SEEDS OF CHANGE

By SHAGORIKA EASWAR

Dr Sankaran Krishnaraj is Director General, Service and Program Excellence Directorate, Programs Branch, at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada is responsible for the federal regulation of agriculture, including policies governing the production, processing, and marketing of all farm, food, and agri-based products.

Dr Krishnaraj is responsible for managing the $2 billion cost-shared funds under the Canadian Agricultural Partnership framework that helps the agricultural sector.

The renowned academic and researcher’s range of specializations is vast, and includes food innovation, food processing, food safety, plant breeding and genetics, plant tissue culture, biotechnology and phyto-remediation.

He developed a concept that is very popular in Europe and is now gathering speed in Canada, too. Known as circular agrifood system, it helps reduce food waste in processing. Take blueberries – after the juice is extracted, the rest is waste. Or grapes – the skin and seeds are discarded after extracting juice. The circular system would use every component and create additional value-added products.

“We can extract antioxidants, pigments, phenolics... the possibilities are endless,” explains Dr Krishnaraj. “It’s not been done because there’s an abundance of produce, we didn’t feel the need to save what is viewed as waste. Also, the producers didn’t have the scientific know-how beyond the extraction of common commercially viable products. But a carton of juice sells for $4, a small vial of phenolics can fetch many times that. We were keeping the small change and throwing away what was of maximum value!”

Pulses are another classic example. We use the seeds as dals, a desi staple. The husk is sometimes used as animal feed but more often than not, goes waste. But it is very rich in nutrients and Dr Krishnaraj says we can separate fibres, phenolics and extract prebiotics.

“Every plant has unique proportions of beneficial material. We can learn much from Indigenous agriculture.

“Many similar practices exist in India, too, where every part of the coconut tree is utlilized in some way.”

A circular economy also reduces water and electricity consumption and reduces greenhouse gas and effluents.

Dr Krishnaraj’s research on water stress and salinity stress – how plants adapt to saline environments – is of significance in Canada where the presence of sodium sulphate in the soil is a big issue in the prairies. Studying physiological differences between Indian and Canadian varieties of wheat, he helped develop new varieties with increased salinity tolerance.

A fascinating aspect of his work involves phytoremediation, or using plants to remove contaminants from soil. Lead from paints used decades ago and also nickel and cadmium can leach into soil. Conventional technology leaves the soil inert because washing and treating it also removes microbes. Using plants helps conserve beneficial aspects of the soil. Plants that are hyper accumulators of heavy metals absorb and store them in leaf or stem. Several major companies around Guelph partnered with his lab to identify varieties of geranium that could be grown in contaminated soil. Harvested, six per cent of the dry waste was lead which could be extracted.

“Biomining works where normal mining is not cost effective,” he says. “Using nature to clean up nature is coming a full circle in a beautiful way.”

Asked to comment on the food shortages and price hikes we are witnessing, he says Canada is actually in a very good place.

“We have a huge land mass and an abundance of fresh water. We can help address the needs of the world population, and have done so by increasing production. But we can’t produce everything we need, it’s the global supply chain that helps meet the needs in different parts of the world.

“We send wheat, someone sends bananas. Rising gas prises affect the price of what we import. That was compounded by the pandemic. Fewer migrant workers being allowed in due to COVID restrictions and many being taken ill impacted harvesting, transporting and food processing. Limiting the number of workers began increasing the cost of production. 

“Then there were natural disasters, the fires and the flooding. The war in Ukraine affected grain and sunflower oil prices, the drought in the prairies affected everything from corn, canola and wheat to livestock feed. The floods in BC affected other crops. Multiple factors come into play.”

All is not gloom and doom, however. We can learn from these scenarios and try to minimise the damage, he says.

“Each disaster is a learning experience, it brings opportunities for growth. The tools are available and we evolve and innovate as we need.”

