New provincial cash will boost local ag research

By Lethbridge Herald on June 26, 2025.

Herald photo by Nathan Reiter Alberta Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation RJ Sigurdson speaks at the Farming Smarter Field School near Lethbridge on Wednesday afternoon.

Nathan Reiter
Lethbridge Herald
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Applied research associations across the province will get some financial help from the provincial government.

Alberta Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation RJ Sigurdson made the announcement Wednesday at the first day of the Farming Smarter field school on the outskirts of Lethbridge.

The event will run over two days and feature presentations and demonstrations from Farming Smarter members along with guests Amanda Crook from McCain Foods, Robyne Davidson from Lakeland College along with Dr. Monika Gorzelak and Dr. Henry Chau of AAFC Lethbridge.

The last event on Wednesday morning was an announcement from Sigurdson, which was a one-time $3.2 million grant for the 12 applied research associations in the province.

Farming Smarter received $500,000 in total from the grant. Sigurdson says the money will allow research to continue to develop more efficiently.

“The associations can extend the life of their facilities, infrastructure, equipment and reduce operating costs. The funding is intended to support agricultural research and improve competitiveness. Today’s event hosted by Farming Smarter is a great example of an applied research association bringing information from the lab to the field to improve farming technologies.”

During his speech, Sigurdson referred to Alberta as an agricultural powerhouse and says that many foreign countries will look to the province, along with the rest of western Canada, to feed their populations.

“There’s only five net exporting countries left in the world and Canada is one of them. When we look at Western Canada combining Alberta and Saskatchewan together, we are the bread basket and we feed the globe as well as our families here at home. Estimates are that the global food demand will rise by anywhere from 65 to 85 per cent by mid-century. 

More and more countries are going to continue to look to our province here to feed the world. Research is going to be key to continuing to support our farmers and ranchers in the incredible work that they do every year.”

In an interview with the Herald following the announcement, Farming Smarter executive director Ken Coles said the funding will allow for more research to be performed.

“Any time that we get a capital grant, they’re few and far between. When they come, they’re hugely impactful to the work that we do. It’s kind of like any farm, if you go from one combine to two, now you can do twice as much stuff. That’s what the grant has allowed us to do. We’ve been able to branch into a completely new field of study.

“Potatoes require all kinds of new specialized equipment. While we did match the grant with our own capital investments, and I’m looking to leverage it with other grants, it just dramatically expands the capacity that we can do work, and allows us to engage in more research and more contract trials, and just keep helping push the industry forward.”

In 2024, Farming Smarter conducted 161 trials and researched 24 separate crops. 32 separate companies have contracts in place with Farming Smarter for research. With the agriculture minister in attendance, Coles says the field school was a great way to showcase what the organization was all about.

“It means a lot because he came down to announce a grant that applied to the entire province here. To have him here in southern Alberta, we are the largest organization of our kind in western Canada. I think that it’s nice to have him here to recognize and see that. A lot of people don’t understand the scale and scope of what we do, and this is an opportunity to share that with them.”