Value Capture/Value Creation

Sask Wheat is committed to being a part of a system that will maintain and grow funding for wheat research in Canada. This system needs to include a strong continued research effort by the public sector and producers have a strong history of funding public research efforts. Maintaining producer involvement and influence in the direction of research efforts is critically important.  

  • Sask Wheat is supportive of public plant breeding and farmer-directed research and varietal development.

  • Producers have historically been important funders of wheat research and varietal development and this will continue going forward.

  • Producers have provided variety development capacity funding through Core Breeding Agreements with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), and the western universities (University of Saskatchewan - Crop Development Centre, University of Alberta, University of Manitoba), as well as research project funding through the Canadian National Wheat Cluster, Genome Canada, and provincial funding intakes.

  • Producers have also partnered with both public and private sectors for wheat research. For example, Sask Wheat is involved in a public-private-producer partnership with the Crop Development Centre and SeCan to provide funding for the durum program at the CDC.

  • In 2017, Sask Wheat, the Alberta Wheat Commission and the Manitoba Crop Alliance formed the Canadian Wheat Research Coalition (CWRC). The CWRC will facilitate a collaborative approach to producer funding of regional and national research projects including the Canadian National Wheat Cluster and core wheat breeding agreements with AAFC and western universities. The CWRC will be an important vehicle to maintain producer involvement and influence in research and varietal development.

Producers have benefited greatly from contributing to check-off levies that fund varietal development. Research by Katarzyna Bolek-Callbeck and Richard Gray found a benefit-cost ratio for producer investments in wheat varietal development of 32.6 to 1 ($32.60 in benefits for every $1 invested). These benefits are returned to producers through improved varieties. Producer investments in research and variety development have helped fund major scientific breakthroughs, such as the sequencing of the wheat genome, which have continued to advance variety development.

  • Sask Wheat does not believe the current federal consultation on value capture mechanisms such as end point royalty (EPR) and trailing royalty models have provided sufficient opportunity for producer discussion and input. The options being presented in this consultation are too limiting.

  • Sask Wheat has not supported either of the options being presented in the federal government consultation. Clearly, most producers are unaware of the discussion taking place around value creation/value capture and the promotion of these two models has not resonated with producers.

Sask Wheat is supportive of farmers’ right to use farm-saved seed (FSS). There must be a full discussion with producers and producers must be in full support before making changes that may impact the use of FSS.

  • Development of additional options is needed. There are other options available to producers to support varietal development efforts, and these need to be explored through further consultation with producers.

  • The critical feature of any system is the creation of value to producers. If any researcher (federal, university, or private) can develop a new variety with significantly increased value to producers, that variety will be adopted rapidly and there are mechanisms currently in place (contracts) that will allow value capture.

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