $200,000 per year, and since the beginning he and Laura-Lee have done all the work themselves. This stands in major contrast to big public or private breeding programs with large in-house teams and diverse revenue streams.

“Those are the realities of scale for us, but of course we are a startup company,” says Dyck.

But despite the high costs involved in private plant breeding, there can be many ways to get involved, he says.

• [INFOGRAPHIC] Counting the cost of a new variety

“If you came from a farming background and got into plant breeding, you may have land and equipment already in place,” Dyck says. “That would be a huge leap forward in reducing startup costs. Then it is just the time that you have to put in and the vision for what you could achieve. There are also people who are plant breeding on the side while they have a regular job. It is slow going, but success does happen.”

“That being said, plant breeding is very long term. If one full cycle takes a decade, and if you aren’t successful early, how does one go on? It is still a big risk if you are fully dependent on the venture, like we are. There is no steady paycheque.”

First paycheque

Dyck’s first significant paycheque from oat breeding will come from certified seed sales in 2019, to the tune of about $.75/acre — meaning that if Oat Advantage’s seed reaches 100,000 acres, the company will have made its first step toward paying for a decade’s worth of work. If Oat Advantage can get to 300,000 acres of certified seed sales, the company will break even and begin to reduce debt and expand its oat research business.

Jim and Laura-Lee’s two new varieties should offer oat producers an edge in the field and at the elevator. Ultimately, the cents per acre that Dyck earns will go directly into building the business — and developing even better varieties.

10-year plans

Jim and Laura-Lee aren’t just sitting around waiting for ORe3541M and ORe3542M to pay off. With the help of their four children, Lauren (24), Elena (22), Graeme (18) and Colin (16), they’ve started new 10-year plant breeding cycles for potential new varieties, every year they’ve been in business — some of which should also reach the market in the next few years.

Dyck says touring farms across Western Canada, where his two new varieties were grown out in 2017 and 2018, was a particular source of satisfaction after so many years in development. He’s in it to make a living, but also for the joy of plant breeding and the gratification that comes from talking to farmers and responding to their needs in the field.

“Finally in 2019, we’re at the point where this is happening, we’ll have all this seed in farmers’ hands,” says Dyck. “The data we have from our own farm, and from the Co-op — it showed the good aspects of these varieties, and we’ve had big yields and beautiful grain. 2019 is our year to find out how things turn out.”

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Last spring, Canadian researchers discovered Sm1 in most SWS varieties, including AAC Indus, AC Sadash and AAC Chiffon. SWS variety AAC Paramount was confirmed to contain the trait later in the year.

If some non-midge tolerant varieties are not present in a field, there is a risk that wheat midge will adapt to the tolerant varieties, meaning the trait would no longer be effective (see ‘How wheat refuge works’ at bottom).

According to SeCan, midge tolerance saves producers $36 per acre for a total $40 to $60 million per year. There are no other known midge-tolerance genes should Sm1 cease working.

The midge-tolerance trait is also present in CWRS varieties including AC Jatharia, AC Shaw, AC Unity and AC Vesper, and in Canada Prairie Spring Red (CPSR) varieties including AC Foray, says Hyra. A durum wheat variety, AAC Marchwell, and the Canadian Western Special Purpose (CWSP) varieties AAC Awesome and KWS Sparrow VB also contain the trait.

AC Andrew does not contain Sm1, which makes it a suitable refuge for SWS wheats.

Sm1, which was first identified in soft red winter wheat varieties in the 1990s, was deliberately bred into spring wheat varieties released in 2010 by CDC and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Last spring, using a marker linked to Sm1, CDC researchers discovered most SWS varieties already naturally contain the gene in their genetic background.

The discovery was made too late in the spring for producers to add refuge seed in 2017 but SeCan is working with producers to remediate their products for 2018. The agency will require remediation for all products except AC Sadash, which makes up 64 per cent of SWS acreage. Producers can either source seed with refuge added, says Hyra, or add AC Andrew to existing supply.

