Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee, for the invitation to appear today.
My name is Doug Miller. I'm the executive director of the Canadian Seed Growers' Association. CSGA is Canada's national seed crop certification authority. We have partnered with the Government of Canada for over 100 years to be able to deliver Canada's seed certification program.
You may be wondering what seed certification has to do with business risk management. Well, consider this: Nine out of 10 bites of food start with seed. Seed is how plant breeding innovation gets to a farmer's field. Every variety that handles drought better, fights disease or yields more under tough conditions reaches farmers through our seed certification system. When a farmer plants certified seed of a current proven variety, they are reducing their risk of production loss before a single dollar of BRM spending is needed. That makes seed certification a strategic risk management tool, not just another input.
The reality is that too many Canadian farmers are planting varieties that are 10, 15 and sometimes even 20 years old. That is hurting their productivity and leaving them exposed to risks that their crops are simply not built to handle. When things go sideways, and they do, BRM programs are left picking up the tab.
Earlier this year, Nicholas Tyack, a researcher at the University of Saskatchewan, uncovered what slow variety adoption is costing Canadian farmers. He had his estimate at hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue each year, approaching potentially $1 billion in 2024 alone. The numbers he exposed are striking. For context, the most widely grown durum variety of wheat in Saskatchewan last year was CDC Transcend, which was released in 2012 and planted on approximately one million acres. For perspective, that's equivalent to almost 70% of the whole of Prince Edward Island. The top red lentil variety was CDC Maxim, released in 2007. Staying on these older varieties is costing producers more than $10 per acre in lost yield revenue.
In the forage sector, it's even worse. Many of the varieties being grown today were developed in the 1950s and 1960s. This is not a niche problem; it's a national one. BRM programs are quietly absorbing that cost year after year.
The data I've just outlined here comes from the Saskatchewan crop insurance program. The BRM system already is sitting on evidence of potential underlying problems, but what it does not have yet is a policy response. Plant breeding is one of the most direct tools we have to reduce the risks that drive farmers to BRM programs in the first place. Dr. Richard Gray of the University of Saskatchewan has shown that crop breeding investment returns roughly 30 times more value than BRM spending. That number, along with his research, deserves this committee's attention. I would encourage you to reach out to Dr. Gray about his findings.
Canada, unfortunately, is moving in the wrong direction. The recent closure of AAFC research stations is eroding our ability to develop new varieties and reducing farmers' access to better genetics. That means more production risk and more pressure on BRM programs in the future. The decision to close these stations will be felt not tomorrow but by the next generation of Canadian farmers and future BRM programs. The varieties that we need in 2035 are being developed today. These closures are disrupting our innovation pipeline.
This also matters for trade. Canada is working hard to diversify our export markets, which is fantastic. To compete globally, our crops need to perform. Farmers growing varieties from the early 2000s or the 1950s are not on the same footing as producers in countries that have built real incentives for adopting new genetics. This is not a farm issue. This is a competitiveness issue.
Our recommendations are straightforward. First, protect public plant breeding investment moving forward. Treat it as an essential infrastructure for agricultural resilience, not a budget line item to cut. The 30:1 return on investment in this space is very well documented. I know it was discussed at this committee recently. Second, use BRM programs to encourage farmers to invest in newer genetics. If older varieties are a measurable driver of production risk, the BRM framework should respond to that. Even getting producers to update their genetics from every 10 years to every five years would be significant. Third, ensure the timely completion of the CFIA's seed regulatory modernization process, which has been under way for almost six years now.
BRM programs are essential for when things go sideways. However, there's a lot we can do before it gets to that point, such as adopting new varieties that can lessen the burden on these programs moving forward.
Thank you.