A new living lab is being created in Ontario with funding assistance from Agriculture and Agri-food Canada (AFFC).
Read Also
Ontario On-Farm Climate Action Fund supports projects on over 130,000 acres of farmland
The Ontario On-Farm Climate Action Fund (OFCAF) allocated over $22 million in cost-share funding to successful applications during the 2022…
Led by the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association (OSCIA), this living lab project represents an investment of up to $9.2 million over five years from the federal government under the Agricultural Climate Solutions (ACS) – Living Labs program.
Living labs aim to accelerate the agriculture sector’s response to climate change by bringing together producers and scientists, among others, to co-develop, test and evaluate on-farm beneficial management practices (BMPs).
These BMPs support livestock and cropping systems, nitrogen use, manure storage, landscape management, and grazing management, which will help store carbon and reduce greenhouse gas emissions on Ontario farms.
In collaboration with partner organizations within the living lab, OSCIA will also encourage knowledge transfer and exchange between local producers, producer associations, federal and provincial researchers, Indigenous groups, and other sector stakeholders.
AAFC said in a release the Living Laboratories Initiative that ran in PEI, Manitoba, Quebec, and Ontario from 2019 until March 2023 seeks to break down barriers between research and application by co-developing and testing new ideas in real-world conditions. “This Canadian model has received international acclaim and inspired similar initiatives in other countries around the world,” AAFC said.
The funding announcement was made by Tim Louis, Member of Parliament for Kitchener-Conestoga, on behalf of the Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, at the Ag Innovation Spotlight event hosted by OSCIA at the Grand River Agricultural Society.
AAFC said it will announce new living labs in two more provinces in the coming weeks. These new labs, along with the new lab in Ontario, bring the total number of living labs under the ACS to 14.
Projects and final funding are subject to negotiation of contribution agreements.
Canada introduced the agroecosystem living labs concept to G20 Agriculture Ministers in 2018, who “welcomed it as a novel way to accelerate the development of sustainable agricultural practices and technologies around the world,” AAFC said in the release.
