Most of the varieties covered by PBR are from the public sector, and most are cereal varieties.

Plant Breeders Rights not so simple

New regulations give PBR regs more teeth, but breeders still want you to follow the law out of self-interest, not fear

Reading Time: 6 minutes When Plant Breeders Rights (PBR) got a major facelift two years ago, the seed trade in Canada responded with information campaigns saying that all was for the best. Upgrades in intellectual property protection weren’t a cash grab, farmers were told. Instead, they showed the international community that Canada takes property protection very seriously. That recognition, […] Read more

(Dave Bedard photo)

PBR breach to cost Saskatchewan seed grower $150K

Reading Time: 2 minutes A Saskatchewan seed grower will pay $150,000 to SeCan — the largest penalty in the seed company’s history — for breaching SeCan’s plant breeders rights (PBR). Harvey Marcil of Pasqua Farms near Moose Jaw, Sask., has also agreed to stop making unauthorized seed sales and was expelled from SeCan’s membership, Todd Hyra, SeCan’s business manager […] Read more


(Limagrain.com)

Canterra, Limagrain plan cereal breeding j.v.

Reading Time: 2 minutes Canada’s recent moves to tighten protections of plant breeders’ rights are getting the credit for encouraging a new private-sector joint venture in cereal seed development for the Prairie market. Canterra Seeds and French farmer co-operative Limagrain on Thursday announced they would further tie up their wheat variety commercialization work through a new joint seed breeding […] Read more

(Country Guide file photo)

Canada ratifies UPOV ’91 seed treaty

Reading Time: 2 minutes Canadian crop commodity groups are hailing the federal government’s move to ratify Canada’s participation in the international UPOV ’91 treaty as a signal the country is “open for national and international investment.” Canada’s representatives to the World Trade Organization, on Friday in Geneva, deposited the government’s “instrument of ratification” for the 1991 Act of the […] Read more


Men watching sunset

Are Canada’s farm organizations actually listening to their members?

Amid the falling commodity prices and rising input costs, one question is getting louder. Who do our farm organizations really represent?

Reading Time: 7 minutes The last few years have been tumultuous for Canadian grain farmers, especially in the West. Not only have we seen the end of the single-desk CWB monopoly, but we also watched as Ottawa passed Bill C-18, the Agriculture Growth Act (which included the approving UPOV 91) and as major changes were made to AgriStability. Farmers […] Read more

Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz, shown here last month in Saskatoon, on Friday announced royal assent for his Bill C-18, the Agricultural Growth Act. (Agr.gc.ca)

Ritz’s Agricultural Growth Act now law

Reading Time: 3 minutes Banff — There was applause here when plant breeders, seed companies and farmers at the Prairie Recommending Committee for Wheat, Rye and Triticale heard the Agricultural Growth Act, with its stronger intellectual property rights, was about to receive royal assent. Immediately after the bill received royal assent Wednesday, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz tabled a treaty […] Read more