Ottawa announces funding for a Living Lab program in Manitoba

Federal Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay announcing another key investment this time in Manitoba's Ag Sector. 

MacAulay announced $9.2 million dollars over five years for the creation of a new living lab program in Manitoba.

The living labs are a collaborative approach to agricultural innovation, bringing together farmers, scientists, and other stakeholders to co-develop and test new practices and technologies in a real-life context, so they can be adopted more quickly by Canadian farmers.

The Manitoba Association of Watersheds is taking the lead on this, Board Chair Garry Wasylowski says he's really excited about it. 

"Meeting with the minister yesterday, I reiterated the fact that I liked the way the research is being done. It's out on the landscape and it's with farmers with researchers, and I really think that's an important way to do research. It's what's actually happening out there with all the variables."

He says the Watersheds will hold a meeting this week to talk about how the program will work and how producers, researchers, etc can apply.

Manitoba's announcement now means we have 14 living labs set up across the country with at least one in each province.