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AAFC announces 60 approved agricultural clean tech projects

Canadian producers are adopting clean technologies on their farms with some help from federal funds.

On Thursday, the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, Marie-Claude Bibeau, announced 60 approved projects under the federal Agricultural Clean Technology (ACT) Program.

Under the ACT Program, farmers and agri-businesses will have access to funding to help develop and adopt the latest clean technologies to reduce GHG emissions and enhance their competitiveness. Among the approved projects, some producers are putting the funds towards biomass boilers, solar panels and precision farming technology.

This funding is focused on three priority areas: green energy and energy efficiency; precision agriculture; and the bioeconomy.

“We were overwhelmed by the number of applications,” says Bibeau during a live online announcement today. “We will reopen the program once we have completed the analysis of 200 [applications] that we still have on the table.”

There are two streams to the ACT program: The Adoption Stream as well as the Research and Innovation Stream.

The ACT Program may provide a more favourable cost-share ratio (60:40) where the majority of the business (more than 50 percent) is owned or led by one or more underrepresented groups, which include: women, youth, aged 35 or under, Indigenous groups, visible minorities and persons with disabilities.

Source: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada