Moving Forward in

AgriculturePast achievements, current capacities and future

possibilities

Cami Ryan, B.Comm., Ph.D.

College of Agriculture and Bioresources, University of Saskatchewan

North Okanagan Dairy Seminar and Trade Show

March 7, 2014

Salmon Arm, BC

Agriculture

in the PAST

Agriculture

TODAY

PAST

AchievementsCURRENT

capacities

Agriculture

MOVING

FORWARD

Rural / urban

divide

Misinformation

Misperceptions

of expertise

Ag’s growing

image

problem?

Growing

world

population

Diseases,

pests, H2O

shortages

“…he who does not know the past

can never understand the present,

and he certainly can do nothing for

the future.“- J.G. Diefenbaker -

Ag in the past…

Photo courtesy: Gail Bruckner

Govt of Canada archives

1800 to 1960…

Rasmussen 1962

Circa 1908-1915…

Rasmussen 1962

Circa 1908-1915 http://postalpicture.blogspot.ca/2010/06/harvesting.html

Data source: M. Bellis 2013

The evolution of food production

Urbanization in Canada

1851 to 2001

Reimer in Hiller’s (ed) Urban Canada: sociological perspectives 2005

Agriculture: Then and now

Old Rural Economy New Rural Economy

Homogenous culture Diverse culture

Simple & repetitive Complex

Resource commodities Services & amenities

Low mobility High mobility

Local relations matter External relationsimportant

Low knowledge demands High knowledgedemands

Reimer in Hiller (ed) Urban Canada: sociological perspectives 2005

Agriculture in Canada Today

Important to our economy

$70 Billion in economic activity in 2008; jobs & GDP

Grain farming & beef operations

‘backbone’ of Canada’s ag economy

CROPS: 54.6% of total farmland

BEEF: 31.2% of total farmland

ORGANICS: # operations 2006 to 2011

Ontario and Quebec greatest gains

Ag’s changing structure:

Fewer farms, bigger farms

More renting, less owning

StatsCan 2013

Past achievements

and current capacities…

Slide courtesy: Dr. Steven Savage “Applied Mythology”

Current capacities

Moisture control of grain

In-field control of storage pests

Controlled atmosphere

transport/storage

Post-harvest treatments

(fungicides, sprout inhibitors,

ethylene management, waxes…)

Active packaging

Slide courtesy: Dr. Steven Savage “Applied Mythology”

New technologies

Precision farming (seeding,

irrigation, fertilizer, crop

protection)

Sensor technology (water,

nitrogen)

Remote sensors (drones)

Robotics in dairy farming

Wireless data transmission

3D printing

DATA!

Traditional Breeding

Unguided SelectionRootstocks for

perennialsCloning Perennials

Ancient

Methods

Hybrid Crops

Mutagenesis Breeding

Wide Crosses

Doubled Haploids

Early to

mid-20th

Century

Epigenetics,

Transient ExpressionTransgenics

Marker Assisted

Selection

Enhanced Ploidy

Micro-biome

Selection

Gene Editing

RNAi

Apomixis

Modern

Methods

Slide courtesy: Dr. Steven Savage “Applied Mythology”

Sustainability

AAFC: “meeting the needs of

today without compromising the

needs of future generations…

improving the standard of living

by protecting human health,

conserving the environment,

using resources efficiently and

advancing long-term economic

competitiveness.”

Issued by Direction

of Hon. W.J. Roche

Minister of the Interior

Ottawa, Canada, 1914

No till: a Western Canada story

Reduces…

Number of passes

moisture loss

Soil erosion

Costs: fuel, labour

55%-72% of Canada’s total seeded

land is cultivated using no-

till/conservation till practices

(StatsCan 2011; CropLife Canada)

Lafond and Clayton, 2010; Bodnar, 2013; Derpsch and Moriya, 1998Photo courtesy: M. Wipf, AB

Photo courtesy: G. Stamp, AB

Pesticides and use

Pesticides

with

increasing

safety and

efficient

delivery

Slide courtesy: Dr. Steven Savage “Applied Mythology”

Yearning for the past?

Photo courtesy: Gail Bruckner

Social Media -> ‘just in time’ users

72% use mobile technology (Pew Institute 2013)

Social networks

Social media

Rise of the ‘citizen journalist’ (Gant 2007)

Blogs / online diarizing

Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc

megaphone for misinformation!19

Words and images… misleading

Does Agriculture suffer from an

image problem?

Dog noses or space aliens?

HUMAN COGNITIVE HABITS

22

Misplaced

perceptions of

who the

EXPERTS really

are…

an

Agri-Intellectual

Celebrity influence & mass media

24

Canola 96%

Soybean 91%

Corn 77%

Sugarbeet 91%

GE crops: Canada and the world

Map Source: International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) 2014

Independent organizations that attest

to safety of GMOs

American Association for the Advancement

of Science

American Medical Association

World Health Organization

National Academy of Science

Royal Society of Medicine

European Commission

American Council of Science and Health

American Dietetics Association

American Society for Cell Biology

American Society of Microbiology

American Society of Plant Sciences

International Seed Foundation

Source for Food, Agriculture and Environmental

Issues

Crop Science Society of America

Federation of Animal Science Societies

Society for Invitro Biology

Society of Toxicology

French Academy of Science

Royal Society of London

Royal Society of Canada

Seven of the World’s Society of Academies

Food Standards Australia New Zealand

The Union of German Academics and Societies

….MORE!

27Photo: J. Kamiya-Rose

Lots of ‘good news’ stories

out there…

How about them apples?

(almost?) Canadian success story in

the making

Under CDN & US regulatory review

Okanagan Specialty Fruit, B.C.

Non-browning

Arctic Apple™

Photo credit: Andy Kristian Agaba / © Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Challenges

29

No silver bullets!

“…no single agricultural technology or

farming practice will provide sufficient

food for 2050…

instead we must advocate for and

utilize a

range of these technologies in order to maximize yields.”

Mark Rosegrant, Director, International Food Policy Research Institute

Moving forward in agriculture (S. Savage (2014))…

Address barriers to the use of “state-of-the-art” farming methods

Address the key limitations to the productivity of farmers in the developing world

Use the complete “tool box” to enable farmers to be as efficient as possible in their use of key resources

Stop demonizing agriculture and imposing limits upon it which are purely about marketing and/or ideology

32

Address the ‘gaps’ – talk

about agriculture!

10,000,000

calories,

two ‘hollow legs’

&

lots

of

‘chat’

‘Hayden’ Phenotype

‘Hayden’ Genotype

Farmers are innovative and

resilient folks…

Photo courtesy: Bill Price

Bright

future!

Foxglovefarm.com

CCAGR.com

Photo

cre

dit

: D

ebra

Murp

hy

BLOG: doccamiryan.wordpress.com

@DocCamiRyan

Cami Ryan on science, tech & ag35

MOVING FORWARD IN AGRICULTURE

Cami Ryan, B.Comm., Ph.D.

College of Agriculture and Bioresources

University of Saskatchewan