“There are two areas where we’re falling down,” Saskatchewan deputy agriculture minister Bill Greuel said during an agriculture research panel discussion held Tuesday in Saskatoon as part of Crop Production Week 2025.

“One is front-end basic research and science, and the other is downstream commercialization and collaboration between governments and industry to bring those inventions to market.”

Greuel says the Saskatchewan government invests $37 million a year in ag research, a number that has increased over the last two decades, but he would like to see increasing investments from the federal government as well.

“If you look at everything that’s happening globally, from a trade perspective, a climate change perspective, a growth and population perspective, we’ve got all of this land here in Canada that we better be utilizing as an asset.”

However, increasing funding won’t address all the challenges facing the research community, said Angela Bedard-Haughn, dean of the College of Agriculture and Bioresources at the University of Saskatchewan.

“It’s not just a matter of money,” she said, emphasizing the need to support all stages of research and development, including innovation through to commercialization.

“There’s almost a bit of a culture shift that needs to accompany that.”

Saskatchewan is uniquely well positioned to innovate when it comes to ag research, said Steve Webb, executive director of the Global Institute for Food Security at the U of S.

“We have all the industry players here, we have a growing investment piece, and we have connectivity with the farmers, the grower groups,” he said.

“It’s one of a kind in the world.”

Because of this, he believes we should be seeing more market-impact innovation coming from the province.

“We have to be thinking about return on investment, the opportunity for us to get more bang for the buck from a Canadian perspective.”

The productivity problem is complex, panelists agreed, caused and affected by issues such as a lack of funding and access to capital for ag research, lacking infrastructure, public trust issues and Canada’s regulatory environment.

But despite the scope of these challenges, Greuel says that addressing them should be a top priority within the agriculture sector right now.

“The world is getting more competitive. The trade environment is getting more competitive. If our farmers can’t be more competitive on a global scale, we’re going to be in trouble.”

The post Crop Production Show 2025: Ag research sector has productivity problem: panellists appeared first on Farmtario.

That’s where the Saskatchewan-based Cultivator, Canada’s first credit union-led tech incubator, is helping to make a difference with its agtech accelerator program. Supported by Conexus Credit Union, Cultivator’s mandate is to support tech businesses with a focus on agriculture.

Why it matters: According to Bloomberg, Canada ranks ninth in the world for its investment in agricultural research, but a mere 21st for bringing that research to market. 

Cultivator has just launched its third agtech accelerator cohort this spring, which features specialized programming for early-stage start-ups looking to expand their business models and products. Built by venture capital investors, the curriculum includes base programming in topics like marketing, sales and legal, as well as one-on-one connections for founders with mentors, industry experts and farmers. 

“Our goal is to achieve wide connectivity and integration with as many people as possible when they’re here (in Saskatchewan),” says Bre Walkenden, Community and Partner Manager, adding that kick-off and wrap-up in person sessions are complemented by 10 weeks of virtual learning. “We want to help ag entrepreneurs be successful.”

Each cohort has room for approximately 15 participants, with up to five spots open to businesses based in the United Kingdom as part of a unique partnership with Innovate UK. 

“There are a lot of synergies between the agricultural economies and landscapes of Canada and the UK, and part of what makes this program so unique is that we can offer that global perspective as the participants build out their business models,” adds Director Laura Mock. 

The accelerator program is free for participants thanks to financial support from Economic Development Regina and Emmertech, a venture capital firm specializing in agri-tech and agri-business innovation. 

According to Mock, the program’s support for participants continues even when the cohort ends, through initiatives like the Million Acres project that is recruiting farmers who are willing to work with founders to test and refine their innovations. 

“This is part of what makes this program so unique and special; through our connections with producers across Canada, participants will have access to a network of farmers who provide feedback and help with product development, so there’s a feedback loop that continues – and founders don’t have to spend time looking for participants for product trials,” Mock says. 

Ontario-based IntelliCulture is a graduate of the first cohort that ran in 2022. The company has developed farm management software that helps solve three of the biggest, most critical on-farm challenges: labour availability, pest prevention and machine safety. 

Through specially developed data loggers that easily plug into a tractor, IntelliCulture provides a real-time view of a farm’s equipment fleet through a web portal or an app, giving farmers and farm managers detailed information about management and performance.  

