CAAIN Launches $9M Agtech Project Funding Competition

Seeking Innovative Approaches to Challenges Facing Canada’s Agri-Food Sector

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, March 23, 2026 – The Canadian Agri-Food Automation and Intelligence Network (CAAIN) today launched its latest funding call, a $9M open competition designed to foster advances in a sector of critical importance to the safety and sovereignty of Canada’s agri-food value chain.

“We are pleased to roll out our latest agtech funding competition” said CAAIN CEO, Darrell Petras, P.Ag. “In our five years of operation, CAAIN has committed roughly $38M to 48 projects whose combined total value exceeds $122 million. Even more exciting than the investment implications are the new technologies and knowledge that are emerging, the partnerships we’re facilitating, and the multisector bridges we’re building. The fact is our food system is vulnerable. If we are to safeguard our domestic food supply, we must support the development and adoption of innovation that will make Canada’s farms and ranches more productive, profitable, and sustainable.”

CAAIN’s mandate from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada is to fund technological responses to the most significant opportunities and challenges facing the nation’s agri-food producers and primary processors. That means supporting promising efforts with the potential to provide economic or environmental value. The program announced today demonstrates CAAIN is doing just that.

“This latest competition is made possible by the generous support of the Government of Canada’s Strategic Response Fund, which is administered by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada,” explained Mr. Petras. “We will cap our total investment at $9M, with a limit of $3M to any one project.”

Details of this program are available at https://caain.ca/funding-calls/2026-caain-open-competition/. Descriptions of the projects we have funded are available at https://caain.ca/our-projects/. To join our free online agtech community, go to https://network.ca.

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About CAAIN

The Canadian Agri-Food Automation and Intelligence Network (CAAIN) is a not-for-profit company launched in 2020 with funding from the Government of Canada. CAAIN provides a significant return on taxpayer investment as it drives collaborative agri-food technology research and innovation from coast to coast.

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