Manitoba startup benefits from new tax credit

Canadian organizations and entrepreneurs, many of them located here in the Prairies, are recognized as world leaders in digital agriculture and are poised to play a major role in increasing the productivity and sustainability of our agricultural food systems. Supporting early stage organizations is an important way to increase the speed of innovation, accelerate technology adoption, create new jobs, and foster sustainability.

This month, EMILI is featuring a Manitoban company that is giving new life to the nutrients used in agriculture along Manitoba’s waterways.

Typha Co. is a social enterprise that is working to find a natural solution to conserve critical minerals and non-renewable resources, and ensure climate-resilient communities and agriculture. The company is finding growth with the help of Manitoba’s Small Business Venture Capital Tax Credit (SBVCTC).

Typha, more commonly known as cattails, are plants that naturally filter nutrient runoff before those nutrients make their way downstream to freshwater lakes and cause algae blooms. Typha Co. harvests this quickly-regenerating plant and transforms it into a peat moss substitute to be used in horticulture.

Alec Massé, CEO and co-founder of Typha Co., says that the company’s work closes the nutrient loop and turns waste in the form of agriculture runoff into a regenerative resource.

“We harvest cattails that have absorbed excess nutrients from agriculture runoff, preventing water pollution, and then process them into renewable, high-performance horticulture substrates that replace carbon intensive peat moss,” Massé explained, adding that the byproduct of the horticultural additive is the seed of the cattail, which Typha Co. is marketing as a high-value replacement for down or synthetic insulation commonly seen in apparel. He said the seed fiber has better insulation value than synthetic down, and is naturally waterproof. 

“It’s the horticulture and textile industry incentivizing ecological restoration, and in return supporting agriculture’s climate change resiliency,” Massé said.