“This was a great program in general with regular mentor sessions to talk about problems we were having – and the mentors were producers and business experts,” explains co-founder and CEO Cole Powers. “What more could you ask for than to sit a table with all these people and have them give you the time of day?”

In the two years since completing the cohort, the company has doubled its grower customer base, hired an additional five people and continues to expand its products and services. Powers credits a significant part of that steady growth to the network they were able to build and the marketing and business training they received. 

Three Ontario companies are part of the current cohort: Grain Discovery, Transport Genie and Vetson. In addition to IntelliCulture, other Ontario alumni include Vivid Machines, Farm Health Guardian, Ukko Agro and Vive Crop Protection. 

At the five year mark since its launch, Cultivator is now working on updating its business strategy and focusing on the key capacities that will help the organization grow and add value as an accelerator and incubator and continue to expand its offering for agtech founders.

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A fair bit, according to Lauren Des Marteaux, entomologist with at Agriculture Agri-Food Canada’s Harrow Research Centre. Even then, our current understanding of the number, variety, and ecological significance of insects and other invertebrates is a mere fraction of what is possible. 

Why it matters: Greater insect diversity is an indicator of healthy environments. That diversity can also help the agriculture sector weather pest and environmental pressures.

As ecosystem loss continues to be a global challenge, Des Marteaux believes expanding what we know about invertebrates, and their role in the environment, is critical to ecological restoration, as well as agricultural resilience.

“The biomass is insane” 

Des Marteaux took a fairly direct path into the world of entomology – the study of invertebrates – having cultivated an interest in biology at a young age. The Toronto native earned her academic credentials at the University of Guelph, Western University, and as a post-doctoral researcher in Czechia (then called Czech Republic). She since worked in Japan before moving to AAFC’s southernmost research station. 

“In the Czech Republic I was looking at extreme freeze tolerance – insects that can handle ultra, ultra freezing at -196 C, in liquid nitrogen – temperatures so cold we don’t experience it anywhere on Earth. How does an organism survive that process? There are so many horrible things that happen to cells in the freezing and thawing process,” says Des Marteaux, highlighting one of the stranger studies on which she worked and published.

• RELATED: Controlling insect pests without harming beneficial insect species

“It matters for the medical field. If we could figure out how to freeze and thaw cells or tissues without them getting destroyed, that has great potential.” 

It was the environmental significance and ecological perspective afforded by invertebrates, however, that she finds most astounding. 

“Of all animal species currently described, over one million of them, or about 67 per cent, are insects.” But we expect there to be several times that many insect species,” say Des Marteaux. “Let’s say it’s on the lower end of what we think the true number is – at about four million insect species – that’s 90 per cent of all animals on Earth. There are ten quintillion insects alive at any given moment. The biomass is insane.

“People generally don’t observe insects, and if you don’t see them, it’s not something you think or care about. Yet insects are at the base of the pyramid. When you start losing that base, a lot of things go wrong. That’s why the outreach is important.” 

Slow, expensive – and important 

Outreach is indeed an important part of Des Marteaux’s work. She visits local schools, has helped establish Bioblitz or Bug Day events – where community members come together to catalogue every species of living organism (barring those not visible to the naked eye) in a given area – in London, Guelph, and Ottawa. She is also active in the Entomological Society of Ontario, and is increasingly involved in agricultural extension pertaining to pollinators, sustainable pest management, and invasive species. 

“On the conservation angle, I’m involved with Living Labs projects measuring pollinator numbers in working agricultural operations. The overall purpose is to figure out how to best support pollinator numbers in agricultural lands. It’s really important because we have so little natural habitat left here,” says Des Marteaux, referring to much of Southwestern Ontario. 

“Biovigilance is another important pillar of my research program. We are in a high-risk area for new pests coming up from the United States, especially in an era of climate change. Proximity to the border and high trade volume increases that risk. So biovigilance is important to monitor the movement and impact of invasive species, as well as what could be natural enemies to those species.” 

Determining what insect species live where, and in what number, is also critical for understanding whether an area’s ecology is healthy, or in decline. Some notable research papers have indicated alarmingly significant declines in some insect populations over wide geogra- phies in recent decades. In Southwestern Ontario, though, the true state of play is not well understood – in part because identifying and cataloging invertebrates is very time consuming, and frequently challenging when the DNA markers of a given species are not yet known. 

