Canadian Agricultural Partnership funded $5 million, with the balance leveraged from non-government sources
Scientists expect to soon receive $12.1 million to conduct genomic research ranging from the health of soils in Alberta to a Canadian system for detecting fraudulent honey.
“First, we should talk about the importance of genomics; what genomics really is,” said David Chalack, chair of the provincial Results Driven Agriculture Research (RDAR) funding agency.
“It’s certainly a technology and an innovation that is in the forefront of improving productivity and health in both livestock and crops … it’s the study of genes and how they interact with each other as well as the environment.”
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Fourteen genomics projects will be partly funded using $5.1 million from the federal-provincial Canadian Agricultural Partnership. The rest of the $12.1 million was leveraged using non-government sources, said a statement by RDAR.
The initiative involves Alberta’s Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Economic Development ministry, as well as RDAR, Genome Alberta, and the federal government. It was announced during a recent Alberta Beef Industry Conference in Red Deer.
The funding will mostly be divided among scientists at institutions ranging from the University of Calgary and the University of Alberta to the University of Lethbridge, Lakeland College and the University of British Columbia.
However, as a farmer-led organization serving Canadian dairy producers, Lactanet will receive $1.9 million to study the application of precision technology for resilient cows. The goal is to enhance the sustainability of Alberta’s dairy industry.
In an interview, Chalack pointed to dairy industry improvements during the last 10 years in milk production, butterfat and protein yield, and longevity.
He said the research projects will likely take between two to four years, potentially sparking improvements in management approaches and genetics across a wide range of sectors.
The project targeting soil health will be conducted by the University of Alberta. Scientists will receive about $1.4 million to conduct a metagenomic and meta-transcriptomic assessment of benchmark agricultural soils.
Chalack said soil is made up of millions or billions of single- and multi-cellular organisms. Scientists hope to better understand the profiles and genetics of such organisms.
“And this is not all genomics, of course, but we’re looking at what plants will sequester carbon by utilizing various nutrients in a more effective way, and so that tool is just one of the building blocks in better understanding the functionality of the various components of soil.”
Another aspect of the research will look at the genetic similarity of all organisms, he said. For example, cattle and people each have about 22,000 genes that are about 80 percent the same.
“And so, studying how genes work in one species can help us understand how things function in other species as well, so there’s a great application that can be undertaken as we learn more.”
Scientists at the University of Lethbridge will receive $652,000 to conduct sequencing and bioinformatics analysis of bovine respiratory disease pathogens in beef cattle. Anti-microbial resistance involving the disease in feedlots has had major effects, said Chalack.
The research could help improve public acceptance of producing beef in feedlots by potentially reducing the use of antibiotics to treat the illness, he said. As a result, producers should consider taking part in research trials, he added.
Other projects include $350,000 for research at the University of British Columbia into a Canadian system for detecting fraudulent honey. The University of Calgary will receive $642,000 to develop and implement genomic tools for evaluating cross-protection that will target bacterial pathogens plaguing the pork industry.
