Grain Growers of Canada (GGC) is urging the federal government to provide greater transparency around planned staffing reductions and announced closures or consolidations within Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s (AAFC) research network, warning that the lack of detail is making it impossible to assess the long-term impacts on the grain sector.
The call comes amid growing concern about how changes at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada may affect applied research, innovation capacity, and regional expertise that underpin Canada’s grain production system.
“Transparency is essential when decisions affect the foundation of Canada’s agricultural research system,” Scott Hepworth, chair of Grain Growers of Canada and a Saskatchewan grain farmer, said in a GGC release Friday.
Without clear, program-level information, he said, the sector cannot fully understand the risks to future production and competitiveness.
AAFC has cited personnel confidentiality as a reason for limiting details on the changes. However, the GGC release said that while individual privacy must be respected, it should not prevent disclosure of which research programs, facilities, and capacities are being reduced or eliminated.
“Personnel confidentiality is not a barrier to clarity on program impacts,” Hepworth said. “Clarity of affected programs, facilities, and research capacity is both possible and necessary.”
The scale and pace of the announced reductions are raising alarms across the grain sector, particularly around the potential loss of long-term datasets, region-specific research expertise, and applied breeding and agronomic programs. GGC said decisions of this magnitude require clear impact assessments explaining how critical research functions were evaluated before changes were made.
According to the organization, the absence of detailed information shifts risk directly onto producers and industry partners. Once institutional knowledge is lost or long-running research is disrupted, those impacts can be permanent and felt well beyond the immediate budget cycle.
GGC is calling for immediate disclosure of affected programs, facilities, and timelines. The group says early clarity would allow producer organizations and research partners to respond, mitigate disruptions, and safeguard ongoing research critical to farm productivity and Canada’s global competitiveness.
GGC represents over 100,000 producers through 15 national, provincial, and regional grower groups.
