HortProtect Property and Casualty Insurance Update
Atlantic Green Forum in Review
Horticulture Value Chain Roundtable
Green Industry News November-December 2010 Vol. 19 Issue 6
What’s inside: • Adding Value to your Membership Dues • Advance Payments Program for Nursery Growers • New Professional Development at the George Morris Centre • HortEast 2010 a great success! • New addition to LNS
Innovative Plant Culture
Technology The Government of Canada is investing in new plant culture technology that will give farmers access to economically important crops. AgriForest Bio-Technologies Ltd. will receive up to $88,500 to adopt and house its innovative technology designed to increase the production of important horticultural plant varieties. “The Government of Canada knows that investments in innovative projects help ensure a bright future for farmers and for the agriculture sector,” said MP Cannan. “This facility will create new market opportunities for our growers by giving them better access to the best breeds and plant varieties.” The investment will go towards building a climatecontrolled production facility and greenhouse to produce commercially-important plant varieties using new, innovative technology in order to culture plant tissues. The project is expected to create nine jobs in the first three years of the project and increase production and availability of the best varieties of crops for farmers. “We are honoured to receive this award which will help AgriForest build an environmentally friendly, photoautotrophic micro-propagation facility. The creation of this facility will not only help
AgriForest increase its productivity and profitability but will have sector-wide benefits for the agriculture and horticulture industries of Canada,” said Dr. Kamlesh R. Patel, President and CEO of AgriForest BioTechnologies Ltd. AgriForest Bio-Technologies have developed a new technique in photoautotrophic micropropogation to make plant production of important Canadian crops more efficient and cost effective. The plantlets produced using this technique can withstand adverse growing conditions, providing farmers with the best horticultural plant varieties available at the right time, without delays to the planting cycle. Funding for this project comes from the Agri-Opportunities Program, a five-year program that focuses on new innovative agri-products, processes or services that are currently not commercially produced or available in Canada and that are ready to be introduced into the marketplace. For more information on the Agri-Opportunities program please visit www.agr. gc.ca/agriopportunities.