THE CANADIAN AGRICULTURAL INNOVATION CAPACITY

Canada’s agricultural sector is facing emerging challenges and opportunities, including increasing global demand for food and non-food products; resource constraints, competition from low-cost producing nations; and changing societal expectations and demands for food attributes. In addition, productivity growth in key commodities is declining globally, increasing reliance on new technologies and new products. As a result, research and development (R&D) efforts and sector innovation (along the value chain and the innovation continuum) is paramount to improving productivity and competitiveness in agriculture. Given the pressing challenges and the need to advance innovation in a time of fiscal restraint, prioritization of efforts and collaboration will be vital to future planning.

Under Growing Forward 2 (GF2), Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC)’s 2013-2018 policy framework, a transformative shift in policy has taken place; funding has been aligned with strategic initiatives that facilitate innovation and competitiveness. In subsequent Federal-Provincial-Territorial discussions, it was agreed that a longer-term perspective on innovation is still required in order to address structural issues outside of the five-year programming cycles, and to coordinate and leverage federal, provincial and industry resources wherever possible.

A fundamental requirement for developing a long-term agricultural innovation agenda for Canada with subsequent priorities is to have a complete understanding of Canada’s current agricultural R&D and innovation capacity, and whether this capacity positions Canada to seize future global opportunities while addressing future challenges.

While pockets of this information exist in Canada, a complete picture of the Canadian agricultural sector’s R&D and innovation capacity is not available. A better understanding of this landscape, knowing ‘who is doing what and where’, will be the first step in determining where Canada has a competitive advantage in agricultural innovation, where innovation capacity gaps and duplications exist, and given fiscal limitations, where government and industry should focus resources. Such information will provide a strategic direction for government and industry and facilitate priority setting that will advance innovation in the sector.

The objective of this project is to complete an inventory and analysis of the agricultural sector’s innovative capacity in order to have a common foundation for all key players in the sector, and to ultimately position the agriculture, agri-food and agri-based products sector for global competitiveness.