JANUARY 2018 GERMINATION.CA 33 IT’S SOMETIMES EASY for those of us focused on agricultural policy to lose site of the fact that public trust is key to driv- ing much-needed policy change. Policy change is much swifter and more efficient if the public supports the move. We in the plant science industry understand the benefits that modern plant breeding, including genetic engineering, has delivered to farmers, the environment, the economy and consumers. And we know that in order for Canada to continue to compete on the global stage, we need a more timely, predictable and transparent regulatory system for products of plant biotechnology, especially as new innovations come to the forefront. But we cannot assume that consumers intrinsically understand these benefits and they certainly don’t spend their time thinking about regulatory efficiency. Their big- gest concerns centre around food safety and affordability. They want to have confidence that the food they buy at the grocery store will be safe to feed their families. Everyone in the agriculture industry has a role to play in helping build public trust. We need to talk to consum- ers about how modern agricultural technologies benefit them. They see fear-mongering headlines about the dan- gers of GMOs. We need to counteract those with the real PLANT SCIENCE PUBLIC TRUST AND SOUND POLICY GO HAND-IN-HAND Stephen Yarrow Vice-President Plant Biotechnology, CropLife Canada yarrows@croplife.ca • croplife.ca story of modern plant breeding in a way that they can related to and set the stage for future innovations that will continue to improve their lives. By helping build Canadians’ confidence in our agricul- tural production system and their support for continued innovation in this space, we can create an environment that facilitates sound policy decision making. I’ve talked before in this space about the need for science-based decision making in Europe. In a region where politics routinely trump science, public trust has eroded and Europe’s population is more opposed to modern agricultural practices than almost anywhere else in the world. There is no amount of scientific information around innovations like genetically modified crops that will change the tide of public opinion there. This is a perfect example for Canada of what to avoid. While there are important efforts going on today to build public trust in agriculture, those who spend their days deep in the depths of agricultural policy work need to remember that we too have a vital role to play in this. We need to remember to talk to Canadian consumers in a way that they can relate to and to explain to them the benefits and safety of modern agricultural technologies. IN MANY WAYS, we’re just on the cusp of realizing what digital technology means for seed processing. Electronics are taking over just about everything. In an age when self-driving farm machinery is a reality, what was once science fiction is quickly becoming science fact. A lot of processing plants are already run by program- mable logic controllers (PLCs), which are used for starting and stopping the plant’s equipment. But as we’ve learned from just about every other industry out there, automa- tion slowly but surely shows us that replacing the human touch with the machine touch is not only possible, but also preferable. Humans make mistakes all the time. Machines only make mistakes unless humans tell them to. Hear me out. Years ago I had a job managing a processing plant. Every day, a new operator would come in and make their equip- ment adjustments, even though things were running fine. Everyone thought their own personal setting was better. In their mind, they thought the machine was doing a superior job, when in fact performance was the same. PROCESSING EQUIPMENT MACHINES ARE TAKING OVER, AND THAT’S A GOOD THING Jason MacNevin Owner, CanSeed Equipment @jason_macnevin • jmacnevin@canseedequip.com • canseedequip.com When you added it up, a significant amount of time was wasted tweaking things that didn’t have to be tweaked. The machines were doing fine — it was the people who were getting in the way. As PLCs get more advanced, people will no longer need to operate the nuts and bolts of processing plants — fans will open and close electronically and tables adjust automatically. Things will be very precise. People will still be needed to check on things, but the machines will be able to do much of the fine-tuning themselves, and a central control room will run it all. That will result in a high-quality, consistent product. Fear not — new jobs will open up as machines begin to play a more prominent role in seed processing. For example, farmers will be able to retain staff to operate their cleaning plant instead of laying them off after har- vest. People will be needed to operate the control room and maintain the machines. As the saying goes, the future is now, and it’s going to become more exciting as time goes on. Stay tuned!