The Ontario Pork marketing board could be on the hook fo $3.6 million to build new research facilities at the University of Guelph’s Elora campus.
But board chairman John DeBruyn said he remains optimistic that the federal government will approve funding of about $2.5 million, much as it did for new facilities at Elora for dairy and beef research.
On the other hand, five applications for funding have so far yielded nothing, prompting Marion Meyers, a former board chair, to ask the board why it hasn’t secured federal government funding and who will be on the hook if the feds don’t come through.
DeBruyn said the agreement the pork board entered with the university and the province called for pork producers to find 20 per cent of the money, which would be $3.6 mllion.
This year’s pork board budget contains $2 million for the project, $1.5 million of it held over as unspent from last year’s budget.
Ontario Agriculture Minister Lisa Thompson lavished praise on the pork board for investing in the swine research centre and said “we are going to attract the very best” researchers.
She also praised the board for its participation in a recent trade mission to Japan and for being on top of issues such as animal welfare, the environment, sustainability and communications with consumers.
She said the province is dedicating $2 billion to agriculture, including a $1.77 billion five-year deal with the federal government, which is a 25 per cent increase from the previous deal.
Another $340 million has recently been announced for provincial funding of research at the University of Guelph.
She said the budget, to be released the day after she was speaking, will include $2 million over two years to invite proposals that will include made-in-Ontario solutions to the demand for fertilizers.
And she said there will be funding to update soils information, some of it dating to the 1920s preparation of Ontario soil maps.
“It is time,” she said. It will include providing data in digital format.
“The future is bright for Ontario agriculture,”she said.”The world is looking to us and our farmers are up for it.”
