Seed growers in Western Canada who have yet to adopt seeds subject to a Variety Use Agreement (VUA) sometimes anticipate that the administrative aspects will be time consuming or difficult to learn.
Tanya Park, Bulk Storage Facility (BSF) Manager and Grader at Penwest Seeds near Three Hills, Alberta would like to dispel that notion, pointing out that administration is done through a robust, web-based platform operated by Seeds Canada, which is designed to handle everything from VUA agreements and declarations to compliance and royalty payments.
“Let’s say you’ve never purchased a VUA variety before. We enter your name, your farm name, your mailing address, email and phone number into the system,” she says, noting that a farmer can also self-register. “You then get a document that states what your side of the agreement is and you can sign it electronically. Then you come in and pick up your 200 bushels and we enter that transaction. The system will generate a follow-up the next year, having you state whether you used farm-saved seed.”
Farmers who use farm-saved seed of a VUA variety in subsequent years are required to pay a Variety Use Fee based on the number of acres they replant, a fee that’s set at the time the seed is purchased.
“If they grew barley in 2025 then cleaned their own grain to seed again the next year, they have to declare how many acres they put in,” Park says. “That fee might be $2 an acre. So, if they plant 100 acres of that farm-saved seed they’d pay $200, which goes directly back into breeding programs to support the development of varieties with Canadian genetics.”
If, however, a farmer who signed a VUA decides not to grow that variety in the future, there will be no charge.
“If you didn’t use farm-saved seed, it’s a moot point. You just report zero. No harm, no foul,” Park says. “Some guys just come in and get new certified seed every spring. They don’t plant any of their own farm-saved seed and so the fee is zero. They just carry on with their lives.”
Park acknowledges that when the VUA platform was first introduced in 2020, there were some hiccups, but points out that many changes have been made in recent years to make the platform more efficient and user-friendly.
“As with anything, when new things are introduced there’s always that little bit of a hump,” she says. “Things have improved. They’ve listened to us, they’ve listened to seed growers, and they’ve tried their best to make this as painless as possible. A lot of the stuff that was hard for us at the beginning, when just using the platform seemed cumbersome, has now been ironed out.”
Seeds Canada has further demystified the process by posting a series of handy training videos that step through every stage in the process from the initial contract through to the annual declaration process. Any farmer considering purchasing a VUA variety can watch these videos and familiarize themselves with the platform and the administrative process before making a commitment.