“This past season some of our members produced a good, high-quality supply of AC Andrew that can be purchased to add as refuge to their varieties,” says Hyra.

Resistance

Pierre Hucl, a CDC wheat breeder, says wheat breeding programs will continue to use the Sm1 gene in new varieties as long as they can, despite the discovery.

“For me personally it’s not going to change anything,” says Hucl. “We’ve known the Sm1 gene has been floating around Europe with no refuge for a long time, so the fact that it’s showing up in Canadian varieties is not necessarily a big shock.”

What’s making experts in the Canadian industry nervous, he says, is the fact that no Sm2 or Sm3 gene has been discovered yet and Sm1 has been deployed in Canada without refuge for 10 years.

Researchers are concerned the midge might behave like the Hessian fly, a major economic pest of wheat that overcame resistance genes in the U.S. after roughly 10 years.

“It’s a concern that the Sm1 gene could (lose efficacy), but we also know that it’s been in existence in pure form without refuge for decades,” says Hucl. “But it’s good to err on the side of caution.”

Hyra says several new wheat products are coming out soon that contain Sm1 for midge resistance plus other necessary traits such as shorter or stronger straw and fusarium tolerance. Refuge will be in the bag for new products, he says.

But for the time being, he urges producers to “do the right thing” by replacing seed or adding a 10 per cent refuge. “Sm1 is our most important tool,” he says.

How wheat refuge works

Midge-tolerant wheat varieties have been sold as a blend of two varieties of seed: 90 per cent is a midge-tolerant variety, and 10 per cent is another variety, or “refuge,” that is not midge-tolerant. The two varieties are interseeded, unlike corn refuge systems in which the refuge is grown in a block within or beside the field.

If only midge-tolerant wheat is planted in a field without a non-tolerant refuge, a small population of “virulent” (resistant) midge may survive and breed, producing offspring that can also feed on midge-tolerant wheat, overcoming the midge-tolerant gene’s effectiveness.

If a small percentage of non-midge tolerant wheat is included, some non-virulent midge will feed on that wheat and survive, mating with virulent midge to produce non-virulent offspring. This gives longevity to the midge-tolerance trait.

Use of farm-saved seed is prohibited beyond one year past certification for midge-tolerant wheat to keep the refuge at the 10 per cent level. Producers are required to sign a stewardship agreement to ensure refuge levels are maintained.

The post Protect your midge-tolerant wheat appeared first on Country Guide.

That recognition, its backers said, would lead to more research and to new varieties, new markets and new premiums that would benefit our farmers as well as downstream users.

Now, a couple of years later, the general feeling among those in the seed trade is that while grower support for the new PBR legislation is improving, there’s still a considerable amount of work to do.

In the world of government regulations, PBR is tied to the UPOV 1991 convention, an international agreement that protects the intellectual property of plant breeders as they develop new varieties “for the benefit of society.”

UPOV 91 is the most recent update of the convention, and Canada’s recent round of PBR updates brings the country’s regulations up-to-date with most other countries around the world.

The big difference between PBR 91 and its predecessor is that in addition to providing new opportunities for breeders and farmers, it also creates new obligations for the entire value chain. For instance, elevators and processors can still purchase the harvested product from saved seed, but may take on financial liability if the breeder can prove they weren’t fairly compensated due to illegal sale or use of the seed.

By the numbers

Currently, 669 agricultural (non-ornamental) varieties are registered under PBR regulations in Canada: 294 (or 44 per cent) are protected under the UPOV 78 convention, with varieties that still exist in the system. There are also 116 varieties (17 per cent) protected under the latest upgrades — UPOV 91.

Another 259 (39 per cent) are in the system, pending approval under the revised UPOV 91 legislation.

In Canada, the public breeding sector is the biggest user of PBR, with the University of Guelph, the University of Saskatchewan and Laval University as the biggest applicants. That’s worth knowing.

