Expertise and technology driving innovation and collaboration at GIFS at USask

The Global Institute for Food Security (GIFS) at the University of Saskatchewan (USask) has established world-class expertise and technologies to meet the needs of agri-food partners and stakeholders.

At a reception at the Saskatchewan Legislature in Regina on March 24, GIFS CEO Dr. Steven Webb (PhD) provided an update on the growth of GIFS’ programs and technology services to members of Saskatchewan’s Legislative Assembly and agri-food stakeholders.

The Honourable Daryl Harrison, Saskatchewan Minister of Agriculture, and Todd Klink, Executive Vice President, Marketing and Public Affairs at Farm Credit Canada (FCC), representing GIFS’ Board of Directors, also spoke at the event.

“Today, we are an innovation catalyst and a connector with world-class capabilities and we play up and down the entire innovation pipeline,” Webb told attendees.

The Government of Saskatchewan is one of GIFS’ founding partners. In 2024, it committed $15 million over five years to advance GIFS’ mission to discover, develop, and deliver innovative solutions for the production of globally sustainable food.

Through ongoing initiatives, including the development of GIFS’ Engineering Biology Platform, GIFS is establishing unique capabilities and capacities that are serving as the basis for collaborations with researchers and organizations around the world.

“Our ambition is to be the preferred partner for ag and food innovation — not just here, but globally — and we are global. We’re bringing an exciting complement of expertise and leading-edge technologies to really operate at scale,” said Webb.

“We’ve created an organization that is complementary and not competitive. We’ve created an organization that operates at scale. We think in and operate at levels of 100, 1,000, 10,000, and 100,000 at a time, optimizing resources, automation, processes, and technologies to deliver results effectively and efficiently.”