Huron County is hosting the AgPrize 2020 competition
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
A new contest is open to any Canadians who have ideas on how to solve some of the ag industry’s pressing issues.
Huron County’s AgPrize 2020 competition releases challenge questions on a regular basis, and interested people or groups have 12 weeks to come up with solutions to the questions.
“We feel there are problems that need to be solved in agriculture that are holding back profits or growth,” Alex Ripley, economic development officer with Huron County, told Farms.com. “We want to tap into the collective ingenuity of (Canadians) to get some original crowd-sourced ideas to those problems.”
The timing is right for this kind of competition because the COVID-19 pandemic has people thinking more about the food system and where food comes from, Ripley said.
The first four questions are available online.
Participants are encouraged to submit ideas for building better heat lamps, getting equipment across streams, getting products to market, and communicating with consumers.
The deadline for submissions for those questions is July 6.
Huron County has been in contact with industry reps and researchers. Together, they come up with the challenge questions for the contest.
“We’re going to aim for one (question) a week from here on out and keep doing so until we either run out of ideas or run out of money, whatever comes first,” Ripley said.
Once the deadline date passes, another panel of judges including industry stakeholders, reps from post-secondary institutions and levels of government will determine the winning entries.
Winners will be eligible for a cash prize of $2,020. And those who want to take their ideas further can receive additional assistance, Ripley said.
“In addition to the cash prize, we’re offering a complimentary suite of startup expertise of coaching around commercialization, capital raising if they want to proceed with bringing the product to market, and connecting the winner with intellectual property information,” he said. “We don’t just want ideas that are going to sit on the shelf, we want to see new ventures come from this.”