12 SEEDWORLD.COM/CANADA SEPTEMBER 2026 “I’m not necessarily hung up on variety registration,” he says. “But I am hung up on data.” Pahl counters that seed developers aren’t proposing less information, just in a different package. “I really see it as a win-win,” she says. “We’re not saying we’re going to do away with data collection. I think there’s a huge opportunity where we can provide more data and more relevant data.” Even the Regulator is Listening Wendy Jahn, national manager of the Seed Section at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), notes Ottawa isn’t standing in the way of change. In fact, she says the regulatory framework was intentionally redesigned nearly two decades ago to allow it. “The CFIA changed our regulations in 2009 implementing a flexible variety registration system,” Jahn says. “At that time the expectation was that crop types would move amongst dif ferent parts of the regulations.” She points to soybeans and forage crops as examples of com modity groups that had already shifted to different regulatory categories as industry needs evolved. “We’re open to other potential movement,” she says. “I really feel that variety registration is in stakeholders’ hands.” Rather than asking whether merit testing should stay or go, she encourages the industry to ask a different question: which parts of the current system still create value? “It’s important that everyone who uses the system under stands that even for crop type subject to merit evaluations, what those merit criteria are is entirely up to the stakeholder recommending committees. They can be changed when and as needed if there is agreement by the committee.” Using faba beans as an example, Jahn notes that stakehold ers could decide to retain a single quality check — such as confirming low vicine-convicine levels — while eliminating other requirements they no longer see as necessary. In a nutshell, the future of variety registration doesn’t have to be dictated by regulators, she adds. If industry can build consensus and clearly define what it needs, the system is flex ible enough to evolve with it. Members of the various regional registration committees responsible for rye have already agreed that the best path for ward for rye is Part III, so it is a step ahead of the other crops. Proponents for change plan to continue forward progress, expanding their discussions to additional stakeholders and other regions in Canada, as well as having discussions with Canadian regulators.
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