Canadian Seed Growers’ Association (CSGA) executive director Doug Miller is stepping down after 15 years with the organization, marking the end of a tenure defined by transformation, modernization, and rising urgency around Canada’s seed system.
In this interview following his departure announcement, Miller reflects on his career and warns of the mounting challenges facing Canada’s public and private plant breeding systems. “Seed is the start of so many value chains,” Miller says, stressing the critical role that seed innovation plays in Canada’s food production and long-term competitiveness.
Miller, who joined CSGA after working with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, is credited with leading the digitization of the association’s operations—shifting from paper-based systems to a fully digital model. That early initiative laid the groundwork for broader reforms, including CSGA’s contributions to the seed regulatory modernization (SRM) process.
Under his leadership, the organization recently received a national governance award from the Governance Professionals of Canada, a recognition Miller described as “a nice kind of cherry on top” of years of work to strengthen CSGA’s foundation.
Despite these achievements, Miller says he leaves behind “unfinished business,” particularly on two major files: seed regulatory modernization and sustainable funding for public plant breeding.
SRM, which he describes as “one of the biggest files… in the last 30 years,” aims to reimagine Canada’s seed system. CSGA has advocated to become the lead administrator of a future digital single-window system for seed certification—a proposal still awaiting regulatory progress.
Even more urgent, Miller says, is the need to stabilize funding for public plant breeding. With retirements, closures of research stations, and dwindling investment in trial sites, he fears Canada is headed toward a seed innovation shortfall.
“You’re going to wake up in five, ten years… and we’re going to say, where did our productivity go?” he warns, calling for farmer involvement in shaping future policy. “Status quo is not working. We need a plan.”
Miller’s remarks come amid broader uncertainty in Canadian agricultural research, including cuts at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Budget austerity and lack of reinvestment threaten public infrastructure, he says, while some private firms question their return on investment in Canada. The result is a sector “getting hammered from all sides.”
“This is a problem that’s going to impact us for generations to come,” he says, urging industry and government to act before vital infrastructure disappears permanently.
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Okay, there's big news in the the farming group executive world. There's been a lot of movement lately and one of the big ones was announced last week. That is Doug Miller. He's the executive director at the Canadian Sea Growers Association. He is stepping down and I had a chance to catch up with him last week after he made the announcement. Hey, Doug, how are we doing?
Hey, Shaun, nice to see you again. You know, Christy Freeland and I had a pact. Whenever she goes, I go. So her news hit the wire there on Friday, so I was quick to follow suit. No, but jokes aside, it was a big decision for me and also CSGA to be able to step away. I've been with the organisation for 15 years. It feels just like yesterday I joined that group, leaving the cfia. But it's been a great adventure and the association's in such a good spot. A lot of momentum coming out of all of our key files like seed regulatory modernization. The organisation is in good shape and it's ready for its next leader to be able to take it that next chapter.
Yeah, I think your exit comes with a little bit less controversy in terms of areas of conflict and stuff like that compared to Ms. Freeland. But I guess, Doug, what's in your time in leadership there at csga? Is there something that you remember as one of your kind of your. That was, that's the, that was the pinnacle or that was the, the change or the thing that we did that I'm kind of the most proud of.
Yeah, I think there's a few. You know, whenever I first joined the association, so back 15 years ago, it was very paper based and, you know, having sat on the side of the regulator on the other side. One of my first jobs when I got over to CSGA was digitising the system. And so that's kind of created a really strong foundation for the organisation to really build off of. And it's kind of one of the cornerstones of our seed regulatory modernization vision, kind of bringing that digitization to the whole value chain. You know, just recently we also won a key governance award from the governance professionals of Canada, which was a real nice kind of cherry on top for me for our organisation to be able to win. That really talks about, you know, what an organisation can do when it has strong governance. So this was an award, you know, we were up against folks like Purolator, Mapledy, Sports and Entertainment and, you know, Seed Growers takes home the big prize of the night. So that was kind of those two. I think I'll look back on and really kind of cherish for years to come.
A lot of times when a leader steps away from an organisation or a company, did I leave it in a better place? And I think that a lot of the membership, I don't want to speak for them, but my perception is the membership would say CSJ is in a lot better place with Doug being here.
Yeah, no, and I think that's a reflection of just the organisation investing in me over the years and the last five years have been really about setting about re establishing the strong foundation of the organisation because as a board and as staff, we really believe that the organisation has a really bright future. You know, seed is the start of so many value chains out there. So to be able to have a strong seed system was really important. But again, it wasn't done in isolation. It wasn't just one person, it was a whole team effort. And CSG has got a great team back in Ottawa and a great board that's highly engaged and I'm really excited about where they'll go next.
Is there a piece of unfinished business that you leave for? No, no. In the seed industry there's always unfinished business. But what comes to mind in that area for you?
Yeah, so the first one would be seed regulatory modernization. You know, one of the biggest files that we've seen in the Canadian seed space in probably about 30 years. It's about reimagining what a modern seed system looks like. So we're just on the edge of going to the Gazette process. CSJ has put forward a really strong vision about what a positive change looks like. CSJ becoming the main administrator and doing so through a digital single window. So that's one file. So, you know, the next person will be able to kind of get that over the line. You know, that's one. The other one would be public plant breeding. What happens next? You know, how do we create a sustainable funding model for plant breeding, public or private, in this country? And I know that this is a file that's going to affect a lot of the listeners here because you might not be a seed grower. But you are relying on genetics coming out of public and private plant breeding programmes to be able to help fuel innovation on your farms. And so this is one that we were just gearing up for. But I think, you know, the rest of the sector will have to come around this topic and really figure out what, what comes next.
