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Better Farming Ontario magazine is published 11 times per year. After each edition is published, we share featured articles online.


Ontario Soil and Crop announces merit system for funding farmer GF2 projects

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

by SUSAN MANN

All funding provided for farmers’ projects under Growing Forward 2 will be merit based starting this year as part of changes to the program, the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association has announced.

And that means only projects with the most impact will get money under Growing Forward 2, the national agricultural policy framework. It provides funding on a cost-shared basis from the federal, provincial and/or territorial governments. The funding is for projects in these categories: assessment/audit, planning, skills development and training and implementation. Ontario Soil and Crop administers the program in Ontario.

Another change this year is making it mandatory for farmers to complete workshops for some categories of projects to qualify for funding. People can check the association’s website for details on what’s required in the funding application. The Growing Forward 2 program guide is included in this section of the website.

John Laidlaw, Ontario Soil and Crop program manager, says the program guide also lists the funding caps for the various projects. “There’s no one size fits all for the caps and they vary depending on the best management practice that you’re applying for.”

The caps are also new this year along with the rule that funding will only apply to invoices dated after the association has issued a letter approving the funding allocation. “If you spent any money on your project before the date of the approval letter, those invoices wouldn’t be eligible,” he says.

Previously the invoice had to be dated April 1 or later of the program year to get the funding. That applied to the first two program years.

The changes for this year don’t apply to previously approved projects.

The dates for submitting applications for the 2015/16 program are: May 1 to 21, August 10 to 27 and November 16 to December 3.

Unchanged are the six areas of focus for projects. They are:

  • Environment and climate change adaptation
  • Animal and plant health
  • Market development
  • Labour productivity enhancement
  • Assurance systems (food safety, animal welfare and traceability)
  • Business and leadership development

Laidlaw says the program guide is a lot bigger this year but farmers don’t need to read through the entire document. They can just review the first few general information pages and then go to the specific sections that apply to their project. But Ontario Soil and Crop advises reviewing the guidelines for full details before starting projects.

Incomplete applications along with ones that aren’t submitted within the deadline dates are rejected. But Laidlaw says for the November/December 2014 application intake period the applications that were submitted were fairly complete. “There weren’t a whole lot of projects turned down because they didn’t provide all the required information.”

The numbers for the 2014/15 program year haven’t been finalized yet, he says. The deadline to submit claims for last year’s program is Friday.

All applicants are informed in a letter of the status of their proposal. Unsuccessful applicants can try again in another submission period as long as their project wasn’t turned down because it was deemed ineligible for funding.

“If the project didn’t have enough merit, we generally include in the letter declining the project things they can do to improve their project,” he says.

In an email today, Susan Micallef, a spokesperson with the Ontario ministry of agriculture, food and rural affairs, noted that for the 2015-2016 funding year, $30 million is earmarked under Growing Forward 2 to support “new and multi-year projects” by producers, processors and organizations and group collaborations. Since 2013, “a total of $75 million has been committed to single and multi-year projects,” she writes. BF
 

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