Frustrated by a decade of unfulfilled promises about Canadian agriculture’s potential, Anthony Parker, commissioner of Plant Breeders’ Rights at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, is calling for bold action from Canada's agriculture sector.
“It’s time to make hay,” Parker tells Shaun Haney in this RealAgriculture interview. “It’s not time to start looking at the forecast again… it’s time to start doing things.”
This discussion builds off his LinkedIn column, which sparked widespread engagement by pointing out that despite numerous reports praising Canada’s ag potential, such as the Barton report and John Stackhouse's reports through RBC, progress has lagged.
“The rhetoric has been [high] but the results have been fairly low,” he says.
He outlined four practical steps to jumpstart innovation: cut red tape, recognize international regulatory equivalency, accelerate digitization, and take intellectual property seriously. “The one thing we have the most control over is the biggest threat to our future,” he said, referencing comments from Tyler McCann of the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute about the stifling role of Canada’s policy and regulatory environment.
Canada’s delay in adopting international standards was a key example: “It took us 26 years to comply with the most recent version of the Plant Breeders’ Rights treaty,” he says. “We need to be early adopters… so we can draw the innovation towards us.”
Culture, not capability, is the real barrier, he says. “We view ourselves as gatekeepers… instead of being a partner or an ally to agriculture.” Still, Parker sees reason for optimism: “I have not run into a single individual [in government] that doesn’t want to do good for the sector.”
It’s okay to pick winners, he says, something Canadian systems don't seem willing to do. "I believe our agricultural sector is a winner. We need to get behind it," he says.
Read the full editorial piece here
