Stop the Cuts to Agricultural Research: Take Action Today!
The agricultural community was shocked to learn Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada plans to close critically important research facilities in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia, and to end the Organic and Regenerative Research Program, and to terminate 12% of AAFC personnel – 665 researchers, technicians, and support staff whose experience, knowledge and skills are highly specialized. Farm organizations are unanimous in denouncing these cuts.
Take 1 minute and send a letter today to:
Heath MacDonald, Minister of Agriculture
Mark Carney, Prime Minister
Buckley Belanger, Secretary of State (Rural Development)
John Barlow, Conservative Agriculture Critic
Sébastien Lemire, Bloc Agriculture Critic
Gord Johns, NDP Agriculture Critic
Elizabeth May, Green Party
And your own MP!
This paper petition is a simple and effective way to have an impact on the government. Anyone can download and print the petition, get 25 signatures and send it to an MP, who has a duty to present it in Parliament. The government needs to hear from individual Canadians. What better proof that people care than thousands of hand-written signatures on hundreds of paper petitions in the hands of MPs across the country!
Click here to download the petition, print and make copies. Once you have at least 25 signatures (two full pages), mail the signed petitions to a federal Member of Parliament and ask them to present the petition in Parliament.
What is at stake?
- Public plant breeding of new varieties that grow well and produce high quality crops in Canada’s challenging and varied growing conditions.
- Land needed and used for multi-year, multi-location trials that provide data on new varieties to ensure they meet performance, quality and disease-resistance standards for commercial production in Canadian growing conditions.
- Plant breeding for crops needed for sustainable production, crop rotations, soil health and valuable diverse markets including fruits and vegetables that are necessary for a strong Canadian agriculture and food sector.
- Research into serious plant diseases, prevention and management.
- Long-term studies by AAFC scientists, universities and other partners using AAFC research sites will be cut short, and cannot be replicated if research centers are closed. These include studies about sustainable livestock production, comparisons of different crop production practices, pesticide testing under varied conditions.
- Purpose-built equipment and facilities, designed for efficient and accurate research, and which are not commercially available, such as the controlled environment seed storage building at Indian Head, the pesticide research building at Scott, built in 2025, research plots with continuous data sets going back decades, specialized lab equipment, etc.
- Germplasm resulting from decades of plant breeding research that may be destroyed due to aborting research in progress or destruction of valuable collections that can no longer be housed.
- Research partnerships with AAFC at the targeted facilities and by scientists being terminated funded by farmer check-off dollars will no longer be possible, and loss of AAFC capacity will limit future use of this farmer-directed funding.
- The viability of small, private research groups that will no longer have access to land or facilities when they can no longer partner with AAFC research facilities
- Multiple millions of dollars worth of farmer check-off dollars invested in research partnerships that will end.
- Benefits of future research that will no longer be possible.
The seven research facilities and the Organic and Regenerative Research Program are vital parts of a sophisticated and integrated network designed to maximize the value of agricultural research in Canada. Without it, Canada will be denied the benefit of future research: problems will not be solved, new ideas will not be tested, new plant varieties will not be developed. Canada is a vast country with a wide range of growing conditions, with rapid change occurring due to the impacts of climate change. Research done in other countries, or by large corporations with a profit motive, will not provide what Canada needs.
Take action today to demand AAFC reverse this short-sighted plan!
