Challenge model a new way to fund, support innovation [Video]

Five Ontario companies are among 13 semi-finalists selected in the federal government’s Agricultural Methane Reduction Challenge, which is seeking innovative ways to reduce methane emissions from dairy and beef cattle.

Why it matters: The agri-food sector struggles to get research into practice for reasons including lack of funding and questions about its ability to solve practical on-farm problems.

The $12 million challenge was announced last year by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and Impact Canada, a federal government initiative to help fund development and adoption of innovative solutions to societal problems like housing, food waste and climate change.

The approach was launched by the federal government several years ago as a way of crowd-sourcing innovation. It is designed to encourage innovators to come forward with their …