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Standing in the middle of a potato field in Drummond, Agriculture and Aquaculture Minister Ronald Ouellette announced on July 30 that the provincial government is investing $850,000 to help the agriculture and agri-food sector become more profitable and sustainable. The funding will support a variety of strategic initiatives that are part of the government's self-sufficiency strategy.

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"These initiatives are being implemented to assist the agriculture and agri-food sector improve its long-term viability by capturing opportunities and addressing industry challenges," Ouellette said. "Investing new money in agriculture shows how serious this government is about enhancing the ability of the agriculture industry to be an important player in our goal of achieving self-sufficiency."

The initiatives will provide funding to agricultural producers in the areas of livestock genetic enhancement, honeybee revitalization, apple industry development, export market development, and organic industry development.

Coupled with the recent announcement of the $650,000 Agri-Land Development Program, last week's announcement brings the total investment of strategic agriculture and agri-food initiatives by the province to $1.5 million in this fiscal year.

The agriculture and agri-food industry in New Brunswick accounts for $450 million in farm cash receipts and close to $1.2 billion in agri-food and beverage products, providing direct employment to more than 13,000 New Brunswickers.

"The Summit on agriculture held this past April concluded with a commitment from our government to work with the agriculture community to develop a plan to make the sector more profitable and sustainable for the producers of the province. This transformational framework will set a new course for agriculture by ensuring that it remains a cornerstone of New Brunswick's economy, that fully participates in the goal of achieving self-sufficiency," Ouellette said.

"These initiatives are being implemented to assist the agriculture and agri-food sector improve its long term viability by capturing opportunities and addressing industry challenges," he added.

"The agriculture market development initiative for export opportunities is actually a new initiative this year. This again is an answer to the industry which we are listening to. It has been developed in consultation with agriculture producers, shippers and exporters to support and revitalize the development and expansion of export markets for New Brunwick's primary agriculture products," Ouellette stated. "It provides funding of $150,000 to assist agricultural export businesses to improve their viability, attract a wider range of clientele, increase promotion and advertising activities and develop innovative market opportunities."

"The objective of the livestock genetic enhancement initiative ($300,000) is to foster the continued improvement of the genetic base of the New Brunswick livestock sectors through the purchase or retention of genetically superior animals.

The continued introduction of genetically superior animals will ensure that producers can produce consistently the highest-quality livestock products on a competitive basis, thereby enabling them to adapt to and take advantage of new production and marketing opportunities in their respective sectors," he said.

This initiative is composed of six distinct genetic enhancement and expansion elements for the beef, swine, sheep, goat, mink and farmed fox sectors.

As well, a total of $100,000 is made available to the apple producers of the province under the Apple Industry Development Initiative.

"This money will facilitate the establishment of new and more productive orchard systems, apple varieties and rootstocks. It will also help with the adoption of new technologies that will improve post-harvest apple storage systems and improve on-farm food safety and quality assurance. This support will facilitate the installation of more productive orchard systems that will generate higher yields and higher market returns, while helping producers with the purchase of equipment required to maintain optimum fruit quality until it is delivered to the consumer," Ouellette said.

The $150,000 honeybee expansion initiative is designed to help New Brunswick beekeepers expand their operations through the purchase of colonies, nuclei colonies and/or provision of financial incentives to encourage splitting of existing strong colonies. This will help the industry expand colony numbers and work towards self sufficiency for blueberry pollination in New Brunswick.

The objective of the organic development initiative ($90,000) is to support established organic operations and individuals, and agri-businesses in transition to organic production or considering establishing commercial-scale organic production and/or organic value-added activities, as well as to support and augment the organic certification system.

Programs will be developed to help strategic planning and the development of directions for industry thanks to a $60,000 grant.

"The funding announced today is in line with this government's belief in investing to capture long term opportunities," Ouellette said. "This will help improve the sustainability of agriculture and be more competitive in the province for future generations.

Ultimately, they will continue to increase the agriculture industry's ability to be an important player in our government's agenda for achieving self-sufficiency."