A national organic growers’ group plans to pick five commodities for a project to see how best to adapt their current on-farm food safety systems to suit organic production.
The federal government on Saturday pledged almost $50,000 through its Integrated Food Safety Initiative for the Canadian Organic Growers Association (COG) to develop a strategy for determining how current on-farm food safety systems can best meet the “specific needs” of organic agriculture.
Five organic commodities will be chosen for this project “in consultation with organic farmers across the country,” the government said in a release Saturday.
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“This funding will go a long way to enable the organic sector to begin a dialogue with national agricultural commodity groups to customize on-farm food safety programs to meet the specialized needs of organic farmers,” COG executive director Laura Telford said in the government’s release.
The Organic Trade Association (OTA) in Canada, meanwhile, also picked up a government pledge Saturday for over $118,000 from the AgriMarketing program, to “stay ahead of international market trends.”
The funding is to allow OTA to take part in international-level trade shows, develop promotional materials and build a “long-term international strategy” for the organic sector.
“We are excited about what this federal funding means in terms of building new markets for Canadian organic products,” Matthew Holmes, OTA in Canada’s managing director, said in Saturday’s release.
“The global organic market is expanding rapidly and this support will allow Canada to establish itself as a supplier of quality organic products.”