The idea that PBR mainly helps multinationals is a misconception, says Anthony Parker, commissioner with the Plant Breeders’ Rights Office with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). He says it’s also a tool to support breeding through Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), through the provinces and universities, and through small- and medium-sized enterprises as well.

“Taxpayers and farmers contribute money in the development of those varieties, and that’s the most compelling reason to protect them,” says Parker. “It’s also about creating a perception that we have a strong intellectual property environment here in Canada to attract foreign varieties. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t benefit from varieties from other countries.”

The fact that most PBR varieties in Canada are public also frames it in a different context. Public breeding in Canada usually translates to the development of cereal varieties (although there have been — and still are — some outstanding soybean varieties to come out of public-sector programs).

Brent Derkatch, past president of the Canadian Seed Trade Association (CSTA), points to differences between Eastern and Western Canada, and the impact this can have on the uptake of PBR. Cropping demands and markets are two of the larger factors, he says. In the East, corn hybrids and traited soybean varieties require the use of certified seed. The infrastructure in the East is also geared towards production of those crops.

In the West, there’s a traditional reliance on cereal varieties, and subsequently, a tendency to rely on saved (bin-run) seed. Canola hybrids require certified seed, and there’s a growing migration of soybean and even corn production in Western Canada. Yet old habits die hard.

“There’s a long history — generations of farmers — who are familiar with the practice of saving and reusing, or even trading seed with their neighbours,” says Derkatch, who is director of operations and business development for Canterra Seeds. “It’s hard to say for sure if there’s a significant difference in the West versus the East as it relates to understanding PBR. The markets are very different in the two regions, so there are a lot of factors at play.”

Derkatch credits farmers for knowing how products perform on their farms. What’s harder is to identify how much yield is coming from genetics versus other agronomic practices, since there have also been important gains through precision agriculture, fertilizers and fungicides.

It’s also why Derkatch believes the understanding of PBR at the farm level is quite low, and why the industry needs to continue to communicate that intellectual property protection is important for everyone. Genetic improvement is one of many important tools producers need to remain competitive on a global scale.

Phil Bailey also advocates for continuing education on plant breeders’ rights. Earlier in 2017, he toured Quebec with Lorne Hadley, executive director of the Canadian Plant Technology Association (CPTA), visiting with most of the primary seed companies in the province, explaining PBR and UPOV 91, and their implications.

Unlike other provinces, notes Bailey, Quebec growers are required to plant certified seed in order to get crop insurance. It’s almost as though there hasn’t been a need to protect varieties in Quebec using PBR, because crop insurance is doing the job.

“But what we’re finding now is that slowly, and it’s still not anywhere near what the West or even Ontario sees — there are some cracks in the armour where larger farmers are not taking out crop insurance on 100 per cent of their acres,” says Bailey. “And they’re starting to do a little bit of this farm-saved or custom-cleaning, so it’s extremely important for us as an industry to start educating them on PBR and UPOV 91.”

Plant breeding is a long and expensive process, Bailey says. Farmers investing their hard-earned money today in the form of check-offs or seed royalties through certified seed purchases aren’t going to realize a return on that investment in one or two years. Improvements through modern plant breeding technology will undoubtedly help shorten the time for variety development, yet it still requires a long-term commitment — and patience.

More teeth in new law

It turns out the 2015 upgrade also has more teeth when it comes to dealing with growers, elevators or processors who use seed illegally. For example, SeCan is conducting an education program at the same time that it has also taken legal action when it feels its PBR rights aren’t respected.

Todd Hyra, SeCan’s business manager for Western Canada, has been the point person for dealing with two interests in Saskatchewan — one a grower and the other a grain broker. In both cases, the violators agreed to a cash settlement, and one of the businesses agreed to a proactive education plan to avoid future transgressions.

