CALGARY, Alberta--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan 27, 2026--
Bayer Crop Science today announced an unprecedented $45+ million CAD investment to strengthen Canada’s leadership in canola innovation by establishing a cutting-edge canola innovation centre. Located in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the facility will house seed development work for canola, camelina and winter canola, focusing on trait integration, yield trial seed processing and seed quality analysis.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260127786960/en/
“A long-term strategic investment of this scale demonstrates Bayer’s commitment to Canadian canola and to the farmers who depend on it,” said Antoine Bernet, Country Division Head, Crop Science Canada. “Through this world-class innovation facility, Canadian farmers will benefit from opportunities for faster genetic gains – such as increased yield and enhanced agronomic performance. It will also accelerate breeding efforts towards superior product performance and support expanded herbicide tolerance and weed control options.”
Mike Graham, Crop Science R&D Lead, said it is the right time and location for this type of significant investment. “Over the last few years our canola breeding program has been completely redesigned through next generation precision breeding capabilities,” said Graham. “These shifts have enabled us to greatly accelerate genetic gain, build industry-leading disease resistance, drive increase in field data collection that improve product positioning, and enable delivery at scale of expanded herbicide tolerance trait options. This infrastructure boost in Canada supports this shift and will advance future innovation in canola and biofuels.”
Design for the new facility will begin in 2026 and we anticipate it to be operational by the end of 2028. It consolidates some of our canola breeding operations and seed generation activities, allowing Bayer to continue our journey to get the full benefit of our precision breeding strategy to bring products to market for growers in Canada.
Bayer’s current Smartpark site in Winnipeg will continue to perform early breeding workflows for Canola, while the current Carman site will focus on being a multi-crop nursery field operation.
About Bayer
Bayer is a global enterprise with core competencies in the life science fields of health care and nutrition. In line with its mission, “Health for all, Hunger for none,” the company’s products and services are designed to help people, and the planet thrive by supporting efforts to master the major challenges presented by a growing and aging global population. Bayer is committed to driving sustainable development and generating a positive impact with its businesses. At the same time, the Group aims to increase its earning power and create value through innovation and growth. The Bayer brand stands for trust, reliability and quality throughout the world. In fiscal 2024, the Group employed around 93,000 people and had sales of 46.6 billion euros. R&D expenses before special items amounted to 6.2 billion euros.
Forward-Looking Statements
This release may contain forward-looking statements based on current assumptions and forecasts made by Bayer management. Various known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors could lead to material differences between the actual future results, financial situation, development or performance of the company and the estimates given here. These factors include those discussed in Bayer’s public reports which are available on the Bayer website at www.bayer.com. The company assumes no liability whatsoever to update these forward-looking statements or to conform them to future events or developments.
Bayer announced an unprecedented $45+ million CAD investment to strengthen Canada’s leadership in canola innovation by establishing a cutting-edge canola innovation centre.
Mississippi officials said they were sending 135 snowplows Wednesday to clear ice and snow from two interstate highways where frozen conditions caused huge traffic jams.
Emergency officials said they were rushing supplies to drivers stalled along ice-covered stretches of Interstates 55 and 22 in northern Mississippi, an area still reeling from a weekend winter storm that blasted parts of the South and the Northeast with ice and snow.
Helping stranded drivers and moving stalled vehicles “remains a top priority,“ Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said in a social media post. The Mississippi National Guard said citizen-soldiers equipped with wreckers began arriving before dawn to help clear I-55 and I-22.
Traffic remained snarled on the two interstates in northern Mississippi at mid-day Wednesday, many hours after problems began when plunging temperatures Tuesday night caused the highways to refreeze. Roadside cameras operated by the Mississippi Department of Transportation showed semitrucks and pickups bumper-to-bumper on stretches of I-22 lined with snow.
The Mississippi National Guard said citizen-soldiers equipped with wreckers began arriving before dawn to help clear I-55 and I-22.
In the small community of Red Banks, Mississippi, local authorities were asking people with all-terrain vehicles to bring water, food, blankets or gas to stranded motorists, said Lacey Clancy, who works at a cafe near I-22 and neighboring Highway 178.
Clancy said sheets of ice covered the highways and cars and trucks sat idle, covering the highways and backing up along on ramps and exit ramps.
“The highway kind of looks like a parking lot," Clancy said in a phone interview. “A lot of people have run out of gas, abandoned their vehicles.”
Most of the eastern U.S. was still grappling with frigid weather days after a weekend storm blasted the Northeast and parts of the South with snow and ice.
More than 380,000 homes and businesses, most of them in Mississippi and Tennessee, remained without electricity, according to the outage tracking website poweroutage.us. And at least 50 people had been reported dead in states afflicted by the dangerous cold.
The toll includes three Texas brothers — ages 6, 8 and 9 — who perished after falling through the frozen surface of a pond in Texas. Another child, a toddler, died at a Virginia hospital after being pulled from a frigid pond Monday, according to local police.
Temperatures in the Midwest and Northeast were forecast to remain well below freezing throughout the day Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service.
Residents still shivering in the South were getting little relief. In Nashville, Tennessee, where nearly 100,000 power outages lingered early Wednesday, high temperatures were to rise just above freezing before plunging to 13 F (minus 10 C) overnight.
One Nashville hospital was seeing a spike in patients being treated for carbon monoxide poisoning as people without electricity turned to fuel-burning generators, stoves, gas heaters and fireplaces to warm their homes. At least 48 children exposed to the deadly gas had been treated since Saturday at the emergency department at Monroe Carrell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, spokesperson Jessica Pasley said.
Forecasters predicted even colder weather for much of the U.S. this weekend. A new blast of arctic air is expected Friday and Saturday from the northern Plains to the Southeast, where meteorologists say record cold could stretch as far as Miami.
The weather service said the prolonged freeze “could be the longest duration of cold in several decades.”
Forecasters said there is an increasing chance of heavy snow this weekend in the Carolinas and parts of Virginia, with more snowfall possible from Georgia to Maine.
Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia. Martin reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writers Jonathan Mattise in Nashville, Tennessee, and Sarah Brumfield in Washington contributed to this report.
A tree blocks the road days after an ice storm in Nashville, Tenn., on Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Travis Loller)
