Canada is still a global leader in agricultural productivity. But according to Stuart Smyth of the University of Saskatchewan, that standing rests on Canadian agricultural R&D investment made years ago — not on what the country is spending today. And the gap is starting to show.
In Episode 6 of On the Brink, Smyth breaks down a metric farmers already use to judge their own operations: total factor productivity, or TFP. It measures how much output a farm produces against how much it puts in. Between 1980 and 2010, Canadian agricultural productivity climbed. Between 2010 and 2020, it fell.
Canada is not alone. The same decline shows up in every one of its major competitors — the United States, China, India, Australia and Brazil. It is, Smyth notes, a global phenomenon. On the productivity measure itself, Canada still sits near the top. The problem surfaces somewhere else.
Where Canadian agricultural R&D investment falls behind
That somewhere is public funding. When Smyth compares how much Canada invests in agricultural research and development against its competitors, the country slips down the rankings. Today’s strong productivity numbers, he argues, are the return on heavy Canadian agricultural R&D investment made in the first decades of this century. As that investment eases off, he expects the consequences to follow on a delay — “we would expect to see lower productivity coming as a result, maybe in five, maybe in 10 years.”
Why Canadian agricultural R&D investment lags on the private side
Public dollars are only half the picture. In 2015, Canada adopted UPOV 91, a framework that strengthened plant breeders’ rights and was meant to make private investment in crop development more attractive. Yet a decade on, Smyth points out, there has been no matching jump in private-sector R&D. To him, that signals there is still room to better incentivize private money into Canadian agricultural R&D investment.
“If Canada wants to stay at the top of the total factor productivity, we need to increase our public sector investments, and we really need to figure out how to get more private sector investment,” Smyth says.
What Canadian agricultural R&D investment means at the grocery store
The stakes are not abstract. Canadians want to carry home more groceries for every dollar they spend. Smyth’s argument is that strong agricultural research is one of the most direct routes there: it lifts yields, and higher yields help stabilize — or even lower — the prices shoppers pay. Underinvest now, and that pressure runs the other way. Because of the lag between funding and results, the bill for today’s decisions may not arrive for another decade.
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On the Brink is a cross-country storytelling project about plant breeding in Canada. The goal is to spark an open, multi-perspective, ongoing conversation about what’s possible, what’s at stake, and how to seize opportunities ahead. On the Brink releases new episodes every Wednesday. Watch Episode 6 featuring Andrew Campbell and subscribe to have future episodes delivered directly to your inbox.
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