At Salt of the Earth Farm in Lyndhurst, Ont., farmer Charles Summers says the weather can be unpredictable.
“Well, you never know what you’re going to get,” says Summers.
Over his 20 years in agriculture, there have been good years and bad years — but with the climate changing, farming isn’t getting any easier.
That’s what has a Kingston laboratory busy, located in the city’s west end.
It’s a bio-technology laboratory filled with people, and plants, hoping to make a breakthrough.
This week, Performance Plants was one of eight startup companies awarded a $150,000 grant through the province’s Ontario Genomics’ BioCreate Program, to pursue their work on “climate change-resistant crops”.
“Some of the traditional farmlands are no longer suitable to grow the variety we’ve been growing for centuries,” says Yafan Huang, CEO of Performance Plants, “unless there’s new technology to improve their tolerance to those new conditions.”
Those conditions, mostly heat and drought, cause stress on crops.
That stress, says Huang, is what they’re trying to reduce through their work.
Right now, they’re doing research with soy and canola — crops that, in western Canada, saw a 50-per cent drop in yield for 2021.
“We are very close to developing a finished product,” says Huang.
“By the end of this year, early next year, we may have some really amazing products coming out.”
For Performance Plants, Huang says the $150,000 grant will help them get to that goal sooner.
Which is something a farmer like Summers can appreciate — he’s looking at the weather this year, wondering when things will improve for his produce.
“Not a lot of heat,” says Summers.
“Cool and dry, so very comfortable, but does not have what plants crave.”
As for the work of researchers like Huang, he says making farmer’s jobs a little easier is something that everyone should want.
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