Globally, Canada is a leading producer of many staple crops like wheat, lentils, peas, and canola. However, due to the nature of its climate, this is not the case for many horticultural crops, except for greenhouse vegetables like tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers.
Consequently, Canada relies heavily on imports of fresh fruits and vegetables, and some statistics suggest Canada would run out of fresh produce in just ten days without these imports. This leaves an important part of Canada’s national food security vulnerable to potential trade, political, and economic shocks and disruptions.
The Weston Foundation wants to change that with its $33-million Homegrown Innovation Challenge. It is an effort to encourage innovation in domestic fruit and vegetable production. Launched in February 2022, 15 teams were chosen as recipients of grants of $50,000 each to build their visions and lay out how they would scale up their concepts should they move to the next phase of the challenge.
Of those, 11 teams were selected to proceed to the Shepherd Phase, which comes with funding of up to $1 million each to develop small-scale, proof-of-concept solutions.
Source: farmtario.com