An Ontario farmers’ research partnership to study all aspects of growing, storing and gathering farmed biomass and how best to profit from it has picked up $2.4 million in federal funding.
The funding for the Ontario Federation of Agriculture and Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association was pledged Tuesday from the Canadian Agricultural Adaptation Program (CAAP), delivered in Ontario by the Agricultural Adaptation Council (AAC).
“The research will help Ontario agriculture lead the way to an entirely new family of crops, a new stable market and a new industry for purpose-grown crops used for energy sources,” southern Ontario MP Barry Devolin said in a release.
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The OFA and OSCIA plan to research “all aspects relating to growing, storing and aggregating agricultural biomass,” meaning crops grown specifically for energy generation, the government said in its release.
The project will also look at the “most efficient and beneficial timing for this new sector to emerge” and assess its impact on job creation, investment and income sources.
“The goal is to ensure farmers have an opportunity to participate in the growth of Ontario’s renewable energy industry, earning acceptable returns in the process,” OFA president Bette Jean Crews, a grain and produce grower at Trenton, said in the release.
“This project will help Ontario farmers make informed decisions regarding the economical and environmentally sustainable production practices of purpose-grown biomass crops,” AAC chair Jim Rickard said in the same release.
CAAP, budgeted for $163 million over five years (2009-14), funds projects relating to solutions for “new and ongoing” issues such as traceability, environment, climate change, capacity development, pests and diseases.
AAC last week announced it would extend the Ontario deadline for applications to CAAP to July 9 from June 25. Projects approved under CAAP still must be completed no later than October 2013.
