Canada’s seed certification system is quietly undergoing its biggest transformation in decades — and the ripple effects could change how you farm, breed or sell seed.
The Canadian Seed Growers’ Association is in the midst of a broad standards modernization effort, aimed at increasing regulatory agility, streamlining processes, and better aligning with evolving breeding techniques and production practices.
Speaking at the CSGA annual meeting in Victoria, B.C., Mike Scheffel, managing director of policy and standards, walked attendees through the latest updates to Circular 6 and related certification frameworks. Among the highlights: digital reporting initiatives, new crop-specific standards, and a review of key isolation and land-use rules.
Scheffel, whose regulatory career spans CFIA, AAFC, and now nine years at CSGA, emphasized that many of the changes are incremental by design — but not insignificant in their impact.
“The goal is to ensure the regulatory framework supports innovation and is responsive to industry needs,” Scheffel said. “Even small changes — like adjusting isolation distances by a metre — can make a big difference for growers on the ground.”
Targeted Updates to Core Standards
CSGA’s primary certification document, Circular 6, continues to evolve through structured consultation with crop-specific working groups and oversight by the Regulatory Services Committee. There are currently eight active working groups focused on cereals, pulses, soybeans, hemp, and other crops.
“The structure allows us to be responsive while maintaining rigour,” said Scheffel. “We have eight crop-specific working groups right now covering cereals, pulses, soybeans, hemp and others.”
Recent updates include changes to forage and turf seed crop requirements, moving away from rigid visual field counts to a more science-based approach that considers cross-pollination risk and lab test separability. This year’s work includes a review of varietal purity standards in cereals and efforts to simplify land-use history requirements — a section of Circular 6 that growers have long flagged as overly complex.
“We want to preserve seed quality while allowing producers to adopt more sustainable cropping systems,” Scheffel said.
New Standards to Support Hemp and Hybrid Crops
Scheffel also addressed ongoing work related to hybrid hemp. While Canada legalized industrial hemp over 25 years ago, uptake has been constrained in part by isolation requirements and the lack of hybrid seed certification protocols.
CSGA is currently developing standards to enable commercialization of hybrid hemp and re-examining isolation distances for conventional hemp seed production.
“After more than two decades of legality, hemp has potential to finally break into the mainstream,” Scheffel said.
Digital Certification Pilot and Select Seed Reforms
A pilot project focused on select seed growers is testing an end-to-end digital certification process through the SeedCert platform. The goal is to eventually replace legacy systems — including Form 50 — and establish a new model for efficient, transparent tracking of select seed lots.
“We’ve seen an uptick in select seed bulk sales, and our existing rules haven’t caught up,” Scheffel said. “This pilot will let us model what a modern certification system could look like.”
Select seed, unlike foundation, registered, or certified seed, is managed solely by CSGA, giving the association more flexibility to pilot innovations like digital declarations and auto-tagging.
International Engagement
On the international front, CSGA remains active within AOSCA and the OECD Seed Schemes. Gail Harris, CSGA’s standards expert, recently chaired the AOSCA Standards Council and played a lead role in advancing new hybrid wheat protocols based on nuclear male sterility — a system developed by Corteva.
Though not yet deployed in Canada, Scheffel said the country is well-positioned to adopt the standard when the technology reaches commercialization.
Next Steps
Scheffel concluded by stressing that Canada’s seed certification system must remain dynamic.
“They’re designed to evolve with science, with markets, and with the needs of Canadian agriculture,” he said.
A dedicated consultation page is live on the CSGA website, and the organization continues to invite industry input — particularly where outdated standards may be acting as unintended barriers.
“We’re always looking for input — especially where the standards may be unintentionally holding back innovation,” Scheffel said. “Our job is to make sure the system supports both quality and progress.”
Progress is central to the conversation, Scheffel added. In response to a question about whether DNA testing could eventually replace traditional seed crop certification, he emphasized the importance of maintaining a balanced, steady evolution—from a purely phenotypic model to the current hybrid approach that integrates both phenotypic and genotypic assessments.
“While DNA testing can certainly identify the variety present in a sample, it tells us nothing about varietal purity,” he noted.
