ONTARIO GRAIN FARMER INDUSTRY NEWS 12 MOVING THE AGRICULTURE SECTOR FORWARD Van Acker acknowledges that certain aspects of the agri-food sector require attention. In an opinion piece in the Globe and Mail newspaper last October, authored with professors Evan Fraser and Lenore Newman, Van Acker outlined some of the sector’s ills. “We have a regulatory system that is hard to navigate, there is a lack of capital available to agriculture and food entrepreneurs, and we face chronic labour shortages that throttle innovation. This is especially galling, given that we are great as a nation at creating intellectual property and starting companies.” At the time, Van Acker and his colleagues said they wanted higher education to get more engaged, as a remedy to some of these ills. “Crucially, our universities and colleges need the opportunity to do more,” they wrote. “We need to redouble our efforts to encourage young innovators to apply their ingenuity to sustainable food production and food security. And Canada’s research councils need to create funding opportunities so that established researchers working in disciplines such as robotics, genomics, and artificial intelligence are given opportunities to apply these tools to making Canada’s food system more efficient, healthy and sustainable.” That advice was visionary. A study by a research team at Toronto’s Leaders Fund, released in September, shows just over 32 per cent of high-potential startups launched last year that were led by Canadian teams were actually based in Canada. That was down from more than 67 per cent in the late 2010s. Most of these start-ups involved Canadians who had moved to the U.S. INNOVATION PRIORITIES But times have changed, even in the past 12 months. Working in the U.S. is more challenging than ever. Canadian nationalism is an element of almost every new innovation initiative. And from the president’s chair, Van Acker is poised to rally the resources of the entire university towards increased innovation. He’s encouraged by existing initiatives at the university, such as the Feeding the Future exercise, in which university officials engage with stakeholders to determine priorities. During the latest iteration of this program, which involved more than 300 stakeholders, including Grain Farmers of Ontario, participants suggested that the university’s strong track record in commercialization should be expanded, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises in the agri-food sector, including farms. Mentorship, funding, and clearer pathways for taking innovations from the lab to the marketplace were among the activities cited for more support. The Ontario government has played a huge role in Guelph’s agri-food research success. In his role as OAC dean and research vice-president, Van Acker has worked closely with the province to maximize the Ontario AgriFood Innovation Alliance, which is credited with having a $1.44 billion impact on the province’s GDP. This collaboration is unique in Canada, bringing together the University of Guelph, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness and Agricultural Research and Innovation Ontario. Van Acker is enthusiastic about the alliance being key to Guelph increasing its role as an agricultural technology hub, and its potential for entrepreneurship centred around the alliance’s network of 13 publicly owned agricultural research stations, sites, and investments across the province. Grain Farmers of Ontario and other commodity groups have made significant contributions to the University’s drive towards innovation. Over the past 10 years, Grain Farmers of Ontario has invested over $8.8 million in 76 research projects led by University of Guelph faculty. The total value of the projects is over $30 million. Grain Farmers of Ontario also invested in two professorships, for field crop pathology ($2 million) and for wheat breeding ($500,000, with matching support from SeCan). Devitt says this support provided the university with cost certainty to hire professors in field crop entomology and weed science. Grain Farmers of Ontario also contributed $30,000 to the University of Guelph, Ridgetown Campus’ Agri-Food Entrance Scholarship Program. CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES One of Van Acker’s day-to-day challenges will be managing expectations about his devotion to the agri-food sector. Although he’s an Aggie at heart, he’s responsible for all eight of the university’s colleges, three campuses, 29,000-plus students, 3,100 administrative staff, and 830 academic staff. That’s a tremendous undertaking. But as Van Acker points out, no matter what classroom or lab you enter at Guelph, agri-food is rarely absent. It runs the gamut, including social science, environmental science, veterinary medicine, engineering, and more. Says artificial intelligence expert Dr. Rozita Dara, who came from Blackberry to join the Department of Computer Science: “When I joined the university, I couldn’t help but work on agriculture. It’s everywhere here.” continued from page 11 Van Acker with Premier Doug Ford at the International Plowing Match in Niagara.
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