Ottawa has promised $49.6 million to help fund research projects aimed at developing new tools for Canadian agriculture.
The federal government vowed money for flax, biofuel, livestock feed, canola, sunflowers, grapes and agricultural pest control as well as for market research and policy setting on biotechnology issues.
The money, the lion’s share of $53 million overall in federal funding for agriculture, crop and bioproducts research announced earlier this week, is matched by $59 million in industry and other financing for genomics research.
Genetic research is critical to commercial agricultural production, said Calvin Stiller, Genome Canada’s board chair.
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Genome Canada evaluated 48 proposed projects from scientists, before announcing April 20 those that would receive support.
Twelve research projects were selected. Eleven have a direct or indirect role in agriculture.
Flax breeder Gordon Rowland said the money is critical to developing flax varieties that are in demand by industry and the public.
“And we will be tackling the yield issue in flax,” he said about the crop, which has struggled to match the yields obtained by canola.
Canola averages about 34 bushels per acre prairie-wide, while flax averages 22, making it less attractive to growers.
Dave Sefton farms at Broadview, Sask., and is a member of SaskFlax, the growers’ association that provided a matching portion of the funding for the $12 million flax project.
“Farmers need the yield improvement and market expansion that a fully sequenced genome, and the (plant breeding) roadmap that it creates for researchers.”
Sefton said greater profitability and new markets for flax will attract growers and increase acres. That will help stabilize prices, seen by industrial flax buyers as critical to making flax less susceptible to replacement by other oils.
Rowland said the results of the research, including a fibre science component, should start to pay dividends in four years, as new varieties reach the development stage and other industrial partners are attracted to the crop’s market.
One of the three Genome Prairie supported projects to receive funding is to improve cellulosic fuel production processes, by University of Manitoba researcher David Levin.
“Biofuels have the potential to replace 20 percent of the energy used in the transportation sector,” said Levin.
His research, a $10.5 million project, will look at known bacteria and search for new ones with ability to metabolize cellulose from straw and forest product waste material into fuels such as ethanol, butanol and hydrogen, plus livestock feed and plastics.
He said a move to cellulose sources from grain-based biofuel feedstocks will limit the food versus fuel debate that surrounds grains being shifted to industrial demands.
Gordon Quaiattini of the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association said the funding of cellulosic fuel research will give the forestry and agricultural sectors greater economic security.
He said his association’s members provide a great deal of funding to match federal and provincial contributions such as the Genome Canada money.
“This work is for the benefit of all Canadians,” he said.
Other projects include:
- $17 million in bioproducts enzyme research at Concordia University in Montreal that will turn cellulose into fuel and feed.
- $4.5 million for canola crop improvement at McGill University, also in Montreal.
- $6.4 million for agricultural pest management at the University of Western Ontario in London.
- $10.5 million towards sunflower genomics.
- $3.4 million for grapes and wine at University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
- $13.6 million for research at the University of Calgary, aimed at plant processes creating high-value chemicals.
- $5.4 million to examine legal and other social implications of biotechnology at University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon.
