Today, Canada's Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Lawrence MacAulay and Saskatchewan's Minister of Agriculture Daryl Harrison announced $6.9 million to jointly support livestock and forage-related scientific research in Saskatchewan in 2025, combined with co-funding from industry partners for a total of $7.2 million.
The investment is part of Saskatchewan's 2024-25 budget of $37 million for agriculture research and is delivered through the province's Agriculture Development Fund (ADF) under the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership (Sustainable CAP). The ADF is supporting 30 livestock and forage-related research projects this year which focus on a variety of topics.
The selection and approval of projects supported by the ADF is based on an annual competitive process to identify research with the potential to help Saskatchewan's livestock producers and agriculture industry remain innovative, profitable and competitive. This year's livestock and forage-related projects include a range of topics such as enhancing the capacity to research pathogens and manufacture vaccines and therapeutics to help control infectious diseases, including those that cause pandemics; evaluating the combined impact of prescribed fire and post-fire herbicide applications to control woody plants (snowberry) in rangelands; and investigating how trace-mineral supplementation could help feeder calves respond better to vaccines.
The governments of Canada and Saskatchewan work closely with industry partners to leverage funding to support research that aligns with industry priorities. This year's ADF projects were supported by an additional $216,000 contributed by the following industry partners:
- Saskatchewan Cattlemen's Association
- Saskatchewan Forage Seed Development Commission
- SaskPork
- Western Dairy Research Collaboration (BC Dairy, Alberta Milk, SaskMilk, and Dairy Farmers of Manitoba)
