Commercialization and Adoption

It is important that the knowledge derived from publicly funded research be transferred as quickly as possible to the producers and other members of the public who can make use of this information.

The Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture has established three programs to get new information, and especially new technology, into the hands of producers, food processors and other agri-business people.

• Agriculture Demonstration of Practices and Technologies (ADOPT) program provides funding to local producer groups to set up test plots so they can evaluate the effectiveness of a new agricultural practice or technology under local conditions.

• Agriculture-Applied Research Management (Agri-ARM) program is a province-wide network of eight regional applied research and demonstration sites that performs a similar role as the ADOPT program but on a permanent basis. Each site is affiliated with a specific producer group that sets the research priorities for that site.

• A new Strategic Field Program under the Canadian Agricultural Partnership (CAP) will provide a tool for extension specialists to increase the transfer of research to farmers and ranchers, by specialists' involvement in the development of key applied research and demonstration projects and in the extension of project result

Saskatchewan Agriculture has also set up partnerships with three non-governmental agencies to commercialize the results of publicly funded research.

• Ag-West Bio gives entrepreneurs advice and support in commercializing their products and technologies.
• The Saskatchewan Food Industry Development Centre helps small and medium-sized food processors develop and launch new products.
• The Industry Liaison Office of the University of Saskatchewan helps commercialize the technologies developed by the government-funded Strategic Research Program chairs at the university.