University gears up to identify the details of sustainable food production

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

by SUSAN MANN

The University of Guelph is challenging its researchers to help farmers sustainably feed the world’s growing population through a new seven-year project called Food From Thought.

The federal government is providing $77 million in funding for the project that involves starting a “digital revolution in food and agriculture,” according to a Sept. 8 university press release. It’s the largest single federal research grant in the university’s history.

Guelph MP Lloyd Longfield announced the funding Thursday on behalf of federal Minister of Science Kirsty Duncan. The government is providing the money through the Canada First Research Excellence Fund, which supports world-leading research at universities and colleges.

Geography professor Evan Fraser, scientific director of Food From Thought, said the government funding is for seven years but the university doesn’t know the start date of its project yet. The university is anticipating getting the funding by April 1, 2017.

Fraser said it would take some time for the government to sign the legal agreement with the university.

In the release, university president Franco Vaccarino said the project would help farmers “produce more food on less land using fewer inputs.”

Fraser said the funding “reinforces University of Guelph’s identity as Canada’s food university.” It’s also a ringing endorsement of the university’s work to be strategic, deliberate and collaborative, he said.

The university faces a big job. The world’s growing appetite for food comes at a time “when problems like climate change and soil degradation in many parts of the world are making food harder to produce,” Fraser said.

Using data-intensive technologies to keep farms economically efficient, while reducing environmental impacts and maintaining health and welfare standards, is a huge global challenge, he noted.

Don McCabe, Ontario Federation of Agriculture president, said developing more sustainable agricultural practices that farmers can use is absolutely necessary. However, farmers also need society’s acceptance “of some of these measures.”

Farmers don’t always have society’s backing on its practices. For example, McCabe said society is insisting farmers move to cage-free egg production, and yet housing hens outside of cages increases their mortality rates. “Can you actually convince me, somehow, that increasing a mortality rate is beneficial to animal welfare?”

Still, McCabe said he’s thankful the university has received the funding “to move things along. I hope we’re able to harness it to bring precision agriculture, the bio-economy and a bunch of other measures forward more quickly for Ontario farmers.”

About the university president’s statement to help farmers produce more food on less land with fewer inputs, McCabe said farmers are already doing that “every day of the week.” Farmers are producing more for every acre of land. However, the biggest problem they face is hanging on to that acre of land “when we are losing it to housing developments.”

Another problem farmers face is they’re unable to harness new technologies as quickly as they need to because people don’t understand them, McCabe noted.

In doing the Food From Thought project, the university will work in partnership with other academic institutions around the world, numerous government agencies, industry groups and innovation centre. It will be one of the university’s largest and most inclusive projects involving all seven colleges.

Fraser said the agricultural sector is only just beginning to scratch the surface on using precision agriculture and technologies to provide nutrients and other inputs to livestock “to ensure maximum efficiency.”

He added, “We are at the beginning of a radical shift in how much food we produce versus how many inputs we use.”

Data-intensive technologies, such as big data analytics and smart tractors, are only now beginning to be applied to farming systems and “there’s a huge scope for improved efficiency in the future,” he explained.

Big data analytics involves, for example, in the dairy industry using robotic milkers to monitor each cow’s health and wellbeing throughout the day. The monitoring involves checking various indicators, such as milk temperature.

“That cow is given the equivalent of personalized medicine and diet, or the right amount of nutrients for that animal at that particular stage of life,” he noted. “That ability to provide, in real time, inputs to a cow is quite new.”

Previously farmers would feed their cows based on the herd’s average production, he added.

The project is designed to create novel tools to produce more and safer food while also protecting the environment, according to the university’s release. Faculty, staff and students will have an opportunity to participate.

Fraser said 40 or 50 academic staff members will be actively participating in various elements of the project.

Ten principal investigators from across the university will lead the project. Some of the principal investigators include:

• Bonnie Mallard, pathobiology professor at the university’s Ontario Veterinary College. Her portion of the project includes studying the effects of genetic regulation on livestock immune systems to improve animal health and the use of inputs, such as antibiotics.
• Clarence Swanton, professor in the department of plant agriculture. His Food From Thought research will result in tools for farmers to help them grow more food and at the same time protect biodiversity.
• Tina Widowski, director of the Campbell Centre for the Study of Animal Welfare and Egg Farmers of Canada research chair in poultry welfare. Her team will use big data and new agri-food technologies to help farmers improve animal welfare.

Also as part of the project, Fraser will explore the effects of big data and new agricultural technologies on global food security.

Other parts of the project include using management systems to help track emerging infectious diseases in livestock and control pathogens in the food supply, expanding the use of DNA barcoding technology to identify food fraud, and using big data on farms to reduce pesticide use and monitor watershed health.

The university was required to participate in a competition for the funding, Fraser said. In total, the government handed out $900 million in this round of funding under the Canada First Research Excellence Fund.

Almost 60 letters of intent were submitted to the government in November 2015 for funding under this second round, he explained. From those, the government compiled a short list of 34 applicants, and interviewed 15 of them. Thirteen universities’ proposals were awarded funding.

In round one, the government handed out about $400 million in funding. The University of Guelph narrowly missed getting funding in that first round, he said. “We were ranked sixth across the country and the government gave out five awards” at that time. BF