Lest you think all of his work is conducted in an ivory tower (read lab), his interest in damage assessment and ecology has taken him into situations that can only be described as made-for-the-movies exciting.

As part of Oil Spill Response (moderate and major marine spills) and Environmental Damage Assessment & Restoration (EDAR), he has been called upon to provide scientific expertise and help train crew involved in the cleanup of major oil spills.

The Exxon Valdez spill and the ensuing environmental disaster springs to mind when we think of oil spills. But we also tend to believe that those are safely in the past, that oil companies have gotten their acts together.

 Dr Krishnaraj informs us that though they may not be as large or dramatic, oil spills continue to happen around the world.

In the US and Canada, “reasonable-sized” spills are common, whether during transportation by rail or road, from burst pipelines, or in residential and commercial areas.

Like the oil spill in the Kalamazoo River from a ruptured pipeline where he helped deliver the Shoreline Cleanup Assessment Technique (SCAT) that was developed by Environment Canada.

Dr Krishnaraj was also part of the Environment Canada team that was asked by the US Coastguard to help train officers being deployed from the Great Lakes region during the infamous BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

“That was one of the most satisfying aspects of my career,” he says. “One could see the tangible results right away.”

His journey began in India where he did his Masters at the Tamil Nadu Agriculture University. Looking to do his PhD, he applied to universities in the US and Canada.

When Trevor Thorpe, an authority in plant stress salinity and plant tissue culture at the University of Calgary, gave him the nod, there was no doubt in his mind about where he wanted to be.

He landed in Canada on Christmas Day in 1989 and immersed himself in his research.

“I was able to adapt easily. Graduate students spend most of their time in the lab and professor Thorpe’s lab was very diverse. They became my family, a safety net. I learnt so many things from other students, not only about Canadian culture and customs but about those from around the world. I gained a global vision.

“I also happen to – believe it or not – like the cold! The chinook used to throw me off, though. I’d leave my apartment thinking it was warm enough to not require a jacket and emerge from my lab a few hours later into bitter, freezing cold! The sheer length of winter and the short days when darkness fell at 4:30 also took some getting used to. It was interesting!”

Dr Krishnaraj’s wife Thilaka, an entomologist, is a program lead at the Pest Management Centre at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

Their son Gautham has finished his PhD in Health Policy and is in his first year of Medicine at Queen’s. Their daughter Aishwarya is doing her Master’s in Pharmacology at UofT.

“She’s looking at the incidence of cardiovascular disease among South Asians in the GTA, and he’ll hopefully end up working for the WHO,” says their proud father.

Asked to name one thing that he considers his greatest contribution to science and society, Dr Krishnaraj is unequivocal in his response.

“Promoting people, providing pathways to the next stage of success.

“Throughout my career as a professor, as a researcher, my role has been to show the way for everyone I work with to solve more problems than I could alone. To provide the tools, to give them the confidence so they can excel. More innovation happens when we work together. If I point to a patent, that’s a project. If I mentor 500 people, that’s still a project, but one that changed a few lives.

“I had the best mentors and now people I have mentored will mentor others. Encouraging blue sky thinking, that’s probably my biggest accomplishment, because it continues to grow experientially.”

He encourages newcomers to be confident about their knowledge and skills.

To be open to learning new things, but confident about what they bring to the table, about who they are.

“I tell them how professor Thorpe instilled that confidence in me. He would intentionally say something controversial and ask me to debate him. I came from a system where you don’t question your professor, but he’d push and push, until I was forced to say, ‘I don’t agree with you’. Then he would ask me to explain, to defend my opinion. I used to stand when he came to my desk, he taught me to sit and debate.

“In the beginning, I used to sit on my hands so I wouldn’t jump up when he approached!

“It took two years of his drilling into me that I could have an opinion different to his. But he taught me a vital truth – if you don’t believe in yourself, how will others believe in you?”

• Grant’s is proud to present this series about people who are making a difference in the community. Represented by PMA Canada (www.pmacanada.com).