CALGARY, AB: The Western Canadian Wheat Growers have made a submission to Health Canada’s proposed new guidance for the Novel Foods Regulation, focused on plant breeding.

The Health Canada consultation addresses issues such as gene-editing and the need to better understand the technology needed to address production and environmental challenges for both today, and tomorrow. The 2017 Barton Report identified Canada’s agri-food sector as having great potential to drive economic growth for the nation, all the more important as we move out of the COVID-19 pandemic. From this, the federal government set an ambitious target of $85 billion annually in exports by 2025. In order to achieve this, Canada’s regulatory approach for plant breeding must be updated.

The Wheat Growers are supportive of the recommended changes and believe that efforts in this area will help to address some of Canada’s pressing domestic food, health, and environmental challenges.

We can only imagine what other solutions await Canadian producers if they’re allowed access to new improved varieties with beneficial traits to solve other production, health and environmental challenges. And the reality is that these will concurrently benefit our economy when it needs help more than ever due to COVID-19.

The Wheat Growers submission may be read here.

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