Government support lacking in agriculture innovation hubs

Agriculture Innovation Hubs have been around for a while with some having been around for 30 to 40 years. The hubs are a group of farmers who are interested in creating an organization that can support the industry by means of research and education. The problem now however is that support from the government is dwindling.

“It’s used to be a well-supported industry but of recent there’s been a lot of cuts, governments have been pulling out of supporting primary production and they are now focused on you know other things. As we’ve learned through COVID and as we’ve learned through a changing economy that food is very important, cost of food is very important and also it helps to diversify our economy. I know agriculture is going to be here for a long long time and I want to make sure that we have the infrastructure and the needs to support our agriculture,” said Ken Coles, Executive Director of Farming Smarter.

Coles hopes the provincial government will start to look at ways to better support the agriculture industry.