The federal and Saskatchewan governments have announced plans to spend $12 million researching new crops over the next three years.
The new money comes from the Agri Food Innovation Fund, a $91 million commitment from Ottawa and Saskatchewan to replace money from the Gross Revenue Insurance Program. Saskatchewan announced its withdrawal from the safety net system in 1993. Under that agreement, made in 1995, the money is to be spent on agriculture in Saskatchewan prior to the end of March 2000.
“This is a part of the farm safety net system. But instead of waiting to react to damaging situations, we are acting to prevent the need for that reaction,” said federal agriculture minister Ralph Goodale after the joint announcement in Saskatoon last week.
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“By diversifying and creating made-in-Saskatchewan solutions to the problems, it is hoped the safety net as we know it now will only be needed occasionally.”
The $91 million provided to the hub (the Agri Food Innovation Fund), is to be divided between eight spokes in the research wheel of fortune: biotechnology, food processing, horticulture, information technology, non-food processing, special crops, specialized livestock and sustainable agriculture.
Last week’s winners in the new funding game were a specialized crop research and breeding program that will sustain funding for the Crop Development Centre at the University of Saskatchewan. There is also money to provide alternative and new crop research demonstrations for producers at eight sites across the province.
The demonstration sites will receive $4.5 million while $2.6 million will go to an endowment providing perpetual funding for dry bean and chickpea research at the CDC and $4.9 million to fund alternative crop development.