Yeah, I agree with you on the latter for sure, is it impacts everybody. And you may not be a retailer. A lot of times I think commercial farmers think, well, I'm not in the seed industry, but it does impact everybody. Has to everybody plant seed every year. So, yeah, it wraps everybody in and trying to create a structure, you know, a context, an environment for public breeders to thrive and those that system to thrive, but also where that thriving system doesn't deter private investment. Right. And have both of them flourish because behind the scenes, those two entities, they, they do work together, private and public.
Absolutely.
In Canada and in other jurisdictions. Right. And so that all sounds like, okay, guys, just figure that out this afternoon. It's not that easy. It, like it's, it is really, really difficult. And it's going to be a, it's going to be a tough pull.
Yeah, no. And it's not an either or. How do, how do we create a system where both are able to flourish? And I think the problem with this is that the platform isn't on fire for a lot of folks, you know, rowers out there. And whether, wherever you're out in the country, you're still getting great genetics, you're getting that new innovation. And so you don't think there's a problem, but you're going to wake up in five, ten years from now. Whenever the genetics that we need, you know, at that time, they're not going to be there. And we're going to say, like, where did our productivity go? Where did all of our disease packages go? And this is something where groups like us, groups like Seeds Canada, and hopefully other producer and commodity groups are going to be able to raise the alarm bells here to say we need a plan. Status quo is not working. And that's kind of what we've been advocating government on in the last number of months, is we need a conversation with farmers at the table to decide what happens next. It can't just be a budget bill. It can't be early retirements, like what we heard like last week with farmers at the table, because they've invested millions of dollars through checkoffs, through royalties, and they need to be part of that conversation moving forward.
And this is the challenge we're trying to create this thriving environment that's an investment long term for the access to genetics for Canadian farmers. While we have, you know, private industry questioning the return on investment in Canada, the public system, not necessarily like out in front headline budget cuts, but it's not like there's, it's not like that budget is increasing. There's a lot of talk about austerity at AFC and some of the challenges Mr. McDonald has, like, so it's kind of like where they're, you're kind of being, this issue is kind of getting hammered from all sides here right now.
But once we start to see at a Canada, you know, retirements of key plant breeders that we should be building around versus letting go whenever we see research stations closing, trial sites not being renewed. These are all critical infrastructure pieces that once they're gone, they're really hard to bring back. So I don't think the status quo is what's going to drive us to the future. I think we need to be able to reimagine what that looks like. But again, it starts with a conversation and we tried these conversations over the last number of years and some of them have gone fairly rocky. But now a lot of the cracks that people told us were happening, they're very apparent now. Yeah. So I hope that the sector, my one parting wish for the Canadian ag sector is figure this out before it's too late. Because once the infrastructure is gone, it's going to take forever to be able to rebuild. And this is a problem that's going to impact us for generations to come. If we're not thinking about, you know, our, our sector in, you know, 10 year, 20 year increments, we need to be able to have a plan. And right now we have no plan.
The no plan and lack of guidance. And the worst case scenario here for farmers, Doug, is that the private side of the equation says Canada is uninvestable like this. We can't do it, leave. Meanwhile the government, it's a slow death on that side because of, you know, not replacing people that have left. And you know, you mentioned some of the trials and all that kind of stuff. We're kind of left with an empty bucket and we can, and we can survive on it on that, you know, an empty bucket for a number of years because there's stuff in the pipeline, in the system. But at some time that runs out and we are left in a massive deficit position. So there's that something the industry, that's real challenge for the industry going forward on The SRM file. That just seems like it's something that's been going on forever. Doug, just give us a heads up here quickly. What are the things to. What's. What's next for that whole. For that file?
Yeah, so we expect the CFI to release the what we heard report by the end of the month. So that's going to be a good sign to say because this was a consultation on CFI's policy, policy proposals where they'd like to be able to go. So the industry was able to respond to that. So we're excited to see where that goes and then the government will kind of go away and be able to start to do the whole regulatory process, do all the reases, make sure that hopefully applying an economic lens to the future of regulations and they'll come back for the Gazette process. So there's still some time there. But what we've advocating for with the government is that within the SRM framework there are a lot of things that don't require regulatory change that are operational guidance that are, you know, things that we can action today. There's support for them. Let's move those forward now versus waiting for another year or two years so that growers going into this upcoming season are able to have that red tape reduced and the administrative burden significantly taken away. And CSGA is a co regulator who also sets standards. We've been actively engaged in doing that on our side as well, looking at our standards to see how we can strip out red tape because we're also part of the equation and we've announced a number of measures within the last six months that have done that.
Okay, that's enough about the issues. Let's get back to Doug here before we wrap up. Okay, so we've talked about your time at CSGA in more in like the reflection and some of the issues around the future for the organisation. What about the future for Doug Miller?
Yeah, I think that is still unfolding as we speak. Some things will be coming out in the new year. I'm excited to be able to take a pause. Being an ED of a national association is a great privilege, but it's also quite a grind. You definitely rack up the air miles, as you know in your business, Shaun. So I'm looking forward to a nice little pause, taking some time with my family and then figuring out what's next.
Yeah, great stuff. Well Doug, all the best to you. Look forward to keeping in touch and seeing where your travels go next. And I really appreciate you joining us here today on real agriculture.
Thanks, Rob.
I really, truly do mean this. Doug Miller was going to be really missed at csga. And all the best to Doug in his future endeavours and can't wait to see where he lands.
