New Harvest is excited to announce the launch of its first Prairie-focused initiative, the Cellular Agriculture Prairies Ecosystem (CAPE) Project. Supported by $1 million in funding from the Government of Canada through PrairiesCan, the project will receive matching contributions from regional partners and utilize talent and existing infrastructure assets throughout the Prairies. This project will also strengthen a previously announced partnership with the University of Alberta in 2022 to establish an Institute of Cellular Agriculture.
CAPE aims to kickstart a cellular agriculture applied research and innovation ecosystem in the Prairies—transforming local agricultural resources into biomanufacturing inputs while enhancing talent development and research infrastructure to enhance economic opportunities.
“Alberta’s farmers and producers work hard to feed our communities and drive our economy,” said the Honourable Terry Duguid, Minister for PrairiesCan. “This investment in New Harvest Canada is about supporting innovation that builds on that strength—creating new opportunities for producers, making our food system more resilient, and ensuring a strong, sustainable future for Alberta’s agriculture sector.”
As part of the program, New Harvest’s hallmark fellowship will be given a Canadian arm, with several PhD and postdoctoral fellows joining as trainees as early as May 2025. This cohort is primed to emerge as world-class researchers in cellular agriculture and food biomanufacturing—working on industry-driven applied research projects to address industry challenges, from valorizing canola waste streams to produce a crop-sourced media replacement, to discovering alternative uses for underutilized sustainable Canadian crops such as sugar beets.
Fellows will work closely with industry partners to develop the lifecycle, environmental, economic, and safety assessments to support agricultural producers, while enabling start-ups to commercialize minimal viable products.
Read the PrairiesCan news release referencing CAPE here.
To make this announcement even more exciting, it serendipitously aligned with CAPE’s formal Kick-off Meeting yesterday, where all 12 partners (University of Alberta, University of Manitoba, Lethbridge Polytechnic, Dalhousie University, Alberta Sugar Beet Growers, BioBoost Synbio, Ferma Farms, Opalia, GERBER-RAUTH, PnuVax, Vireo Advisors Canada, and Stelo Biotechnology) came together to discuss the project, and dream big for the next 3-years ahead.
If successful, CAPE could be the first of many steps towards agricultural circularity, reducing food production emissions, and adopting local crops and supply chains to decrease reliance on unsustainable imported goods, while building a resilient, locally driven food system.
