FOR DECADES, Canada’s variety registration system has been treated almost as untouchable — although regulators say the ability to change it has been there and it is not being taken advantage of. It’s been the mechanism that decides which new genet ics reach farmers’ fields, balancing quality, performance and market confidence. But one message has begun to surface: the system that once helped build Canada’s reputation may now be limiting its future. “If there was no registration system in Canada today, what would we design? I think most of us would agree we wouldn’t design the system we have,” says Jeff Jackson, general manager for SeedNet. It’s not just a provocative question. It’s the central theme of an emerging discussion. From Hallway Conversations to a Movement Those conversation didn’t begin in a boardroom. According to Saskatchewan Pulse Growers’ (SPG) manager of strategic initia tives and policy, Cory Solheim, it started the way many indus try shifts do: in hallway conversations, including after meetings of the Prairie Grain Development Committee (PGDC). People kept asking the same question: is Canada’s merit- based registration system still delivering the value everyone assumes it does? “We were hearing from a number of private breeding organizations that regulations were keeping them out of the pulse market in Canada,” Solheim explains. “Putting those two pieces together, staff made a proposal to the SPG board and said there might be an opportunity to move pulses, specifically peas and lentils, into Part III of the regulations, with the hope that we could get new genetics into farmers’ hands faster.” That proposal eventually grew into a workshop held at the recent Seeds Canada annual meeting in Saskatoon. That work shop involved roughly 40 people representing breeders, farmers, seed companies, processors, exporters and other members of the value chain. THE PUSH TO REIMAGINE VARIETY REGISTRATION IS INTENSIFYING A growing coalition of breeders, seed companies, farmers and industry leaders says Canada’s variety registration system is slowing innovation instead of enabling it. Their message: the biggest risk isn’t changing the system — it’s refusing to. By Marc Zienkiewicz 10 SEEDWORLD.COM/CANADA SEPTEMBER 2026 Their focus wasn’t on all crops. It centered on peas, lentils, flax, rye, triticale and faba beans — crops where many partici pants believe regulatory requirements have become dispropor tionately burdensome. The Cost of Waiting For Lorena Pahl, commercial product development manager at Limagrain Cereal Seeds, the problem isn’t theoretical. It’s measured in years. “Our own internal breeding program tests new lines for three years before we advance them into registration trials for another two years,” she says. “That’s five years total. We can reduce that to four at minimum.” One year may not sound significant to outsiders. Inside plant breeding, it’s enormous. A year earlier means disease resistance reaches growers sooner. Better agronomics reach the marketplace sooner. New export opportunities become possible sooner. Pahl also argues that reducing registration requirements doesn’t mean reducing science. Instead, she sees the opportunity to redirect money into research that creates more value. She estimates Limagrain’s program alone could redirect $50,000 to $75,000 currently spent navigating the registration process. That money could instead support field root rot research, genomic selection and stronger early-generation breeding systems. “It’s not a cost reduction to our R&D project,” she said. “It’s actually going to reallocate to higher-value research priorities.” The Uncomfortable Question Solheim challenges one of the industry’s longest-held assump tions: that farmers strongly support the current variety registra tion system. “I don’t believe farmers have a fulsome understanding of what the registration system is,” she says. “I think farmer sup port of variety registration is probably rooted in the belief that that’s where their data is generated. It isn’t.”
View this content as a flipbook by clicking here.