“Southwestern Ontario has already lost a lot of habitat, and without robust historical data on insects it’s difficult to know the true impact. How do we know what we’ve lost, if we don’t know what was here in the first place?” says Des Marteaux. 

“You can make a strong case that insect decline is an issue based on the bits of data we do have about this area’s ecology. One thing our team is aiming to do with the first Ontario Living Labs data set, is to compare Norfolk and Windsor-Essex County farms for insect biomass and diversity. Norfolk currently has ten times more forest cover than Windsor-Essex, which lost most of its Carolinian forest to agriculture and land development over the past 250 years. If we had our old Carolinian forests here, things would be a lot different.”

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The research hopes to answer questions such as ‘What are the social barriers to sustainable farming and food?’ and ‘How can the burden and benefits of that transition be shared equitably?’

The federal government pledged the cash March 19 to launch the Common Ground Canada Network. The initiative will be led by Dalhousie University’s Karen Foster, Canada research chair in sustainable rural futures for Atlantic Canada.

“Producers are already taking action to make their operations more sustainable … This knowledge sharing network will help amplify the work already underway and increase adoption of these best practices,” an Agriculture Agri-Food Canada news release read.

The hard science of sustainable agriculture, things like improved agronomic practices, are already the purview of other research organizations and government funding streams. The network, in contrast, has a goal to tackle the topic from the angle of sociology, social anthropology, political sciences, economics, the humanities and other lenses.

Foster, who is a social scientist, gathered a group of other researchers and applied for the funding to start the network

“I think it arises from this recognition that in many cases we know the technology is there … but there are some social barriers in the way to adoption,” Foster said.

There are also social processes through which people are assured “that if we adopt a certain policy in the name of sustainability, it’s actually going to work.”

The network is also concerned with the “just transition” towards sustainable agriculture—how both the burden and benefits of change could be equitably shared.

This could include topics like farmland ownership—as is the case in work done by network members Annette Desmarais, Andre Magnan and others, on land ownership in Saskatchewan. That research indicated that investor-owned farmland had increased 16-fold between 2002 and 2014.

In a March 2023 opinion piece, published in the Manitoba Co-operator, Magnan and Desmarais said that by 2018, investors owned nearly one million acres of Saskatchewan farmland.

“Given that, on average, investors pay more for land compared to other buyers, these deep-pocketed buyers have undoubtedly contributed to the rapid increase of farmland prices,” they said.

Network members have also studied what areas of food and agriculture venture capitalists are most likely to invest in; the growing reliance of even small-scale farms in Nova Scotia on temporary foreign workers and the potential social and environmental effects of local food movements and their attempts to compete with big economic players.

The five-year project’s overall goal is to increase access to and use of the social sciences in the pursuit of sustainable agriculture in Canada.

The network says they will gather researchers and agriculture and food system representatives, such as governments, community organizations and Indigenous groups, to hash out shared goals and form connections between social science researchers and other fields.

Their plan also includes the development of holistic sustainability goals and the direction of resources to where they’re most needed within the network.

Foster said the network already has dozens of academic and community partners across Canada. According to the AAFC news release, these include the Arrell Food Institute, Food Secure Canada, the National Farmers Union, Humane Society International, Farm to Cafeteria Canada and others.

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Why it matters: Canada has a poor track record of moving university research into the marketplace.

The two institutions recently announced they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that will be led by AFI’s director Evan Fraser and by Lenore Newman, director of the Food and Agriculture Institute at the University of the Fraser Valley.

Both institutes aim to influence policy and funding decision-makers in both governmental and corporate spheres as they determine future directions for agriculture and food-based research and development.

Fraser told Farmtario the agreement was informed by a recommendation from a 2017 federal government study known informally as the Barton Report. Former Ambassador to China Dominic Barton advised at the time that Canada take steps to become “a trusted and reliable source” of high-quality and low-carbon-footprint food for the world, Fraser said.

“And I don’t want to say there’s a deficiency within Canada’s agricultural sector when it comes to working towards that goal. There are a lot of organizations doing good work around these things.”

But “there’s an element of Canadian modesty,” he said, that often prevents innovative ideas from garnering enough societal and financial support to become reality.

Newman, a past Canada Research Chair in Food Security and the Environment who was also a member of a 2019 B.C. government task force on food security, agrees.