Interestingly, the Western Grain Elevators Association has created a system where the person delivering the grain states they acquired the seed legally. Hyra says this has been a major step for the grain handlers, and not all were onside since they didn’t want customers to be taking that responsibility. Yet it raises that discussion with their customer.

“Seed and grain sometimes don’t mix, and it may not have been a blatant infringement in the West, but sometimes there was confusion or a lack of familiarity with seed regulations and requirements from a grain perspective,” says Hyra. “We talk about the need to educate, and that’s still front and centre.”

Not every transgression becomes a showdown either, and that’s where open discussion and understanding the regulations’ impacts are so important, notes Hyra. He had one grower contact him recently, conceding he’d violated the rules under PBR and UPOV 91. That led to a productive, non-aggressive conversation with the grower, who willingly signed a declaration, acknowledging what he’d done wrong, and in doing so, avoided legal proceedings.

“It was such a nice process to have it all done between the two of us, and it cost a little bit of my time, and was no cost to him,” says Hyra.

Where next?

For Derkatch and Parker, the course ahead for PBR under UPOV 91 is simple: continued diligence in spreading the word across the country.

“With the modernization of our PBR Act under UPOV 91 rules, Canada becomes a more attractive place for companies to invest and to complement the great variety development work that’s also done within the public sector,” says Derkatch.

“I’d rather farmers understood the reason why it’s important, rather than viewing it as a penalty or a disincentive,” says Parker. “We want to encourage positive behaviour.”

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But we’re talking about flax here, so think again.

Flax is a one million-acre crop in Western Canada, which doesn’t seem like a lot when you consider that canola is seeded to over 20 million acres and even upstart soybean is within spitting distance of three million. Still, a million acres means Canada is the biggest global producer of flax, most of which is exported.

That makes breeding of new flax varieties for higher yields and improved quality characteristics extremely important. But in order to do that, says Helen Booker, a professor and flax breeder at the University of Saskatchewan, your first focus has to be on flax rust.

Booker explains there hasn’t been a rust infection in Canadian flax crops since the early 1970s, but in order to register a new flax variety, it must carry resistance to rust — specifically to rust race 371. There are good reasons for this requirement, but it can slow the breeding process.

With funding from WGRF, Booker and colleagues from the U of S and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, have just launched a three-year project to find quicker, surer ways to identify rust-resistance genes in new flax lines for a faster, better breeding program.

On the shoulders of giants

“There are decades of research on rust resistance in flax and we’re trying to capitalize on that,” says Booker.

It begins, she says, with Harold Flor, an American plant pathologist who first discovered the genetic relationship between disease and host, i.e. that a plant’s resistance or sensitivity to a disease is caused by matching genes, one in the plant, one in the pathogen. Flor happened to be working on flax and flax rust in the late 1940s when he discovered this gene-to-gene relationship, which to this day is a foundational concept in all plant breeding programs, not just flax.

At the time of Flor’s discovery, flax rust was causing devastating crop losses across North America. Breeders worked tirelessly over the next three decades to develop resistant varieties, sometimes succeeding only to have the pathogen mutate and cause another collapse. By the 1970s though, they’d cracked it and since that time, all North American flax cultivars have been resistant to flax rust.

“We haven’t had a rust infection in Canada since the early ’70s, so that early breeding work was very efficient,” says Booker. “But when I want to make some advances in that material, I need to bring in ‘exotic’ material, which doesn’t have the R rating to North American rust pathogens.”

“Exotic” simply refers to breeding material from other parts of the world where flax rust strains are different from those in Canada. So while genetic diversity is the bedrock of any breeding program (it’s the reason breeders look worldwide for desirable traits such as yield, oil quality, harvestability, drought tolerance and more), if Booker wants to incorporate plant material from, say, Belgium, into her breeding program, she has to screen all the new lines developed with that material for resistance to North American flax rust.

Right now, that means growing out-crosses and exposing them to the disease to see which ones survive and which don’t.

“With this research, we’re hoping to increase the efficiency of breeding,” says Booker. The first step is to complete the genetic map of rust-resistance genes on the flax genome.

