A diversity of opinions were expressed during a public forum on seed royalties at the conclusion of CropSphere on Wednesday afternoon.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) is currently holding consultations on two proposals. One is an end point royalty on all delivered grain and the other is a trailing royalty collected on farm saved seed for varieties developed after 2015.

Seed companies say Canada is falling behind our major competitors in wheat breeding, while some farmers fear losing the option of being able to reuse cereal crop seed without paying a royalty.

The two hour session started with a detailed presentation by the AAFC’s Carla St. Croix. That was followed by nearly 60 minutes of comments and questions from the floor.

This is a montage of some of those comments:

AAFC will have presentations at a few other producer meetings in Western Canada over the next few week. St. Croix explains what will happen after that

St. Croix emphasized several times that even though two options are being presented, that does not mean a final decision has been made on the seed royalty issue.