“We do a great job in this country of coming up with amazing ideas,” Newman told Farmtario. But despite the fact taxpayers often fund the research which leads to those ideas, “we don’t do a good job of turning those ideas into patents.”

Fraser said the MOU is a direct outcome of a 2023 report entitled Feeding the Future with Canadian Technology, published following a series of focus group meetings conducted by a committee he co-chaired with Newman and Peter Dhillon, chair of the Ocean Spray cranberry company’s board of directors. Dhillon was also a collaborator with Newman on B.C.’s food security task force.

The collaborators were interested in people’s perspectives on the role of science, technology and innovation as it pertains to food production, profitability and sustainability.

Envisioning an era when “technology can be marshalled towards that triple bottom line” of economic growth, sustainability for the people farming the land, and mitigated environmental impact, Fraser says the new partnership begins as an agreement to collaborate on research but the goal is to move as quickly as possible into promoting and supporting ag-tech innovations.

“Out here in B.C., we’re trying to solve some different problems,” Newman said. “Definitely in Western Canada, climate change is particularly important given our recent experiences with fire and drought.”

The potential for a carbon sequestration marketplace is also a topic. Researchers aim to quantify the climate change mitigation services already supplied by agriculture. Technology could play a role in helping farmers get credit if that marketplace ever develops, she added.

“I’m also a big proponent of growing year-round in Canada. I think, for Canada, it’s vital. And I think (Fraser) is a big proponent of that too.”

Speaking of possible early outcomes of the agreement in the realm of so-called “vertical agriculture,” she said, “I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see some big buildings with a lot of plants in them” as a result of the research collaboration.

Recently retired U of G plant agriculture professor Ralph Martin, an observer of the Arrell institute since it began, has written extensively about reducing wasted food. It is a cause that Fraser and the AFI have also championed. Martin also writes commentaries about the effects of large-scale agriculture on the environment, and he expressed caution about equating technology with sustainably feeding the world.

“A lot of my colleagues at Guelph supported a heavy reliance on technology,” he said in a recent interview. “And in agriculture, I think that can be problematic.”

Martin believes the merits of new technologies should be weighed against potential questions of food waste, environmental impact and who has control of the technology.

Still, he believes it’s beneficial to explore those technologies. Vertical farming, for example, may have significant environmental effects but it might still be necessary or even crucial in a world affected by climate change.

Research focus

Although innovations in processing or ag input production could have equally world-altering effects on Canada’s agricultural sector, Fraser says the institute has purposefully chosen to remain focused on innovations in the production realm.

An example, he said, is support for research into out-of-season berry production, which has the immediate potential to offset the carbon footprint of bringing berries from California through much of the year.

The Fraser Valley institute has maintained processing sector innovations as part of its focus.

Fraser acknowledges there may be producers and producer organizations who feel the goals of the two institutes are outside what’s needed on a lot of Canadian farms. But some don’t fit that stereotype.

Peter Dhillon of Ocean Spray is among a cohort of “sophisticated (ag) business people who understand food security on a global scale. That’s the circle we’re trying to work in,” Fraser said.

Another among that cohort is southeastern Saskatchewan crop farmer and agribusiness consultant Kristjan Hebert. Speaking recently to Farmtario, Hebert said he met Fraser “on the circuit” of farm-related speaking opportunities prior to COVID-19 and the pair established an ongoing connection based on their shared visions for the future of Canadian agriculture.

Coming home in 2004 to the 320-acre Moosomin-area farm following studies at the University of Saskatchewan, Hebert took up work as an accountant and began gradually building the family enterprise. That enterprise now includes the 40,000-acre Hebert Grain Ventures and the Maverick Ag Consulting firm, which Hebert started with a friend and one-time colleague at the accounting firm – a firm he, unsurprisingly, no longer has time to work for.

Fraser invited Hebert to serve as an advisor for the Feeding the Future with Canadian Technology project. This wasn’t new territory for the Saskatchewan farmer; he admits he seeks out advisory positions with organizations that are linked to agriculture but also have influence beyond farm fields and agribusiness boardrooms.

“I think the common theme in what I try to do and what the Arrell Food Institute is doing is we’re interested in how we get people excited about agriculture. How do we get young people to think that there can be a future for them working in agriculture?”

