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• Growing Forward
• B.C. Services and Program Guide
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  • Food Safety Systems Implementation
  • Business Risk Management
  • Environment (EFP)
  • EIT(tracebility)
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B.C. Home » Agriculture » Growing Forward » Growing Forward Programs in BC

Growing Forward Services and Programs in BC

Growing Forward is a commitment to Canada’s agriculture sector focused on achieving results and delivering programs that are simple, effective and tailored to local needs.

Growing Forward puts emphasis on building a profitable sector through its three strategic outcomes:

• A competitive and innovative sector: From idea to invention to consumer, growing new opportunities that support innovation and competitiveness.
• A sector that contributes to society's priorities: Enabling the sector to contribute to the priorities of increasingly health-conscious and environmentally aware Canadians.
• A sector proactive in managing risks: The business risk management (BRM) suite programs were the first programs available under Growing Forward, offering more responsive, predictable and bankable programs for farmers.

Under the innovation theme of the federal-provincial Growing Forward agreement, government and industry are collaborating on a number of initiatives, such as:

Innovation and Commercialization Centre

Government and industry are working together to create a one-stop information resource for the agricultural/agri-food sector, focused on support for innovation and commercialization. The Centre will promote collaboration and build product and process development capacity within the Province by linking businesses and other organizations with service and technology suppliers. Initially, it will operate through a website and a small administrative office.

One example of the Centre’s work is the Lean Manufacturing Pilot Project.  This pilot training program will apply high-efficiency, low-waste lean manufacturing processes to B.C. nursery, vegetable greenhouse, and small scale food processors, improving operational performance and profitability for small and medium sized companies.

Agri-Innovation Fora

B.C. Food, Fuel and Fibre Innovation Forum Series involves government and industry working cooperatively to plan and participate in a series of agriculture innovation forums to foster collaborative science, policy and marketing action plans and strategies. This series looks at how agriculture, forestry and energy interact in B.C., and how they can contribute to the green economy by discovering innovative ways of working together.

Advancing Biobased Opportunities

Value Chain Project explores value chains as a way for producers and processors to collaborate and develop high quality premium-priced products demanded by the marketplace. The Potato Value Chain Pilot works broadly with industry and culinary arts programs to identify and evaluate new potato varieties for field and culinary performance under B.C. conditions. This will create new relationships and market opportunities for B.C. potato farmers. 

B.C. Product Authentication and Quality Analysis for B.C. Agri-Products develops and assesses testing methods to ensure B.C.-labelled products are grown here. This will increase B.C.’s capacity for product quality assessments and increase success in product development and market access.

B.C. Biomass E-trading Platform supports the development of a pilot web-based platform for the agricultural sector. This will enable producers, processors, distributors and others to locate biomass easily and quickly for products such as bioenergy or nutraceuticals. 

These and other innovation initiatives help the B.C. agri-food sector increase the pace of development and adoption of new technologies and processes, and improve their economic competitiveness, environmental sustainability and resilience for the regional and global marketplace.

For further information on innovation programming, please contact the Innovation and Governance Branch at the Ministry of Agriculture at 250-356-6249.

In BC, the focus of the Growing Forward programs will be on building a profitable sector through the following:

BC Farm Business Advisory Services Program

BC Farm Business Advisory Services Program is two tiered:

• Tier 1 provides 100% support for consulting services for a basic farm financial assessment [value of up to $1,900] at a cost of only $100 to the producer.
• Tier 2 covers 85% of the cost of consulting services up to a maximum of $3,000 for specialized business planning to adopt progressive farm business management practices and strategies in nine business management areas.

-	Business strategy	-	Succession planning	-	Marketing strategy
-	Business structure	-	Production economics	-	Risk assessment
-	Human resources	-	Value-added ventures	-	Financial management

BC Food Safety Systems Implementation (Producer) Program

BC Food Safety Systems Implementation (Producer) Program provides funding up to $3000 to support individual food producers that are implementing an On Farm Food Safety Program. Contact BC Agricultural Research and Development Corporation (ARDCORP) at 1 866-522-3447 or Contact BC Ministry of Agriculture & Lands at 1 888 221-7141 or http://www.al.gov.bc.ca/foodsafety/fed-prov.htm

BC Food Safety Systems Implementation (Processor) Program

BC Food Safety Systems Implementation (Processor) Program provides funding for educational workshops, individual consultations, and offers funding up to $20,000 to food processors to implement GMP and / or HACCP and / or ISO22000. Contact Small Scale Food Processors’ Association at 1 866-547-7372 or Contact Ministry of Agriculture & Lands at 1 888 221-7141 or http://www.al.gov.bc.ca/foodsafety/fed-prov.htm

BC Enterprise Infrastructure Traceability (EIT) Program

BC Enterprise Infrastructure Traceability (EIT) Program provides funding up to $20,000 to assist primary and secondary operations in the BC agri-food sector to purchase and install traceability infrastructure/systems in their operations.

Contact BC Agricultural Research and Development Corporation (ARDCORP) at 1 866-522-3447 or Contact BC Ministry of Agriculture & Lands at 1 888 221-7141 or http://www.al.gov.bc.ca/foodsafety/fed-prov.htm

BC Agri-Environmental Risk Assessment (EFPs) / On-Farm Sustainable Agricultural Practices (BMPs)

BC Agri-Environmental Risk Assessment (EFPs) / On-Farm Sustainable Agricultural Practices (BMPs) raise awareness amongst producers and enhance environmental farm stewardship. This is accomplished through the continued implementation of a broad based, voluntary, staged and producer driven EFP Program, and the subsequent application of beneficial management practices to reduce environmental risks on-farm. Contact BC Agricultural Research and Development Corporation (ARDCORP) at 1 866-522-3447

The Growing Forward program in Canada

For more information about Growing Forward please visit: http://www.agr.gc.ca/growingforward

For information on funding opportunities please visit: http://www.ats-sea.agr.gc.ca/exp/5288-eng.htm

The Growing Forward program in BC

The Growing Forward program (March 15, 2010)(print version) in British Columbia provides a wide range of programs and services for producers and processors.

The Growing Forward a BC-Canada agreement

The governments of Canada and British Columbia are committed to ensuring that foods produced in Canada are among the highest quality in the world. To further this cause, funding will be made available to the people of British Columbia under Growing Forward (GF), the new agriculture policy partnership between the federal and the provincial government, which runs from 2009-2013.