Change is inevitable, and sometimes it’s hard. Meaningful, positive change requires careful consideration — particularly when billions of dollars, businesses, livelihoods and the reputation of Canada’s high-quality grain value chain are at stake.
Canada’s seed regulatory framework will inevitably change, and a lot of that change is long overdue. The Canadian seed sector has been working under the same regulations for over three decades, and large parts of the regulatory framework are over 100 years old. While the regulations haven’t changed in over 30 years, the seed sector has.
Seeds Canada President
That is why the federal government’s initiation of the Seed Regulatory Modernization process — a review that includes the oversight, standards, and red tape that apply to seeds that are imported, conditioned, stored, tested, labelled, exported, and sold in Canada — is widely supported by the seed sector.
Throughout the past few months, a diverse group of our Seeds Canada membership of analysts, breeders, distributors, seed growers and processors have been working to outline the principles needed for a modern, diverse, competitive and growing seed sector to thrive in Canada.
After hearing perspectives across the sector, we have endorsed the following principles that should guide regulatory modernization.
- A diverse and inclusive seed sector-led and government-enabled partnership;
- A system that supports certified seed and delivers value for the seed sector and its customers;
- A regulatory framework that enables choice and is open, competitive, and accessible to all seed sector participants;
- An approach that is responsive, agile, and adaptable and easy to use and navigate;
- Regulations that foster innovation, growth, diversity and inclusivity and support continuous improvement. We recently released our Seed Regulatory Modernization position paper.
We feel strongly that these principles and the recommendations put forth in the position paper provide the direction needed to guide us towards a regulatory environment that will build a modern, diverse, competitive, and growing seed sector that benefits everyone in it.
To influence policies, regulations, services, and programs that impact all actors along the value chain, we must come at it from a sector-wide perspective. Our strength as an organization — and what drove our amalgamation — is the belief that we need to work together.
We envision a seed regulatory system that works for all actors along the value chain. It is why we place importance on a regulatory system that is seed sector-led and government enabled.
