The final brick is in place within the financial structure for a pilot plant in Saskatoon that will assist in the development of biological plant protection products.
The Saskatchewan department of economic development provided the Saskatchewan Research Council’s fermentation and cell culture pilot plant with a grant of $300,000, the last dollars needed for the $4.3 million project.
The plant is now under construction at Innovation Place, a research park linked to the University of Saskatchewan campus. For a fee, the new plant will provide research and product testing for companies developing bioherbicides, biofertilizers, plant growth promoters, biopesticides and animal vaccines.
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Other financing partners are the federal-Saskatchewan Agri-Food Innovation Fund, which supplied $3 million, and the SRC and Innovation Place, which put up $1 million.
The plant is expected to open later this year.
Beef co-op looks to Black Hills
Saskatoon newsroom
Northern Plains Premium Beef, a rancher-owned beef processing and marketing co-operative, will investigate a potential site in the northern Black Hills area of South Dakota for a state-of-the-art beef processing plant.
The investigation will include review of the physical requirements for a new facility. The co-operative will work with Northern Hills Community Development, Inc., of Sturgis, S.D., to find the best site in the northern hills region, the co-op said in a news release.
NPPB plans to conduct an equity drive early this summer to raise the capital necessary to build the facility and get the commitment of 140,000 cattle a year needed to operate it.
The co-op attempted to raise money for a plant last year, and made a couple of trips to the Canadian Prairies to solicit support from producers here. That effort failed to reach the minimum share offering.
The co-op blamed the failure on deadly winter blizzards that killed many cattle and put financial pressure on American cattle producers.
The group looked at several sites in North and South Dakota.
“The board felt that the Black Hills region was the best fit for the kind of successful company we aim to become. It’s good cattle country, has ample cattle finishing capacity, and it is accessible to all the producers in our entire region,” said John Lee Njos, a Rhame, N.D., rancher and chair of the board of directors.
Export information available
Saskatoon newsroom
Companies interested in exporting their products have two new information sources.
The recently formed federal Team Canada Inc. Advisory Board, made up of prominent members of the Canadian business and labor communities, will guide the evolution of international business development programs and services for Canadian exporters.
Team Canada Inc. has introduced a toll-free information telephone number (1-888-811-1119) to serve Canadian companies interested in doing business abroad.
Another service, Export Source, is Canada’s most comprehensive on-line federal government resource for export information. An initiative of Team Canada Inc, Export Source is designed to provide information to both export-ready and new-to-exporting Canadian businesses.
It contains all the federal government information available, plus other export-related information. Its address is http://exportsource.gc.ca.