Northwestern Ontario dairy producer Peggy Brekveld, who recently stepped down as president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, says primary producers benefit from the work of organizations like the AFI even if that work doesn’t seem to directly affect them. She said such organizations “help build the connections between agriculture and broader public conversations.

“While a farmer might not see the benefits every single day, the influence of such research ensures that farming is not forgotten,” Brekveld told Farmtario. “As policy makers consider social, economic and environmental impacts, both good and bad, places like AFI can impact decisions on the best way forward for all of society, including food and rural communities.”

Hebert agrees. “When I’m at these advisory committee meetings, I say pretty frequently that the number one risk to my farm is bad policy.” And if farmers don’t work to have their voices heard when policy decisions are considered, bad policy is more likely to happen.

Fraser hopes the MOU inspires creation of a national network exploring food security and ag innovation, with a focus stretching beyond Canada into parts of the world where Canadian food and innovation could be part of the solution to food insecurity problems.

Promoting research is a focus but training is also big. There is an acknowledged labour crunch in Canadian agriculture, as well as an aging farmer demographic. Solutions are possible through technology but there will be significant training required to follow through on this transformation.

“None of this is easy stuff,” he said. “These are hard challenges to manage. My hope is that, in the next six to 12 months, we’ll be running programming.”

The post Universities collaborate on agriculture research appeared first on Farmtario.

A panel of agriculture thinkers and researchers pointed to water demand, biodiversity, productivity and economic and social sustainability as areas that are neglected due to the single-minded focus by government on carbon reduction.

Why it matters: There’s tremendous opportunity for Canadian agriculture, but the focus must be on the diverse role the sector can play in the world’s economic future and growth, say researchers.

“I think often our conversation around the sustainability of production in the food system today is driven about carbon accounting and are we going to be net zero or net positive,” said Tyler McCann, managing director of the Canadian Agri-food Policy Institute, during an Ivey Academy discussion. The Ivey Academy is part of the Ivey School of Business at Western University.

The discussion was presented in association with the Centre for Building for Sustainable Value at Ivey Business School.

“I really do think that when we think about the future of the food system, we really need to be thinking much more broadly than we are today,” he said.

Research funding priorities are shifting to put a priority on carbon, but McCann said that if there are new priorities, they should receive new money, instead of taking away from past priorities, which continue to be important.

“I think the federal government should be coming to the table with a significant additional investment and mission-driven research around the future and a sustainable food system.”

Research and technology in agriculture, and the ability to move more quickly from primary research to application on farms and in processing, is increasingly important but less funded.

“The assets we have go beyond the farm gate,” said Alison Sunstrum, founder and CEO of CNSRV-X and general partner in The51. She co-founded GrowSafe, a technology that allows for precision livestock feed measurement and is especially used by researchers.

Canada’s network of research universities provides a base for early-stage innovation and technology, but Canada severely lacks business spending on research and development, she said. That’s not new, and it extends into the agriculture sector.

Sunstrum pointed to the Netherlands, which geographically can fit within Banff National Park, and has half the population of Canada, yet is the second largest food exporter in the world at $150 billion per year.

Canada continues to grow its agriculture and food exports, now at about $80 billion per year. The Netherlands is reaching capacity with challenges around water and limitations on nutrient production on farms. Canada doesn’t have the same limitations.

“We have a chance to really take a step out and be the most sustainable, technologically advanced and farmer-friendly and farmer-profitable country,” said Sunstrum.

Lack of research and development investment in Canada is starting to have consequences, said McCann, and Canada must decide if it will continue to be a middle player or a leader in food.

“We are really starting to deal with the consequences of under-investment if you look at total factor productivity,” he said.

Geopolitical impact

The impacts of Canadian agriculture across the economy and the globe are many and can be leveraged, the speakers said.

The agriculture sector delivers “resilient economic growth”, said Scott Ross, executive director of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.

“We’ve been productivity superstars in the Canadian economy,” he said.

How does that success translate into how Canadian agriculture influences the rest of the world?

“Often we think about agriculture and food as a domestic challenge, but the future of the world is unsettled. The future of our global food production system is increasingly unsettled,” said McCann.

CAPI hosted a forum earlier this year that looked at the global change from food excess to food scarcity and what that means for farm policy.

