35 Years of Ag-West Bio: Learning from the Past, Looking to the Future

*Please note that this article is from the 2023- 2024 Annual Report. David Marit was Saskatchewan’s Minister of Agriculture at the time.  

The world has changed dramatically since Ag-West Bio was founded in 1989. Current and former leaders agree that the regulatory and policy landscape has also changed, and not always for the better.

They are united in a call for more agile regulations and for policy driven from the ground up. They also agree that Ag-West Bio’s role as a connector and supporter of innovation is one of Saskatchewan’s strengths and will be integral to the province’s success.

Ag-West Bio President and CEO Karen Churchill says, “We’re facing huge issues right now: inflation, labour shortages, global geo-political instability. I ask the question: What can we influence? Saskatchewan has incredible capacity in biosciences, and Ag-West has a unique role in facilitating that capacity to be transformative in business.”

Looking back: the right conditions 

Originally called Ag-West Biotech (the name changed in 2004), the non-profit was formed when the provincial government decided an entity was needed that could bring industry and research together to solve problems. Grant Devine, Saskatchewan’s premier at the time, says, “The concept was novel enough that no one was doing it in Canada. The company has grown in stature and reputation since then – which makes one feel good about being part of getting it started.”

Royal Hinther worked in the Saskatchewan government and wrote the cabinet documents and business plan for the creation of Ag-West Biotech. He says, “We were lucky. We had federal and provincial supports in place, and the support of multi-national companies. We also had world-leading research infrastructure. The National Research Council, Ag Canada, Innovation Place and the Saskatoon Regional Economic Development Authority all worked well together.”

The company’s first president, Murray McLaughlin, says “Agriculture and the bioeconomy have made amazing progress over the past 35 years. All people talked about back then was genetically modified crops. Now we’ve progressed in several sectors, from managing crops using biological pesticides and more efficient practices, to value-added ingredient development. There is a lot of global activity. Canada might be on the slow side, but hopefully we’ll catch up.”

What the world needs 

Saskatchewan is home to one-third of Canada’s ag-biotech industry, and the Saskatchewan Government’s Growth Plan has already surpassed some of its targets. The value of provincial agri-food exports hit $20.2 billion in 2023, years ahead of the goal for 2030.

David Marit, Saskatchewan’s Minister of Agriculture (when this article was written), says, “Our province is a place where good ideas can thrive, thanks to the unique combination of our world-class agriculture resources and an investment-friendly policy environment. Organizations like Ag-West Bio are a catalyst for this by providing a framework where those ideas become commercial opportunities.”

Wilf Keller, the company’s longest serving president and CEO, says Ag-West Bio is even more important now than it was in 1989. “You have all these tools that need to be integrated; we need to bring people together, and we need to do that work in person. Ag-West is perfectly positioned for this: it has the capacity to create a network, a consortium of organizations to lobby for more local decision making by scientists and organization leaders. We need a global reach to connect our members to international opportunities.”

These leaders worry that Canada is falling behind other countries; but they also believe Saskatchewan has yet to reach its full capacity in the ag biotech realm.

Regional autonomy creates regional relevance 

When Ag-West Bio was founded, organizations like the National Research Council (NRC) and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) – the bedrock for scientific excellence in ag biotechnology – had power to make decisions at the local level in support of regional efforts. That is not the case today.

Hinther says when the NRC reorganized, they centralized decision making in Ottawa. “They created an iterative process so overbearing that it made it almost impossible to get new and regionally relevant science and initiatives underway. Scientific excellence has been usurped by bureaucratic control politics and processes.”

McLaughlin notes that other countries are nimbler than Canada. “The Environmental Protection Agency moves much more quickly than we do. Commercialization happens in Europe much faster as well. We’ve already lost technology companies, like Hoechst, which were brought to Canada but then went back to Europe.”

In addition to reduced decision-making responsibilities in national organizations at the local level, Keller also bemoans the increase in political influence on Canada’s innovation strategy. “Federal ministers often tend to make announcements and discuss outcomes prematurely, before they can be firmly supported by quality research. Politicization of the science agenda can translate into bias in program funding. We need to stay focused on science, technology, and innovation.”

Churchill says, “If I have a dream, it is that policy and regulatory agencies will recognize they need to react more quickly to modernize our systems to avoid losing ground. There is nothing more painful to me than to see Saskatchewan research being commercialized somewhere else.”

Moving at the speed of change 

The biotech industry, like the world in general, is facing exponential rates of change. Every new technology creates opportunities for business start-ups, but we must move fast to keep up.

Devine says, “Change leads to a different approach to leading the organization because people are coming at you with brand new challenges. You have to be more aware, educated and trained in the technology that is coming in order to support your members.”

Thanks to innovation, the opportunity for advancement at all levels of agriculture is unprecedented. Churchill says, “The development of crops with increased disease resistance and abiotic stress tolerance to drought, salinity, floods or shorter growing seasons is one important area to address climate change. There is also potential to use artificial intelligence to maximize efficiencies in supply chain management and logistics to save time and fuel.”

McLaughlin adds that we need to pick up our pace on biofuels, “not to displace the petroleum industry, but to complement it.”

Keller says an exciting aspect of this is the integration of platforms to address complex issues. “If we take the best advancements possible and integrate them effectively as more become available, we can then address bigger systemic issues: environmental stress, carbon management and increasing yields. But it will take effort. These are not two-year projects.”

From the ground up 

For Saskatchewan – and Canada – to be competitive on the world stage, it’s important to return to the levels of co-operation and political will Ag-West Bio was born into. Keller says, “We need to solve problems, like protecting plants from disease and drought, and building healthier soils. We need federal government leadership to support this, but we need to build projects from the ground up, not the top down.”

The answer for how to do that is simple: start talking to people. Hinther says, “Talk about what needs to be done, through informal committees. And then put those things in your strategic plan: look at what needs to be done and start doing it.”

Ag-West Bio’s strategic influence could reach beyond provincial borders to Canada’s bioeconomy. McLaughlin says, “Other countries are implementing bioeconomy strategies and goals, but Canada hasn’t done that yet. It’s important for organizations like Ag-West to make governments aware of this, look at what is being done elsewhere, adopt a strategy so we can catch up and move ahead. It’s important for us to work with all levels of government and for all levels of government to work toward common goals.”

News this spring that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has updated its policy guidance related to plant breeding is positive for the agriculture industry. According to a CropLife Canada statement, “This coordinated guidance helps to create a clear, predictable and science-based regulatory system that stands to make Canada a world leader in attracting investment and innovation in plant breeding.”

Churchill says as Ag-West Bio passes its 35th anniversary, she will be focusing on advocating for the same level of investment into the biosciences that the country has poured into other areas, like clean energy. “Bioscience companies take longer to come to fruition, which means more support and patient capital are critical to success. The length of time and money involved is often why private capital is unwilling to invest, and it’s vital that governments step up and be creative in developing programs and aligned with a common strategy.”

This article first appeared in Ag-West Bio’s 2024 Annual Report.

Photo: composite artwork by Denis Design Works with iStock images.
Noelle Chorney is a Saskatoon-based freelance writer.

Previous Article – Acres for Education
Next Article – Analytics and orbitides: Prairie Tide catches the wave