U of L scholarships supported
Flexahopper Plastics has pledged $125,000 for the University of Lethbridge’s central scholarship fund to help undergraduate and graduate students with the costs of their post-secondary education.
In 2018, Flexahopper invested in the establishment of a Green Polymer and Technology Centre in conjunction with the university’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
The collaboration helped secure a grant from the federal government to establish the university’s polymer characterization laboratory, with the eventual goal of reducing plastic waste and reliance on fossil fuels.
Read Also
Land crash warning rejected
A technical analyst believes that Saskatchewan land values could be due for a correction, but land owners and FCC say supply/demand fundamentals drive land prices – not mathematical models
The university will match Flexahopper’s donation as part of its $10-million pledge in matching funds to establish new endowed student awards.
FCC’s sustainability applications open
Farm Credit Canada’s Sustainability Incentive Program is open to applicants in partnership with the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef and McCain Foods.
FCC encourages eligible cattle producers and potato growers to explore the benefits of receiving incentive payments by increasing the adoption of sustainable practices through the CRSB certification initiative and the McCain Foods potato growers’ framework.
Anyone who applied to the program last year and new eligible applicants are now able to apply for this year’s incentive payments.
The goal of the Sustainability Incentive Program is to recognize and encourage customers as they adopt sustainable agricultural practices.
Incentive payments are calculated on a portion of a customer’s lending with FCC.
Complete details are available at fcc.ca.
Innovation centre receives funding
Assiniboine Community College’s Prairie Innovation Centre for Sustainable Agriculture has received $50,000 from Johnston Group.
The college launched the Prairie Innovation Centre campaign in 2019 and has increased its fundraising goal twice — first to $15 million from $10 million, and is now setting a $20 million target.
In January, Manitoba made a commitment of $10 million toward design and costs.
The college project will bring together collaborative learning spaces, applied research laboratories and amenities that will support new programs for labour market development, applied research and industry engagement in the agriculture, environment and processing sectors.
The Prairie Innovation Centre will boost agricultural training capacity, increasing seats in agriculture, environment and related technology programs to more than 800 seats from 300.
Residue conversion work recognized
Kevin Kung of Vancouver has received a Mitacs Environmental Entrepreneur Award and $5,000 for his work to develop a portable system to locally convert crop and forest residues (biomass) into higher value bioproducts.
Kung and his company, Takachar, are working to improve air quality by giving farmers an environmentally friendly alternative to open-air burning and foresters a better way to manage flammable forest residue.
Takachar’s system is designed to latch onto the back of tractors or pick-up trucks, making it easy to deploy. Crop and forest residues are fed into the converter on the spot, and a biofuel, fertilizer or specialty chemical is produced at the back end.
Mitacs is a Canadian innovation not-for-profit organization that boosts economic growth and innovation by helping companies solve business challenges with research solutions from academic institutions.
More information is available at Mitacs.ca.
