On-farm storage is a huge marketing asset

Europe is leading the way when it comes to wheat technology advancements, says Garth Hodges, who is the Bayer CropScience’s oilseeds manager based in Calgary. What does Bayer know about cereals? You wouldn’t know it by looking at its Canadian seed portfolio, but Bayer's most important crops, globally, are cereals — wheat, barley and oats. Western Canada needs major research investment on cereal seed and production practices to match Europe, Hodges says.

Of course, Bayer has a vested interest in promoting more intensive cereal production. European growers use a lot more crop protection products on their wheat, partly because they have to. European wheat crops are incredibly thick, the ground is moist, and the crop goes 10 or 11 months from seeding to harvest. But rather than discount Hodges’s comments, I will dedicate some of my blog space over the coming months to wheat research and production practices that could improve your returns from wheat. Wheat is a terribly important crop in Western Canada, and it doesn’t get the attention it deserves. Discussions on the future of wheat production too often boil down to whether we support or don’t support the Canadian Wheat Board. As Larry Weber once said, we have other important issues to deal with.

Back to Hodges. He says the biggest advantage Canadian farmers have over farmers in Europe and pretty much anywhere else in the world is your on-farm storage capacity. This gives you incredible flexibility in terms of identity preservation and market timing. His long-term view is that Western Canadian wheat production will move toward IP production of high-value varieties. That way, we move into a different market realm from the high-volume commodity wheat that Ukraine and other countries can produce far more cheaply than we can.