16 SEEDWORLD.COM/CANADA NOVEMBER 2026 Ontario Seed Growers Find Their Voice Beyond Certification With public research under pressure and seed policy becoming more complex, the Ontario Seed Growers’ Association is using its proximity to government and its unusual mix of grower and industry leadership to ensure its members help shape what comes next. WHEN PHIL NADALIN became president of the Ontario Seed Growers’ Association (OSGA) in March, people offered two very different responses. “Most people have been saying con dolences,” he jokes. “But congratulations are nice, too.” The reaction reflects the workload that comes with leading a provincial seed association at a particularly complicated moment. Public plant breeding is under pressure, federal research capacity is being reduced and decisions involving seed regulation, intellectual property and variety development are becoming increasingly important to the people who produce pedigreed seed. Nadalin also represents something different about OSGA leadership: he is not a seed grower. A sales agronomist with Bayer Crop Science, Nadalin joined the OSGA board as an industry representative. Ontario’s board struc ture reserves seats for both growers and members of the broader seed industry, creating a formal place for those perspec tives to meet. That structure is especially relevant now. The questions confronting Ontario seed growers do not fit neatly into public- or private-sector boxes. New varieties may originate at a university, a federal research centre or a private company, but getting those genetics into farmers’ fields depends on cooperation across the entire system. “You’d think that coming from the industry side, it’s almost separate, but it really isn’t,” Nadalin says. “The public and private sectors are very intertwined.” The Branch That Can Speak Up The Canadian Seed Growers’ Association (CSGA) is not a lobby group — it serves as Canada’s national authority for pedigreed seed crop standards and certification. That responsibility gives it an essential but carefully defined place in the seed system. Provincial branches such as OSGA play a different role. They can speak directly about regional concerns, build relationships with provincial organiza tions and bring member perspectives into political discussions. “Given the structure of the provin cial branches, that becomes the place where we can provide input and share perspectives with our elected officials, whether federal or provincial, and be more involved in issues that are impact ing the everyday lives of our member ship,” says OSGA Executive Director Colleen Acres. For OSGA, that work became especially visible when OSGA hosted the Interprovincial Seed Growers Meeting in Ottawa in November 2025. Provincial seed grower representa OSGA hosted the 2025 Interprovincial Seed Growers Meeting in Ottawa.
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