Making food safer is one goal of a $2 million investment by the federal government and the University of Saskatchewan.
U of S researchers are partnering with industry to protect the food supply and improve crop processing with the latest technologies.
Five research teams were awarded $1.08 million from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and partner organizations are contributing a total of $600,000 in cash, as well as $340,000 in in-kind contributions to the projects.
The new research projects include:
- A project to use biotech to make animal feed processing cheaper and more efficient received $697,000.
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Two enzymes that remove the bitter-tasting tannins in animal feed will be tweaked, which is expected to lead to more efficient and cheaper bioprocessing, and more palatable and safer animal feeds.
The research could also create new plant-based products for human consumption.
- A project to improve anti-microbial use practices for the beef industry received $430,500.
It examines changes to antimicrobial use and resistance in cow-calf operations resulting from federal regulations requiring veterinary prescriptions for the sale of all medically important antimicrobials for use in food animals.
- A project using nanotechnology to decontaminate eggshells received $110,600.
Researchers are developing a chemical-free, nanotechnology-based surface decontamination method for treating eggshells to control microbial contamination, which will improve food safety and reduce environment impacts.
- A plan to make soil management smarter received $62,600. It will combine machine learning, predictive soil-mapping techniques and strategic field soil sampling to determine a cost-effective soil sampling strategy, which could make precision soil mapping widely accessible to producers.
- A project to develop high-strength, cold-tolerant steel for pipelines received $770,000.
More information is available at bit.ly/399jOMF.
