Ontario Invests $2 Million to Boost Agri-Food Businesses

Oct 06, 2026
By Farms.com

Canada and Ontario are investing $2 million through the Food Safety and Growth Initiative to help small agri-food businesses improve food safety, adopt new technologies and strengthen supply chain resilience.

The governments of Canada and Ontario are committing $2 million to help small businesses in the province’s agri-food sector expand, modernize operations and strengthen food safety.

The funding is being delivered through Ontario’s Food Safety and Growth Initiative, which is designed to help eligible businesses adopt equipment, technologies and processes that improve food safety, efficiency, and competitiveness.

The investment is part of the governments’ broader efforts to build a more secure, sovereign, and self-reliant agri-food sector. It will help businesses respond to changing market conditions while supporting the resilience of Ontario’s food supply chain.

“Canada’s agri-food sector is driven by innovative small businesses that help feed our communities and strengthen local economies,” said the Honourable Heath MacDonald, federal Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food.

“This investment will help small businesses modernize their food safety systems, adopt new technologies, and meet evolving consumer and market demands while strengthening the resilience and competitiveness of Ontario’s agri-food supply chain,” MacDonald added.

Eligible businesses can receive up to $75,000 per project. Funding can be used for food safety equipment and technology, traceability systems, and improvements to production processes.

Eligible operations include businesses that produce, process, or provide services related to products such as bagged salads, cheese, and ice cream. Businesses must have fewer than 100 employees at the project location.

“The funding announced today is geared toward equipping small businesses in the agri-food sector with enhanced food safety systems and standards, as part of Ontario’s plan to build a secure, sovereign, and self-reliant agri-food sector,” said Sam Oosterhoff, Minister of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness.

“In the face of economic uncertainty this is another example of how we’re protecting workers and businesses by supporting good-paying jobs, strengthening our food supply, and boosting growth in the sector for decades to come,” Oosterhoff added.

The second intake follows the programme’s 2024 launch, which supported 90 projects and contributed to more than 70 full- and part-time jobs. Applications for the latest intake open October 19, 2026, and close March 1, 2027, or when funding is fully allocated.

Chris Conway, CEO of Food and Beverage Ontario, said the programme will help businesses address food safety, equipment, standards and training needs while adapting to trade pressures and changing consumer expectations.

For more information, visit https://www.ontario.ca/page/food-safety-and-growth-initiative-intake-2.

Photo Credit: pexels-caio-niceas

Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”