“Some of them are linked, meaning they are on the same chromosome,” says Booker, adding that there are five rust-resistance genes in flax and they are known to reside in five different locations in the flax genome: K, L, M, N and P.

Genes are just part of the equation. Booker and her colleagues are looking for alleles, which are variations of any given gene. A gene can have multiple alleles and each one can result in a different expression within the plant. For example, researchers know that there is one rust-resistance gene at the L locus (RL) and that it has 13 known alleles (RL1, RL2, and so on). Conversely, they know of the existence of alleles RK and RK1, but don’t know exactly where the K locus is on the genome.

The initial phases of the research project will be finding and sequencing the RK resistance gene, completing the sequencing of the RM gene and then building a data library for alleles related to all known flax rust-resistance genes.

The goal is to develop effective molecular marker assays so that breeders like Booker can quickly test all new flax lines that they develop using exotic plant material for the presence of alleles known to confer resistance to North American rust. It will let breeders know far earlier in the breeding process what to discard and what to keep.

Says Booker: “My goal is to have a diversified pipeline so I can respond to improve the yield and agronomic characteristics that growers want,” says Booker.

Characterization of Rust Resistance Genes of Flax is funded by:

• Western Grains Research Foundation (WGRF)
• SaskFlax Development Commission (SFDC)
• Agriculture Development Fund (ADF)

WGRF is a farmer-funded and directed non-profit organization investing in agricultural research that benefits producers in Western Canada. For over 30 years the WGRF board has given producers a voice in agricultural research funding decisions. WGRF manages an Endowment Fund and the wheat and barley variety development checkoff funds, investing over $14 million annually into variety development and field crop research. WGRF brings the research spending power of all farmers in Western Canada together, maximizing the returns they see from crop research.

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Now, CRISPR technology represents another of these seminal moments, with a remarkable enhancement and potential “leap forward” on existing technologies.

First developed in 2012 by Dr. Jennifer Doudna at the University of California-Berkeley, CRISPR has been the subject of media headlines and Twitter posts for at least two years. It has attracted the attention of investors and researchers around the world, and its promise for agriculture is barely beginning to crest.

It starts with some heavy science, but quickly gets to real-life implications.

Here’s the science. The term “CRISPR” is the acronym for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat technology. The term refers to the palindromic (it reads the same forward and backward) and repeated sequences of DNA that exist in bacteria genomes, as well as those in other micro-organisms.

Among other functions, these sequences are vital in the immune systems of microscopic life forms. An organism with a CRISPR-based immune system is capable of fending off viruses by attacking their genetic blueprints, including the coding in the virus necessary for replication.

The best, most-readily identifiable example of a gene editing technology (albeit not CRISPR) in agri-food circles right now is the Arctic apple, which resists browning, helping to reduce food waste. Its approval has come without the consumer backlash that GMO corn, canola and soybeans were subjected to, although its regulatory review took two to three years, which is longer than average.

However, CRISPR technology must overcome some hurdles, including availability and farmers understanding and acceptance.

A game changer, not a miracle

According to several sources, CRISPR’s potential is trending much the same as other genetic endeavours, such as SCN-resistant soybeans or drought-tolerant corn. Growers hear about them and they want them — right now! But many details need to be addressed first, including methodology, regulatory process and which crops are best suited to gene editing. In early September, two major events — the Seed Association of the Americas sixth annual seed congress in Cartagena, Colombia, and the International Seed Federation in London, England — featured biotech and plant breeding advances.

“In agriculture, everyone strives for that silver bullet, which doesn’t exist,” says Dave Carey, executive director of the Canadian Seed Trade Association (CSTA) in Ottawa. “It’s making sure that growers have access to as many different technologies and as many tools as possible to be successful… We can’t just rest on our past successes — CRISPR is great and we need to encourage the innovators and the life science companies to continue to do the research.”

