It’s unlikely the Canadian Grain Commission’s decision to remove Garnet wheat from the Canada Western Red Spring wheat class as of Aug. 1 will be met with more than a ho-hum response from farmers who long ago abandoned it in favour of better genetics.
The variety’s historical significance is more because of its role in shaping the variety registration system than for its bread-making ability. In fact, as a bread wheat it sucked, which is why it was so pivotal.
In a 1990 article prepared for the Manitoba Historical Society, former CGC librarian Jim Blanchard says the controversy over Garnet dates back to the early 1920s and lasted more than a decade. The variety was popular with farmers and politicians wanting their votes, but not with milling and baking customers. The people both for and against Garnet were passionate; their battle spanned oceans, reached into the prime minister’s office and in retrospect, left the agriculture minister of the day looking a little foolish.
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“The controversy is instructive because, while it lasted, it gave a focus for many of the issues that have always surrounded and continue to surround the Canadian grain industry,” Blanchard wrote.
Garnet’s claim to fame was that it matured about 10 days sooner than Marquis, the dominant hard red spring variety available to farmers at the time. While Marquis produced the milling qualities flour processors liked, it was frequently damaged by frost before farmers could get it harvested. Garnet looked the same as Marquis, and it had the sought-after earlier maturity. It yielded a little better too — qualities that made it a winner with producers.
Preliminary tests on its milling quality flagged the yellow colour of its flour but otherwise looked promising. Importantly, however, some key steps in the quality evaluation checks were missed in the rush to get the variety into farmers’ hands, namely, several years of quality testing prior to its public release.
The variety had some powerful advocates in Ottawa, chiefly Minister of Agriculture W.R. Motherwell, a Liberal under the William Lyon Mackenzie King government who had been an influential farm leader before entering federal politics.
Western Canada was a wheat economy in those times and the crop figured prominently in Ottawa politics. The Conservatives, under Arthur Meighen, had decided to return wheat marketing to the open market after the first experiment with a Canadian Wheat Board in the early 1920s.
Farmers were furious. The Meighen government was booted out in the election of 1921, with not a single Conservative elected in the three Prairie provinces. Motherwell was one of two Liberals re-elected in the West, with the remaining 37 seats going to the Progressives. It’s important to note that all federal parties vying for power in Ottawa were pro-open market, but realized keeping western farmers on side over the wheat-marketing issue was tantamount to their political success.
Motherwell, was “naturally interested in protecting western farmers,” Blanchard said.
But based on subsequent milling and baking tests, the federally appointed Board of Grain Commissioners, which had the final say on what made muster for grain quality, determined Garnet wheat was inferior. The board decided that it should never be graded higher than No. 2. This meant it was automatically discounted in the marketplace, a decision that pit the board of commissioners against their farmer-friendly bosses in Ottawa.
But the grain trade understood the importance of preserving Canada’s newly minted reputation for quality; it backed the grain commissioners. Ultimately the Garnet discount remained in place, but the federal government stepped in to compensate growers for the difference. In the end, the introduction of earlier-maturing varieties that had the desired quality traits allowed the industry to move past the Garnet debacle.
It’s influence lingered on however.
“The very public squabble over Garnet had largely resulted from its being licensed before sufficient quality testing had been done,” Blanchard wrote, noting the process that resulted requires new varieties to undergo extended testing for quality before release.
That’s the very system the present federal government is now reviewing — with the stated objective of getting new varieties into farmers’ hands more quickly.
Now, as then, the debate is pitting the farmers who want quicker access to new varieties and their political allies in Ottawa against those who consider protecting Canada’s quality reputation to be paramount and customers who are openly questioning Canada’s commitment to their needs.
Up until recently, it was up to the Canadian Wheat Board to be the custodian of that reputation. Now, it’s up to the private trade to stand that ground, just as it did in the Garnet debate nearly a century ago.
