Bullet News CLINTON – The deadline to apply for recognition as one of the top agri-food innovators is less than a month away.
Application deadline for a share in $425,000 in prize money under Premier’s Award for Agri-Food Innovation Excellence is 5 p.m. on Nov. 14. Recipients will be recognized in Spring 2012.
“We have a lot of great innovators in Huron County, so let’s celebrate what we have,” said Jane Muegge, an agriculture economic development adviser at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. She outlined the award program at a recent meeting of the county’s Committee of the Whole.
New this year is the Leader in Innovation category, which awards three prizes of $25,000.
In 2011, the following Huron County innovators who captured $5,000 prizes were:
Sharon and Ron Douglas of Whispering Brook Yorkshires for their mini-farm on wheels, which is a converted livestock trailer with the side cut out for windows to let people see the pigs as they live on the farm;
Teresa and Martin Van Ray, who operate The Whole Pig in Dashwood, for a unique business that brings flash-frozen pork cuts right to customers’ doors, along with recipes, nutritional information and facts about their farm and how they raise pigs;
Gordon and Bethany Edgar of Gordon’s Goat Dairy, for their combination goat farm, cheese making, and distribution business, and;
Fieldgate Organics Inc., the only certified organic meat processing facility of its kind in Canada. It is owned by a group of beef producers and investors.
Ontario’s agriculture sector employs approximately 164,000 and farm outputs contributed $22 billion in gross economic stimulus to Ontario in 2009. Additionally, Ontario’s food and beverage processing sector, a vital part of the agri-food value chain, is a $34 billion industry, employing over 110,000 directly and over 100,000 Ontarians in related industries.
For more information on applying, visit the Premier’s Award for Agri-Food Innovation Excellence or call the Agricultural Information Contact Centre at 1-877-424-1300.
