62 GERMINATION.CA MARCH 2019 VALUECREATION: HOWTOHAVETHECONVERSATION A NEW TOOL HELPING YOU IN THE REALM OF RETAIL SEED SALES. Value creation has become an emotional topic for farmers. It doesn’t have to be. Germination consulted experts from government, industry and the seed grower sphere and posed common questions farmers have. Marc Zienkiewicz Carla St. Croix, Director, Innovation and Growth Policy, Strategic Policy Branch Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Carla is responsible for designing, developing and directing strategic advice related to innovation across the agriculture sector. Anthony Parker, Commissioner, Plant Breeders’ Rights Office Anthony was appointed to the position of commissioner in 2014, and given the mandate of advancing legislative changes to Canada’s Plant Breeders’ Rights Act. What is value creation? Value creation addresses the serious need for increased investment in plant breed- ing to support Canada’s cereal sector. Proposed models may have applicabil- ity to other crop kinds such as pulses, flax and other specialty crop producers. Variety development research for these crops is significantly under-resourced when we consider the long-term view with increased global competition and the rapid pace of new technology innovations. How would it work? Two proposals are on the table. •  End-Point Royalty: A producer-facilitated royalty collection system. Royalties are collected on harvested material (i.e. grain) at delivery points. The royal- ties generated would be distributed to breeders based on a variety’s market share, possibly using existing collection systems. •  Trailing Royalty: Royalties are collected on farm-saved seed that are derived from an initial purchase of certified seed. This fee will be invoiced to the producer every year that the farm-saved seed of the protected variety is grown. For both royalty models being consid- ered, it would only apply to new varieties protected by Plant Breeders’ Rights moving forward into the future (back-dated no earlier than Feb. 27, 2015). Is this whole value creation thing just a thinly- veiled attempt on the part of government to privatize the seed industry? No. The Government of Canada (through AAFC and CFIA) is conducting consulta- tions on the two proposed models at the request of the Grains Round Table, an industry group comprised of representa- tives of the cereals value chain (producers, seed growers, grain handlers, breeders, seed industry). The objective is to arrive at a preferred model that supports public and private breeding efforts, including small, medium, and large and micro businesses, agriculture universities, and partnerships between producers and breeders. This seems like a clever way to de-register old varieties and force me to buy seed every year. In wheat to date, there have been 463 wheat varieties registered in Canada in all classes. The number that have been dereg- istered that held a PBR designation is 13 out of 463. That’s less than 3%. There are no wheat varieties scheduled for de-regis- tration in the next three years. Even with the possible implementation of a value creation model, the public sector players AAFC and University of Saskatchewan will continue to be the prominent developers of new wheat varieties for the foreseeable future. As such, we expect no rush to de- register wheat varieties moving forward.