The federal government and Canada’s poultry industry stakeholders will put up over $2.5 million in total to connect government, industry and academic researchers for work on the sector’s priorities.
Abbotsford, B.C. MP Ed Fast on Wednesday announced the federal contribution of $1.8 million toward a joint research cluster to “address sector priorities and challenges concerning poultry health, food safety and quality and production practices.”
The Canadian Poultry Research Council (CPRC), the overarching body for poultry organizations across Canada, will manage the funding, which also will include over $759,000 from the council and “other industry partner contributions.”
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Research will focus on strategies to enhance poultry health and welfare, new production practices and products such as new vaccines to protect poults and people alike from diseases such as clostridia, salmonella and avian flu, the government said.
“By gaining a better understanding of diseases and developing alternative treatments, the industry will continue to provide nutritious and safe poultry products.”
Meanwhile, the government said, poultry producers “are looking for ways to make their operations more sustainable and enhanced farming practices are important to the future success of the industry.”
“This initiative focuses a wide range of intellectual and financial resources on key issues faced by our industry and is a significant step towards strategic investment in the future of the poultry sector,” CPRC chairman Jacob Middelkamp, a broiler producer at Gibbons, Alta., said in the government’s release.
The federal $1.8 million for the poultry cluster initiative comes from the tail end of the now-expired five-year, $158 million Agri-Innovations program.
Agri-Innovations, funded through the federal/provincial Growing Forward ag policy funding framework, was meant to support industry-led science and technology projects such as the Canadian Agri-Science Clusters initiative.
