Federal money for agricultural innovation in the North

An announcement Friday morning in Sudbury was aimed at boosting agricultural innovation in northern Ontario.

The federal government is spending more than $400,000 to grow the agriculture sector. The Northern Ontario Farm Innovation Alliance said it will help create partnerships among agrifood producers.

Marie-Claude Bibeau, minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, said the funding will help farmers and agrifood producers network to share information and resources to become stronger.

"It will give many opportunities to the sector to businesses and co-ops and the network of farmers in the region so they can have the possibility to work together to count on each other to develop new technologies to innovate in order to be more productive," said Bibeau.

The Northern Ontario Farm Innovation Alliance said the region is vast and some of the money will be used to bridge geographical challenges, from transportation to land development.

"We have some potential to grow. We have some really good land in areas that can be utilized a lot better. We need infrastructure to get the potential," said Yves Gauthier, president of the Alliance.

Sudbury area MPs said the funding would help 150 agriculture enterprises expand.

"Farmers here in northern Ontario, you know, they have some challenges obviously with distances, lack of population," said Nickel Belt MP Marc Serre.

"So this is a fund that is going to help them to innovate. Going to help them look at what can they look at growing better here in northern Ontario."

Officials said some of the money is being used to bring compactors to farmers in northern Ontario to package farm-related plastics that will be shipped to recyclers instead of ending up in the landfill.