It’s not to say that CRISPR isn’t a game changer. It’s another tool in the toolbox for researchers, plant breeders and farmers. The technology has a direct impact on the three pillars of agricultural research that are vital to progress — speed, efficiency and investment dollars. It’s faster, more precise and less expensive than either traditional selective breeding or transgenics, like being compared to using a nail gun versus the hammer-and-nail approach.

“You also get the Europeans looking to do more genetic engineering, with a technology that can distance them from GMO status,” says Dr. Tyler Whale, president of Ontario Agri-Food Technologies, in Guelph, Ont. “In that sense, it’s a game changer because you get a whole other continent whose scientific prowess is impressive on board.”

Whether that will happen, he adds, is another matter. Europe is beset by activists who seem resolved to reject any form of genetic modification, and North American society boasts a fickle public that is influenced by celebrities. Nor does the technology automatically provide farmers with crops that are immune to all challenges. CRISPR is an incredible branch of science by which innovations can be developed, but growers will still have to deal with the vagaries of weather and nature.

One aspect where CRISPR has already been a game changer is in its specificity. It’s enabled researchers and breeders to go into a genome and make targeted changes. Dr. Sateesh Kagale compares this capability with previous efforts in conventional mutagenesis, calling that phase “a shot in the dark.” But CRISPR provides researchers and breeders with far more control in terms of removing or enhancing certain genetic traits, providing the target is known.

“We can go into the genome and make edits wherever we intend to make changes,” says Kagale, research officer in Aquatic and Crop Resource Development with the National Research Council of Canada in Saskatoon. “We still need to be breeding and making selections, so those things aren’t going away because of CRISPR.”

Time: Less is more

Where CRISPR could have the biggest influence on plant breeding is time. As Kagale points out, if the gene for a particular trait is known, and there is sufficient information on that gene, breeders can “fix” that trait in a year, maybe two.

“It still has to go through field trials and generate data that we can use to satisfy the criteria that regulatory agencies require,” Kagale says, hoping the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and Health Canada will be supportive of CRISPR. “That can take four or five years, so it’s possible to shorten the period of development with the genetic trait, but the process of growing out the plants and selecting the right traits and parameters will remain.”

Even more significantly, CRISPR technology can be applied to any crop and has the potential to lower development costs. Transgenic traits were primarily developed in global crops like corn, soybeans and canola, due to the high cost of development and regulation.

By contrast, says Ian Affleck, executive director in plant biotechnology with CropLife Canada, there is no single crop that is best suited to CRISPR-delivered traits. Instead CRISPR is simply a more precise method to do what breeders have always worked to accomplish: add genes, remove genes or modify existing genes.

One of the highlights of this technology is that there’s greater opportunity to enhance traits already present in a genome. That could open the door for improved traits in cereals or other legumes.

“If a trait is influenced by multiple genes, this technology will make it easier to make multiple-gene modifications, whereas previously it was more focused on single gene traits,” says Affleck. In terms of traits, agriculture is still after the same list of desired characteristics — pest resistance, drought resistance, water-use efficiency, and nitrogen-use efficiency.

“What will allow this to provide more options will be the cost: as the cost comes down, you can get into more unique areas, or consumer traits, such as food waste traits or nutritionally enhanced products. But it all comes with that innovation balancing act of costs versus return,” Affleck says. “If costs stay down, and a big part of that is the regulatory costs, we’ll see a lot more products make it on to the market.”

Ask anyone involved in research and development, investment, regulatory process or patenting, and they’re likely to say that the time required for the initial development of a trait is the largest factor in bringing a variety or hybrid to market. Carey makes one of the more interesting observations about the reduction in development time using genetic editing like CRISPR. Under current conditions, it can take up to 14 years or more to bring a trait to market. Will CRISPR shorten that time? Likely, says Carey, but it’d be by six years, not 12 years.

Yet with that six-year reduction, researchers can focus their attention on something else, something with a greater upside or a more revolutionary application.

