2025 Primary Food Processing Program │Canadian Agri-Food Automation and Intelligence Network (CAAIN)

To be considered for CAAIN funding support, all proposals must meet the following criteria:

• Be developing a digital technology or operating a Canadian smart farm focused on sustainable primary food processing which addresses a specific Canadian agricultural primary processing opportunity. This may include, but is not limited to the following:
  • Indigenous-focused primary food processing
  • Improved production efficiency
  • Energy efficiency in primary food processing
  • Agricultural food quality and safety
  • Agricultural (raw) food transportation
  • Traceability
  • Cold chain management
• Eligible food products include primary (raw) products of animal species including beef and dairy cattle, bison, poultry, swine, ovine, caprine, bees, and alternate livestock species such as deer and elk. Examples of animal food products are milk, eggs, beef, pork, chevon, mutton, chicken and honey. Other eligible products include commodity crops such as grains (wheat, corn, barley, oats, beans, peas), oilseeds, fruits and vegetables. Applicants should note that all activities should focus on (the production and) preservation of the natural state of the raw materials, while enhancing their quality, safety, and the extension of their shelf life. Food packaging is excluded from eligible project activities. Applicants may reach out to CAAIN program mangers to inquire about agricultural food products not listed in this document.
• Have available the knowledge and skills necessary to evaluate and publicly report on the economic, social, and/or environmental benefits provided by the technology or knowledge being evaluated, including, but not limited to:
  • Improved operator decision-making
  • Farmgate waste/post-harvest loss
  • Increased agricultural primary food productivity, and/or profitability
  • Reduced reliance on costly unskilled labour
  • Improved production of value-added agricultural primary food products
  • Improved land use
  • Reduced water use
  • Reduced greenhouse gas emissions
  • Enhanced carbon capture
• Have interest in, and be capable of, empirically validating the use of the latest knowledge and emerging technology relevant to the proposed project, including an assessment of potential economic value
• Commit to sharing high-quality, verifiable evaluations of emerging technologies with the agtech community
• Commit to demonstrating the latest knowledge and emerging technology implemented or tested on the farm to Canadian agricultural producers, researchers and communities
• Commit to providing a high-level summary of datasets generated during the project for publication in the CAAIN directory
• Commit to contributing a high-level summary of intellectual property generated to the CAAIN IP directory
• Provide learning opportunities contributing to the development of a skilled workforce
• Commit to sharing research and/ or demonstration data using a common structured format with CAAIN. This data, when anonymized, will be owned by CAAIN
• Commit to using CAAIN’s data collaboration and management platform, including providing Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) necessary for data integration. (for activities involving smart farms & networks)
• Commit to keeping resultant (foreground) IP and data in Canada for a minimum of 5 years from project from project completion.