“We are seeing this today where global reserves of key staple commodities have been historically low, especially compared to stocks to use ratio, and especially if you take what China is holding out of the equation,” said McCann.

Canada has an opportunity to be a significant player in helping the world manage that challenge, and McCann said the country could use its significant agriculture impact as a geopolitical lever.

“It should be about more than just opening markets, it should be about building better relationships. It should be about encouraging development. I want to make a plug that global leadership on food should be about a lot more than just exporting more food. It’s such a great, great opportunity.”

Sunstrum said everyone in Canada should know about the potential of Canadian agriculture and food.

“Canada is an agricultural nation, and every single child that comes out of school must be able to articulate that.”

The post Canadian agriculture’s impact can be greater here and globally appeared first on Farmtario.

With numerous partnerships finalized and research plots and trial studies underway, the 2023 edition of Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show was the first opportunity for Discovery Farm Woodstock leaders to show their progress to the public.

Why it matters: Demonstration research allows companies to test innovations in real-world settings and farmers to see and products before they hit the market.

Two opportunities for an “Off the Beaten Path Demonstration Research Tour” were offered during each of the 2023 show’s three days, Sept. 12-14. The tractor-and-wagon-powered tour visited five research plots and featured highlights from three additional research partnerships.

The discovery farm allows GFM to roll in pre-existing outdoor farm show partnerships, including Grober Nutrition’s young cattle feeding work, underway since 2009 in a barn on the Woodstock site.

It also opened opportunities to collaborate with other businesses and organizations in crop-related, side-by-side trials.

Among presenters during the Off the Beaten Path tours was Grain Farmers of Ontario, Tilbury-based Maizex Seeds, France-based Timac Agro, London-based A&L Laboratories, and U.S.-based AgroLiquid.

The tour began with a synopsis by Alex Dacey of GFO about that organization’s involvement, including through a plot at Discovery Farm Woodstock, in the Great Lakes Yield Enhancement Network (YEN).

Dacey said there are YENs around the world that target a variety of crops. The three-year-old Great Lakes YEN focuses on wheat and includes approximately 100 registered growers in Ontario and approximately 80 in the Great Lakes region of the United States.

Created through a partnership between GFO and the Michigan wheat growers, it was modelled after a YEN in the United Kingdom that focuses on cereal crops and potatoes.

For a fee of $250 per field, participating growers submit a series of soil, plant tissue and crop samples for testing, along with yield data. With more than 250 data points available from each field, says Dacey, benchmarking and YEN-wide comparisons provide information about what goes into high-yield wheat.

“Ultimately, we want to close the gap between potential yield and actual yield,” he said.

At the Maizex plot, Chuck Belanger said the Woodstock farm is part of a network of eight trial sites in Ontario and several more in Quebec and Manitoba for corn and soybean genetics.

“In the last 10 years, (Maizex) has really invested heavily in our agronomy research, and we were happy to be involved with the discovery farm,” said Belanger.

Timac Agro, which launched Canadian operations in 2019 to market biostimulants, enhanced fertilizers, nitrogen stabilizers and other crop health products, has plots on the farm show property that track the effectiveness of the inputs.

Being part of the Woodstock Discovery Farm, said company representative Chris Pertschy, “gives (Timac Agro) another forefront to project our products and practices to some of the most innovative producers in Canada.”

A portion of the acreage fronting on the 11th Line west of the main farm show property is dedicated to a study entitled “100 Bushel Soybeans: What’s holding us back” led by University of Guelph Master’s student Matt Rundle. With support from a range of academic and crop sector stakeholders, the study tracks the physiology and yield variation of soybeans under a variety of agronomic practices.

Southwest of the Rundle plot is the Field of Excellence where numerous industry partners are testing products and practices with an aim “to improve profitability of marginal areas of the field.”

“What we intended on doing when we first got involved with this project was showcasing the soil health index that A&L Canada has,” said national sales manager Wayne Black.

This year’s participation in the project has achieved that. Applying the 487 different parameters possible within the index confirmed the shortage of phosphorus and potassium – “too low for growing a productive soybean crop,” Black noted. But a more significant limiting factor was boron.

He said the effort showed the value of examining a complete soil analysis rather than just P and K, and how to improve micronutrient levels to make nutrient use more efficient.