Another area where CRISPR can help is with the potential for price reductions due to this time-saving capacity. As Affleck states, the patent process lasts 25 years; if a company spends 18 or 20 years bringing a product to market, that leaves five to seven years to recoup those costs associated with research and development.

“If you can shorten that process to just seven years from development through regulatory approvals and to market, then that recoupment is much more predictable and, subsequently, the risk reduces and the price point to the consumer is usually less,” says Affleck. “The whole investment cycle changes depending on how those timelines adjust.”

The ‘R’ word

The great unknown factor for CRISPR’s future lies in the reaction of regulatory agencies. There is little doubt about its potential; combined with transgenic and conventional breeding practices, CRISPR stands to alter the pace and involvement of researchers and investors. One scenario that Whale sees as plausible, which would help the scientific community, is to “share the wealth.” Nations are now struggling with the pace of innovation and how their respective regulatory agencies keep up. He hopes to see greater harmonization, to the point where different countries might be assigned different tasks in the same project. That could reduce duplication of data and procedures from country-to-country, opening the door on greater, less expensive and faster innovation.

“Regulatory keeping up with innovation is going to have some severe challenges,” says Whale. “At the same time, regulatory, as a science, could do a lot of things via machine learning or artificial intelligence, scanning the breadth of scientific, peer-reviewed articles, and finding the similarities and gaps to inform science what is necessary for regulatory and public approval.”

If regulatory agencies in this or in other countries put CRISPR-based technologies through the same onerous process as transgenics, and make it a costly process, investors will become discouraged, not encouraged, he fears.

“How governments choose to regulate these products will have an immense impact on the ability for plant breeders to create a wide variety of crops with a wide variety of traits,” agrees Affleck. As an export nation, he adds, Canada also exports regulations. “If we can set a strong, safe, predictable and consistent regulatory framework, we can share that with our trading nation partners, and that will benefit everyone involved.”

Kagale believes there are several factors in CRISPR’s favour: one is the release and the relatively calm reception to the genetic enhancement in Arctic apples, even though that was not a CRISPR development (it was via RNA interference (RNAi)). In keeping with CRISPR’s capability, there has not been the same external species incorporation that is the centre of something like Bt corn. Incorporating genetic components from outside species was the basis for slower regulatory approval.

“That was a major hurdle to implementing or applying genetic engineering efficiently,” says Kagale. “That is not an issue because with CRISPR, we can build a cultivar without any external genetic material or pieces of DNA. That would suggest the regulatory bodies are not going to treat it as a GMO, and if they did that, that opens the door. When a variety is treated as a GMO, it has to go through an onerous process and there’s a significant cost with that.”

The road ahead

Most researchers agree that CRISPR is an extraordinary step forward for genetic enhancement, for both human and plant biology. Beyond the questions surrounding regulatory issues or which crops are best suited to enhancement is the potential for future investment — and there are several sides to that part of the story. Whale refers to the potential for new investment interests as “busy and noisy” with the addition of more and smaller players, over and above the traditional participants. Unfortunately, that could see a “winners versus losers” approach, with some innovations inadvertently left behind.

On the other hand, Affleck sees the wider range of public- and private-sector breeders involved in CRISPR as a positive for innovation. The more players you have in a space, the greater the diversity of traits and environments turning out products that might not otherwise make it to the marketplace. From there, it’s possible to see more start-ups and venture capitalists entering the field.

But it’s China that draws Carey’s attention, where Beijing is reportedly investing 90 per cent of its agri-innovation dollars into non-GMO, genetic editing ventures. He likens that to Brazil’s adoption of cellular phone technology and avoiding the expense of land lines. China is stepping over traditional transgenics, and moving towards gene editing like CRISPR.

Kagale adds that there are other, alternative methods of genetic editing systems, which require more research and time for evaluation, including Cas-9 orthologs and Cpf1. They will help further improve the precision of gene editing.

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