The federal agriculture and environment departments are offering subsidies to projects that work as carbon sinks.
They are offering up to $185 million over a 10-year period starting with grants of $100,000 to develop proposals for “regional collaborative hubs” called Living Labs.
In the second phase which could open as early as this fall, groups could get up to $10 million per project and backing from a team of federal agriculture department scientists.
“This program allows researchers, farmers and other groups to work closely together and test their ideas on farm to evaluate them in real-world circumstances to achieve meaningful results,” said Mary Robinson, president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.
The federal agriculture department said this new program is based on an expanded model of its Living Labs networks which are already underway in Ontario, Quebec, Prince Edward Island and Manitoba.
“The aim is for every province in Canada to have at least one collaboration hub,” the government said.
The hubs will centre on farms where best practices would be developed, with examples such as cover cropping, intercropping, conversion of marginal land to permanent cover, shelterbelts, nutrient management and including pulses in rotations.
