VP Life Sciences & Regulatory Affairs Ag-West Bio Inc.

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By Darcy Pawlik, M.Sc.

How often have you heard that Canada is a major player in global agriculture and production? If you are like many Canadians, you might have been lead to believe we are a force to be reckoned with. Unfortunately, the reality is far less dominant and the worst news is that we are falling behind when it comes to crop options, value and innovation.

Canada possesses approximately 10% of the land area available for cultivation to the Ukraine and only narrowly has more than Costa Rica. The important question then becomes, how do we compete? Do we grow more wheat, corn, barley and canola or produce more cattle and chickens?

The answer is to focus on innovative plants with novel uses. Plants encompassing petroleum replacement molecules, pharmaceuticals, vaccines and the ability to reclaim deserts would be a good start. However, the prospect of these inventions using biotechnology quickly gets dismissed as foolish, unrealistic and even dangerous.

The aspect that gets a scoff from naysayers revolves around the ‘acceptability’ of such plants, not the technology. Many people are not aware of the realities of agriculture, Canada’s relentlessly onerous regulations or the advanced infrastructure available, all in place to ensure our safety. But if it were safety we were concerned about, a world without biotechnology is a dangerous place compared to one with it.

It becomes difficult to fathom how Canadian agriculture will stay competitive with a sliver of the globe’s arable land, positioned in one of the most inhospitable climates available and subject to a population that seems to demand a regression of scientific progress in agriculture.

All of the same aspects that make Canada an inhospitable environment to grow crops can be used as an argument to start applying advanced technology to certain plants in order to breed new market opportunities. For instance, using a unique crop unable to survive over a prairie winter to produce vaccines for world-wide diseases at 1% of the cost of typical production makes sense on many fronts, but unfortunately, this possibility may never see the light of day due to perceptions of risk or worries of backwards ethics.

It comes down to governments lacking vision, the dismissal of science-based regulations and having to appease every Tom, Dick and Green Peace. A web of antidevelopment grows with this type of environment where the seeds of innovation are left to whither or be snatched up by our international neighbours and used to boost their economies and provide new opportunities for their citizens. All the while Canadians are left to lament what could have been as another home-grown technology is sold and developed elsewhere.

If this scenario is hard to believe, just look towards the massive increases in government spending by China, India, Brazil, Vietnam, Australia and the United States to create new drought, insect and disease resistant crops. Canadians should expect nothing less than keeping step with these major players. But to be competitive with our relatively small acreage, we need to go high value, and high-tech to compete.

Although my opinion may not be commonplace, I believe in Canada’s Science and Technology mandate, which is riddled with commitment to innovation and its adoption. I also believe in growing our own companies, not seeing them move south to capture incentives, larger markets and a more competitive regulatory system.

Lastly, I also believe in the talent, ingenuity and principles of the Canadians creating and trying to commercialize advanced products. It is time we all do our part and support Canadian innovation and embrace the tools we have worked so hard to create.