The Canadian Cattlemen’s Association has picked up a $6 million federal funding commitment to a research “cluster” for the beef industry.
The funding, pledged Tuesday from the federal Agri-Innovations program, is on top of a pledge of almost $1.2 million from the CCA and almost $464,000 from “provincial government partners.”
The Beef Cluster, as the federal government described it in a release, is expected to pull together industry expertise, scientists and universities for research efforts to “address challenges the sector has faced in recent years.”
The cluster’s research will focus on what the sector identified as its “key priorities,” such as reducing production costs, increasing feed efficiency and decreasing the impact of animal health issues.
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The brain trust is also expected to work on ways to increase demand for Canadian beef, both in Canada and around the world.
Related research priorities, according to the CCA, include “continued improvement to Canada’s beef product through enhanced beef quality and improved food safety interventions.”
The Agri-Innovations program, set up in May last year, pledged $158 million over five years for “industry-led science and technology projects,” and has already backed “clusters” for the dairy, canola and flax industries.
The federal funding requires any Beef Cluster research projects to be completed by March 31, 2013 to remain eligible, a spokesperson said Tuesday. Invoices can be submitted after that date, but only for expenses incurred on projects completed by the deadline.
“Worthwhile research”
Apart from federal agencies such as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the Beef Cluster’s partners are to include the University of Saskatchewan and its Western College of Veterinary Medicine; the Universities of Alberta, Calgary and Guelph; and the Western Beef Development Centre at Humboldt and Lanigan, Sask., as well as “value chain members,” according to another ag ministry spokesperson.
“The Beef Cluster initiative will appropriately target and invest industry and government resources in areas that will help address current competitiveness challenges as well as explore potential new opportunities,” CCA president Brad Wildeman said in the government’s release.
“The long-term sustainability of our industry depends on research that focuses on competitiveness issues like reducing production costs and increasing feed efficiencies,” he said in the CCA’s separate release, “and all those things only occur by investing in worthwhile research.”
Canada’s $25 billion beef industry remains the country’s largest source of farm cash receipts, the government said. Canada remains the fourth-largest cattle and beef exporter in the world, representing 11 per cent of global exports in 2008.
