HERITAGE OTTAWA

Ottawa’s Central Experimental Farm (CEF) has played a major role in Canada’s heritage of scientific research and innovation.

A casual visitor may not realize that the CEF’s seemingly placid fields are, in fact, active outdoor laboratories where significant research has been ongoing since the Farm’s creation in 1886.

CEF researchers have developed technologies that significantly increased the size, scope and value of Canada’s agriculture and food processing industries.

In the early 1900’s, Canada’s prairie agriculture was devastated by wheat stem rust, a fungal disease. CEF researchers developed the first stem rust resistant variety of wheat, known as “marquis” wheat. By 1920 nearly 5.5 million acres, representing 90% of Canada’s prairie wheat crop, was of the “marquis” variety.

Research by CEF scientists helped Canada to become the world’s largest exporter of oat grain and oat products. CEF researchers developed unique oat varieties such as “hinoat”, the first high protein oat and “gehl”, a hulless oat sometimes called the “rice of the north”. Today, Canadian oat exports account  for 50 to 70% of world trade and contribute millions to our economy.

CEF scientists persuaded the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to allow the use of canola oil as “safe for human consumption”, thereby creating large export markets for Canadian canola and its by-products, oil and meal.

Thirty years ago, corn and soybean were warm weather crops whose Canadian production was limited to Southern Ontario. CEF scientists developed high yielding varieties of corn and soybean suitable for growth in cooler climates elsewhere in Canada. Thanks to CEF research, modern corn and soybeans are now thriving national crops from the Maritimes to Alberta.

Planting for corn and soybeans is currently estimated at between 8 and 9 million acres. In 2013, farmer’s cash receipts for these two crops alone surpassed five billion dollars.

The beneficial impacts of CEF research on our economy, food production and food security cannot be overstated.

In recognition of its historical, cultural and scientific significance – and the need to protect it from encroachment and inappropriate development – the Farm was designated a National Historic Site in 1998.

The Central Experimental Farm National Historic Site Management Plan was created shortly afterwards to “sustain a cultural landscape of national historic significance through a reinvigorated and ongoing agricultural research program.”

CEF LANDS CURRENTLY IN USE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE RESEARCH

Contrary to appearances, the CEF lands are vital open-air laboratories where research of important consequence to agriculture, global warming and climate change continues to be conducted today. CEF scientists are currently leading a long-term international study to measure the rate of decomposition of crop residues In soil, a potential factor in global warming.

That research will be forever cut short by the loss of 60 acres of the CEF’s experimental fields to development, as the lands slated for donation include the fields currently in use for climate change research.

With other lands existing for development, we question how the loss of viable scientific research can be justified.

The Central Experimental Farm is a unique scientific cultural landscape, and an open-air laboratory.  The continued research benefits of the CEF are one strong argument to keep this National Historic Site of Canada intact for the benefit of current and future generations.