NOVEMBER 2026  SEEDWORLD.COM/CANADA   9
with Alberta Agriculture and Irrigation 
Minister Tara Sawyer.
The priority was regional variety 
testing. Publicly supported research sites 
have historically supplied expertise and 
infrastructure that helped evaluate how 
new varieties perform under differ­
ent growing conditions. As provincial 
and federal research capacity has been 
reduced, seed growers have become 
increasingly concerned about what could 
be lost along with it.
“Ongoing testing for varieties is 
obviously very important to us as seed 
growers,” Weigum says. “It’s about bring­
ing new varieties to market and reducing 
the risk for ourselves and for growers by 
having better regional testing.”
Regional variety trials may represent 
only one part of the work performed at 
government research sites, but the results 
help farmers compare varieties under 
conditions that resemble their own.
Without reliable regional informa­
tion, trying a new variety becomes a 
bigger gamble.
That matters because the value 
of improved genetics is only realized 
when farmers feel confident enough to 
use them. ABCSG has helped support 
research by agricultural economist Nick 
Tyack examining barriers to faster vari­
etal adoption on the Prairies. According 
to Weigum, the research points to bil­
lions of dollars in potential value being 
left unrealized when improved varieties 
are not adopted more quickly.
“How do we reduce the risk so that 
growers are more open to trying new 
varieties?” she says. For ABCSG, depend­
able regional testing is an important part 
of the answer.
Purity Begins Several Generations 
Earlier
The second concern raised with Sawyer 
involved federal testing services that sup­
port varietal identity and purity.
Although the issue falls outside the 
direct jurisdiction of Alberta’s agriculture 
minister, ABCSG wants provincial lead­
ers to understand its potential impli­
cations and raise it with their federal 
counterparts.
Weigum notes certain Canadian 
Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) testing 
activities have been paused, creating 
uncertainty about services used to con­
firm whether small variations in a crop 
remain true to type and whether higher 
generation seed plots conform to the 
variety they are intended to represent.
The implications may sound highly 
technical, but they ultimately reach the 
farm gate and the end user.
“We need to be able to move that 
seed confidently through the different 
generations and then finally to our end 
users,” Weigum says. “We know how 
important varietal purity is in certain 
end markets.”
Farming’s Shared Challenges
For Herron, who brings experience from 
the livestock and ecological goods and 
services sectors, the changing landscape 
makes this a particularly important time 
to help lead ABCSG.
“There are a lot of moving parts 
in the industry right now and a lot of 
changes,” she says. “We’re working really 
hard on being strategic with all of the 
different issues going on and all of the 
different players.”
During the meeting with Sawyer, 
Herron says ABCSG wanted to under­
stand the minister’s objectives instead of 
simply arriving with a list of demands.
Her experience outside the seed sector 
has reinforced her view that many of 
agriculture’s most pressing challenges 
cannot be neatly divided by commodity.
“Agriculture is a big family, and 
there are a lot of pressing and challeng­
ing issues that don’t just belong to one 
sector,” Herron says. “The ability to draw 
from experiences on the livestock side 
or the ecological goods and services side 
only strengthens the skills, assets and 
contacts we bring to the seed group.”
She sees that broader perspective in 
forums such as Team Alberta Crops, 
where questions involving government 
policy, research capacity and the future 
competitiveness of agriculture cross tradi­
tional organizational boundaries.
“It has been a false dichotomy in the 
past that we’re separate,” Herron says.
The board of ABCSG. Alberta and British Columbia account for more than 25% of Canada’s 
certified seed acres.

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