The Fertilizer Accelerating Solutions & Technology Challenge – opens October 5th, 2022

Sep 23, 2022

Guelph ON,

Bioenterprise Canada Corporation (Bioenterprise) is pleased to partner with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) to support the delivery of the Fertilizer Accelerating Solutions & Technology Challenge. The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs is supporting this project with up to $2 million in funding.

The Fertilizer Accelerating Solutions & Technology Challenge will provide funding support to Ontario-based organizations looking to commercialize technologies and solutions in the alternative fertilizer space, targeting those transitioning from research and validation phases to successful commercialization and market entry. These efforts aim to address the dependency of Ontario agriculture on imported fertilizers, as well as provide alternatives to traditional fertilizers to ensure a continuous and cost-effective supply of fertilizer products to Canadian agriculture.

Eligible projects include activities that will result in the commercialization of:

New products that reduce dependency on fertilizer imports
Solutions that reduce reliance on traditional fertilizers

Funding Available: 70% of the total eligible project costs up to a maximum of $200,000 per project

Minister Quote: “This is a made-in-Ontario initiative that will help to identify new tools and pathways to give Ontario farmers the confidence they need to plan for future growing seasons and to support innovative, technology-based solutions to grow the agri-food sector. Ensuring that farmers and agri-businesses have the tools and products they need to produce food close to home is vital to the sustainability of Ontario’s food security and keeping the province as a world leader in food production.”

“Ontario is once again showcasing it’s support for innovation in agriculture, and the economic benefits that will necessarily follow that support,” says Dave Smardon, CEO of Bioenterprise Canada. “The environmental impact of reducing, targeting, or finding alternatives for traditional fertilizer inputs is not just a discussion for Ontario. We will be leading the charge on new, sustainable practices that will bolster our position in a global market, and move us that much closer to Canada’s ultimate sustainability goals.”

Applicant organizations may include corporations, partnerships, sole proprietors, or unincorporated associations, including Indigenous communities or band councils based in Ontario. Eligible organizations must be located in Ontario, have project activities and costs that take place in Ontario, and have an alternative fertilizer solution (i.e., product, process, technology, or system) at or beyond Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 7 that will be brought to market by Spring 2023. Projects that will bring fertilizer solutions to market by Fall 2023 will be considered, if funding is available.

Source : BioEnterprise.Ca

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators