CORNER BROOK Their areas of expertise may be a little different, but Dave Jennings and Antony Card both see collaboration as a necessity for the agriculture industry.
Jennings, a director with the Department of Natural Resources, said agriculture is a growing industry that is essential to the future of the province.
“It’s one of the basic strategic things that we need to do in this province is to have a healthy agriculture sector.”
Jennings made those comments following the conclusion of the “Our Food, Our Future, Growing the Agriculture Industry in Newfoundland and Labrador” conference Friday.
He said the event was aimed at creating collaborative efforts and formalizing a relationship between the Department of Natural Resources, agrifoods, Memorial University, Agriculture Canada, and the Research and Development Corporation.
Jennings said research and development will be a major component of growing the industry.
“We know we have a lot of questions to answer to help this industry grow,” he said.
Questions around new crops, diversification of the industry, land base management and climate change.
Helping answer those questions is where Grenfell will play a role.
Card, associate vice-president (research) at Grenfell said the university is investing $8 million in its environmental science labs and will be hiring five research professors who will work across the forestry and agriculture disciplines.
“We will be at the high end of research and development,” said Card.
“That’s how we will lead.”
Card said the conference was all about bringing the various parties and stakeholders together.
“We know what we’re doing but we needed to engage the others and to start that conversation. Today is the start of the conversation.
“It’s the watershed event that actually brings everybody together.”
Original Article Here
No comments:
Post a Comment