Funding
Services
Coaching & Support
Tools & Resources
Impact
Strategic Vision
About
Who We Are
What We Do
Innovation Ecosystem
Group of Companies
Not sure where to start?
Home > Agriculture & Food Innovation > Page 2
The Food & Agriculture sectors are major drivers of economic activity in Alberta and contribute significantly to the province’s GDP, exports, employment, and long-term economic prosperity. Alberta’s strong agricultural production base, abundant feedstock resources, and established innovation ecosystem provide a foundation for continued growth across the value chain.
The portfolio is designed to strengthen Alberta’s competitive advantages while supporting opportunities to capture greater value from the province’s agricultural production. The portfolio supports the development and adoption of technologies that improve productivity, resilience, competitiveness, and value creation across both agricultural production and food manufacturing systems. Recognizing that Alberta’s greatest opportunities span both production agriculture and value-added food manufacturing, the portfolio is intentionally organized into two innovation areas:
Sustainable Agriculture
Food
This structure balances Alberta’s existing strengths in agricultural production with opportunities to increase processing capacity, develop higher-value products, accelerate commercialization, strengthen food system resilience, and grow globally competitive Alberta-based businesses.
The portfolio uses a continuous intake process, as described in the Application Guide. In addition, periodical calls for proposals (also known as funding competitions) will be issued to award grant funding. Each call for proposals will have specific priorities and criteria, along with a dedicated portfolio description and application process guide.
Sustainability in agriculture means increasing productivity per acre or head while reducing inputs and minimizing environmental impacts in the crop and livestock sectors. This includes maintaining and improving the health of ecosystems, biodiversity, soil, and water. To achieve this, we support advanced tools and systems to enhance farming efficiency, productivity, and sustainability. These include data and digital solutions across the value chain to optimize livestock and crop production and health, improve efficient post-harvest storage systems, develop autonomous systems that ensure the safety, quality, and traceability of food, and support streamlined manufacturing and supply chain systems. Together, these solutions will make the sector more agile, adaptable, and resilient.
Growth and diversification of our food and food ingredient manufacturing sector is key to the diversification of our agricultural sector and further developing the value chain across the province. We support the development of data and digital solutions, novel processing solutions, and emission reduction solutions that focus on food waste reduction, recycling resources into processing, use of renewable energy into food technology, smart packaging, and integrated supply chain. These innovations should improve food safety, food quality, efficiencies, and profitability of manufacturing while providing the bonus of new supply opportunities for Alberta grown agri-food commodities.
See our portfolio guide for more details and investment priorities.
Agriculture & Forestry, Clean Technology, Emerging Technology & Data Science, Energy, Entrepreneurial Investment, Environment
Alberta Innovates is a member of the Agriculture Funding Consortium, a collaborative body of agricultural organizations that provides coordinated funding. The consortium supports sustainability, diversification, and long-term growth for agriculture and the food industry in Western Canada.
The Smart Agriculture and Food Digitalization and Automation Challenge provided funding to develop or advance smart technologies to increase productivity, reduce production costs, or increase the value of agri-food commodities. The program has now closed and will not be offering funding in the future. Visit our news article on SAFDAC for information on the 18 projects previously funded under the program. The ABIP program continues to offer funding for similar projects.
Since 2005, the Alberta Prion Research Institute was integral to attracting researchers to get involved in prion science, leading Alberta to become world-renowned as a major centre for research in these diseases. Targeted funding over the years created a strong prion research infrastructure and an international network to carry on this work. The institution’s operations concluded in March 2022 after successfully achieving its mandate.
The CWD Research Program supports collaborative research directly related to understanding and managing the spread the spread of CWD, a prion disease affecting elk, deer, and other cervids.
Alberta Innovates led the establishment of the Canadian Agri-Food Automation and Intelligence Network (CAAIN).
CAAIN drives collaborative research and innovation from coast to coast. The group works together to support the development of new solutions for the most significant challenges facing Canada’s agri-food sector.
Browse our Funded Projects library to review reports and summaries for funded projects.
Food and Agriculture Dana Gibson Executive Director Dana.Gibson@albertainnovates.ca
Sustainable Agriculture Virginia Mulligan, PhD Program Director Virginia.Mulligan@albertainnovates.ca
Food Mahesh Sivakumar, PhD, P.Eng, PAg, ASQ CQE Senior Program Manager Mahesh.Sivakumar@albertainnovates.ca