The support will help further 47 projects across Canada
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
Canadian agricultural projects designed to adopt new technologies and reduce greenhouse gas emissions are receiving support from the federal government.
Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau announced $15.2 million in funding through the Agricultural Clean Technology (ACT) Program during a visit to Terramera Inc. in Vancouver, B.C. on May 24.
“Today’s investments of over $15 million in 47 new projects through the Agricultural Clean Technology Program will go a long way to help farmers and companies like Terramera succeed sustainably for generations to come,” Bibeau said.
Terramera is receiving up to $2 million of the funding.
The company will use its portion to develop technology to estimate soil carbon.
This work “will produce scalable, accurate, low-cost remote sensing technology, enabled by the company’s industry-leading artificial intelligence and machine learning platform to reliably measure the carbon content in soil,” the company said in May 2021 when it received $7.9 million in funding from Sustainable Development Technology Canada.
Of the 47 total projects, 44 are through the ACT’s Adoption Stream.
This helps farmers adopt clean technologies, with a priority on those that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Examples of projects receiving funding through the adoption stream include solar panel installation, grain dryer installation, precision ag tech purchases and installing a biomass boiler.
The remaining three projects will receive support through the Research and Innovation Stream. This stream helps support pre-market innovation including research, development and commercialization of clean ag tech.
Examples of these kinds of projects include developing renewable diesel from ag waste, developing a mobile manure separator and converting ag waste into bioplastics.