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Though the redevelopment would not encroach on farmland, it would replace one eight-storey building on a neighbouring lot with two others, at 16 and 27 storeys respectively. The building proposal was approved by the city’s planning and housing committee Aug. 16.

Why it matters: The Central Experimental Farm has been a key location for Agriculture and Agri-food Canada research trials in Ontario for more than 135 years.

The proposed redevelopment is at Carling and Parkdale, on the northwestern corner of the farm. Shade from the buildings is expected to interfere with research.

“We actually have conducted and concluded a technical internal assessment on the potential impact and risk on CEF land,” said Pascal Michel, AAFC director general for the Ontario-Quebec region. “In short, we’ve done our homework on this quite thoroughly.”

The immediate concern is the shade that two high towers would cast.

“We now know that there will be a direct and meaningful impact on our ability to conduct research on the land that is affected by the shadow of those towers,” Michel said.

“There’s an amount of light in that field, which is diminished. That’s impact number one. With the amount of light being diminished, it changes also all of the soil chemistry.”

The farm aims to create a research environment that simulates a typical Canadian agricultural environment. Dealing with shade from the towers would change this significantly.

“The more meaningful impact is that we conduct experiments, right? Research experiments. To do that, we need the land to be untainted in terms of being representative of a normal agricultural land in Canada.”

Michel said the development will affect more than the small area nearby.

“I can tell you, it penetrates well into the northwest side of the CEF land. So, it is not just the border of Carling (avenue). It’s way deep,” he said. “It penetrates quite deep down into the middle of the CEF.”

The affected area is particularly valuable for research, he added.

“It’s worth noting that the soil composition of this part of the CEF is prime … we’ve got less suitable soil composition elsewhere, but this is the prime land for doing the research that we’re doing.

“That research cannot be conducted if the condition of the research is affected with uncertainties of light and stuff. The data that comes out of this will be hard to be extrapolated as being meaningful in a Canadian context.”

The work of the experimental farm dates back to 1886 and Michel said he believes the historical research asset is now at risk.

AAFC has sent a formal letter to the city of Ottawa, including a detailed technical assessment of the impact. Michel said a city councillor followed up with CEF researchers for a consultation, but negotiations have gone no further.

“We are open to discuss with citizens, with our federal partners, with the City of Ottawa, that this is not an inconvenience,” he said.

“We’re talking about agricultural land and the ability to carry out research experiments. That, I think, is a message that is sometimes not coming so clear.”

Ottawa’s Planning, Development and Construction department did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

The post Ottawa redevelopment could negatively affect agriculture research appeared first on Farmtario.

There’s the ability of farmers to constantly learn and increase their management skills. There are also vast improvements in technology – mechanical, digital and biological – that have come from researchers in both private companies and public institutions. Public funds have enabled government employees and universities to push the envelope, which has helped farmers become more efficient and prosperous and also helped feed the world.

Yes, there are problems with how that’s done, but the bottom line in this argument is that more people have more and healthier food than ever before.

The rapid evolution of public funding focus, especially from Environment Canada, to the interaction with agriculture and public good – especially the environment and climate – has been stark.

We must continue to manage climate adaptation and reduce impact, along with the impact on agriculture practices on soil, water and air. However, losing the emphasis on productivity could have dire human consequences.

I’m a big supporter of the greater focus that industry has placed on soil health and we’ve paid special attention to it at Farmtario as a strategic priority since we launched. We have hundreds of articles on soil health on our website. I encourage you to use it as a resource on soil health trends and research.

Many times in the past five years, we’ve described the reasons to care about soil health for society and farm business success. Civilizations have fallen when the health of their soils no longer supported the nutritional needs of citizens. Healthier soils have many benefits for farmer operations, including better water management and more resilient crop growing conditions.

Piles of government funds are now flowing to encourage best practices that result in carbon sequestration, most of which have improvements in soil health at their base.

As we plan our coverage at Farmtario and we report on events with content valuable to farmers, the volume of soil health discussion is overwhelming.

Regular discussion and continued research and understanding of soil health is important, but please, let’s also continue the productivity, efficiency and yield-driving research and programs that will feed the growing number of people in our world.

Both are connected, of course. Healthy soils provide the base upon which elite growing practices can be tried successfully, but we need to talk about both.

I studied dairy sector research funding after the recent release of $7.5 million from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada for national dairy research, the fourth funding of a Dairy Research Cluster.

