Area farmers to receive $228,000 from province

REGIONAL – The Governments of Ontario and Canada are investing $7.3 million through the Canadian Agricultural Partnership to help support farmers and agri-food businesses.

The investment will fund projects in priority areas that increase food safety, accelerate sector innovation and help farmers bring new products to market to grow their businesses.

“I am happy to announce that my riding of Chatham-Kent-Leamington will be receiving approximately $228,000 to assist 20 projects in support farmers and the agri-food businesses,” said Rick Nicholls, MPP for Chatham-Kent-Leamington. “This funding will increase food safety and accelerate sector innovation to help farmers bring to market all the foods Ontarians need and love.”

This funding supports more than 600 cost-shared projects that strengthen Ontario’s agri-food sector by helping eligible farmers in over 270 communities across the province to continue producing safe, high quality food in Ontario.

Positive outcomes of projects funded under this intake include:

• Improvement of food safety systems on farms to meet or exceed national and international certification standards;

• Development of products that will open new sales markets for farm businesses for example, a new organic pepper product to expand markets or developing maple butter as a new, value-added farm product;

• Planting cover crops to improve soil health and reduce soil erosion losses over winter;

• Increasing preventative measures to help reduce pest damage at greenhouse operations; and

• Upgrades to animal-handling equipment to improve animal welfare and reduce disease transmission on livestock farms.