Agriculture Roundup

BASF Canada Agricultural Solutions (BASF) will collaborate with the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences (ALES) to tackle clubroot resistance in canola.

With new clubroot strains overcoming resistance in previously bred resistant cultivators, the disease is set to become a prairie-wide challenge.

BASF will invest $1.25 million over a five-year period until 2026 to support ongoing efforts to combat strains of clubroot, a soil-borne disease that causes major damage to canola crops.

BASF Head of Global Oilseed Breeding Stewart Brandt said the company is committed to investing in research and development that benefit growers.

“With plant science, innovation and technology playing a critical role in helping growers achieve higher yields, working with the University of Alberta will enable us to further our efforts to help advance Canada’s agriculture industry,” Brandt said in a news release. “BASF believes whole-heartedly in its role as an industry leader to help provide growers with the tools they need to continue to grow this key crop for generations to come.”

ALES plant scientists Stephen Strelkov and Sheau-Fang Hwang will work to identify effective sources of pathogen resistance that can be bred into canola seeds.

Enterprise Machine Intelligence and Learning Initiative (EMILI) will partner with Farm Credit Canada (FCC) in the renaming of its farm management software.

Innovation Farms powered by AgExpert is one part of a larger project that will see EMILI work with FCC to build a Canadian network of agriculture technology, knowledge, and labour to address the changing needs of the agriculture industry.

EMILI is an industry-led non-profit organization established to accelerate the growth of the agri-food industry in the prairies by promoting digital agriculture and digital agriculture technologies with industry organizations and academic institutions.

—

The federal government will provide $400,000 over two years to a University of Saskatchewan-led project that aims to give agricultural producers better access to data.

The partnership establishes a “living lab” at USask’s Livestock Forage Centre of Excellence (LFCE) at Clavet, Sask.

The lab will bring together producers, established tech companies, and ag-tech start-ups to create an environment and a platform to reduce current barriers to the adoption of smart farming practices.

The new lab and platform are meant to help producers evaluate the value of new technology in their operations and gain access to research partnerships to develop new technologies.

It also provides tech companies with access to real-life conditions to develop their products and gain feedback from their potential clientele.