I looked at the priorities for the four dairy research clusters and saw that the focus has evolved, especially on the part of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, to include climate change mitigation and risk management in most areas.

There’s range to continue the excellent work on dairy genomics and a better understanding of the human health impacts of dairy, but there’s no doubt that finding a climate angle is key to getting funds.

This isn’t new and it’s part of declining research funding for agriculture productivity across the board. I remember a dairy researcher from Western Canada lamenting to me about a decade ago that there were few projects funded on dairy cattle unless there was a human health impact.

There’s been a significant decline in the value of the Ontario Agri-Food Innovation Alliance agreement between OMAFRA and the University of Guelph, and public funding in the latest dairy cluster has dropped from $11.3 million over five years to $7.5 million.

Who will fill the productivity research gap?

It will have to come from the rest of the industry. That includes initiatives like Yield Enhancement Networks (YENS), which use loads of data from individual farmers to produce lessons for their farms based on benchmarks. There are big projects, such as the cross-national wheat YEN involving Ontario and nearby American states, but I’m also encouraged by the local mini-YENs for corn.

Companies that supply farmers must be involved too, although they, too, are focusing on environment and climate versus the productivity that remains sorely needed.

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Resulting news stories tend to use simple metrics, such as greenhouse gas emissions per unit of gross product, which can be misleading. Livestock have very positive impacts on local economies, human nutrition and soil health, all of which are lost when only simple metrics are used. Fortunately, there is a growing, more balanced approach developing.

The Dublin Declaration is a recent initiative that “gives voice to the many scientists around the world who research diligently, honestly and successfully in the various disciplines in order to achieve a balanced view of the future of animal agriculture”. It now has over 1,000 signatures from around the world, and we should all hope to see that number rise.

The declaration notes that the livestock industry is challenged to provide nutrition for a growing population, but also to meet the needs of the estimated three billion people around the world currently suffering from malnutrition, a key point made recently by Dr. Vaugh Holder of Alltech that is often overlooked.

This needs to happen while at the same time dealing with challenges regarding biodiversity, climate change, nutrient flows and animal health and welfare within a One Health perspective. Clearly, livestock fit within a huge picture.

More recently, a series of nine papers has been written through a joint effort of the American Society of Animal Science and Oxford University.

Published in Animal Frontiers, these deal with topics facing animal agriculture including: the societal role of meat; the role of meat in the human diet; meat and non-communicable diseases; ecosystem management using livestock; challenges for the balanced attribution of livestock’s environmental impact; cellular agriculture: current gaps between facts and claims; and challenges and opportunities for defining the role and value of meat in our global society and economy.

Canadian livestock sectors are becoming more proactive as well. Several have recently established targets regarding greenhouse gas emissions reduction. To meet these targets, industry will need to support increased research efforts as well as work to better get research into practice. Fortunately, in Ontario, we are well into a complete rebuild of the province’s livestock research facilities at Elora. Industry, government and the University of Guelph, which manages the facilities, must together attain maximum value from these world class centres.

The great research now and in the future will provide us more information to pass along to farmers and consumers. Pulling that into a cohesive story will be important. Such a story could have three chapters: economy, environment and food security. Each chapter would document the current state along with progress toward a defined target each having a specific date.

The economy chapter could include the contribution to Ontario’s GDP; number of jobs that are supported, both direct and indirect; number of new entrants by sector; effective business risk management; profitability; contribution to a circular economy using by-products, and disease avoidance and control, with particular attention to zoonoses.

Within the environment chapter could be greenhouse gas reductions based on a meaningful denominator, not simply gross product; industry adjustments made to adapt to climate change; level of antimicrobial use; water use and impact on water quality; impact on biodiversity; animal welfare; energy use and sources; and impact on soil health.

Food security could capture contribution to human nutritional needs; availability of Canadian product for Canadian consumers; and levels of exports that help to feed the world.

Having the outline of the story will help all parties (industry, government and researchers) to define gaps and research goals and help to define new ways for getting research into practice on farms as well as communicating research results more broadly.

Mike McMorris is Chief Executive Officer of the Livestock Research Innovation Corporation and has more than 35 years’ experience in the livestock sector working for government, producers, and industry organizations. Follow LRIC on X @LivestockInnov.

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