AGRICULTURE CARES
New Centre will Drive Sustainable Energy
by Matt McLean

For agriculture to move ahead and take advantage of its role in energy production, it will be critically important for agricultural producers to have access to the latest technologies, knowledge and expertise. It will also be important to have some sort of mechanism in place to help mitigate the economic and technological risks associated with adopting these new technologies and help facilitate their incorporation into farming operations.

While much research in the area of renewable energy exists, it will be necessary to collect this multifaceted research and facilitate a systems approach that allows refinement and integration of these technologies into the agricultural setting. Currently farmers have no central body to turn to for help to engage in this integrated approach, and are largely left to their own devices and taking most of the risk.

CARES AS THE CONDUIT
CARES will use an applied systems approach to refine and integrate renewable and sustainable energy technologies in a manner that will benefit rural Ontario. The centre will help to mitigate the risk that farm operations encounter when adopting and implementing new sustainable energy technologies.

This sort of effort within the area of applied systems and the subsequent generation of benchmark data will help producers make informed investment decisions when considering the adoption of renewable energy technologies. This assistance and risk management will provide a vital service to agricultural producers that will ultimately result in additional and diversified income at the farm gate.

With acknowledgement that much research in the area of renewable energy exists globally, CARES will collect, synthesize and apply this multifaceted information and use it to advance the renewable energy sector as well to address the larger socioeconomic and biophysical issues associated with agricultural renewable energy projects.

Local production and utilization of renewable energy represents a paradigm shift that will have regional and global consequences. Therefore, the centre will be a clearing house for technical and policy information, making it widely available to the many stakeholders in agricultural renewable energy. In addition, it will function to inform public policy with the respect to the role of agriculture in the emerging bioeconomy.
Critical to the success of any far-reaching and multidisciplinary initiative is its geographic location. As a result, CARES will be located at the Ridgetown Campus of the University of Guelph which is strategically situated in a key agricultural area. This location also puts the centre near the end-users (e.g.. greenhouse, energy and petrochemical industries) and stakeholders (e.g. local governments, producers, community groups and agri-businesses) that it intends to serve.

CARES will have a unique opportunity to demonstrate to these groups that agricultural renewable energy technologies are real world, economically feasible applications. It will create a broad range of programs and services that encourage collaboration with regional partners in order to deliver business and community development initiatives and create a highly skilled workforce.

The centre will bring together an interdisciplinary and highly skilled faculty group. Participants will be from the University of Guelph community (including Ridgetown Campus and other regional campuses), as well as from academic institutions across Canada and the world. It will support the highest quality educational programming and applied research in renewable energy relevant to the public, private and non-profit sectors. This will allow the centre to transfer and apply knowledge that will improve the socioeconomic quality of life of people in rural Ontario and ultimately throughout Canada and beyond.

VISION AND MISSION
CARES is Ontario’s preeminent independent knowledge centre for the research and subsequent commercialization of renewable energy technology. It is clearly focused on the farming community, targeting the technologies and innovations applicable to the on-farm renewable energy opportunities. Longer-term, the centre services the farming community by providing technology assessment, education, research, site management, risk management and consulting.

It aims to enhance Ontario farm incomes and improve the environment through the integrated development of renewable energy technological approaches to energy nutrient, and waste-water systems. The centre will accomplish this through the delivery of key services by creating a hub of information for stakeholders, partners, and clients.

The centre will operate within the framework of agricultural renewable and sustainable energy. Specifically, CARES aims to:
• Develop a hub of applied research, teaching and technology transfer of renewable energy
• Integrate farm (biomass, nutrient, water) and energy systems to manage agricultural footprints and add value at the farm gate.
• Produce environmentally responsible and sustainable energy
• Promote long term sustainable rural development

TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER
The centre will provide linkages and access to a full spectrum of research by acting as a conduit to basic research and by conducting applied and adaptive research on all aspects of renewable and sustainable energy within the agricultural setting. These efforts will lead to the development of linkages between researchers within the University of Guelph and the regional campuses, as well as other academic and research institutions nationally and globally.

It will also be able to advise in curriculum development in the area of agricultural renewable energy for certificate, diploma and degree programs, and in a range of professional and continuing education initiatives. Unique ways to integrate the Centre’s activities into experiential learning for undergraduate and graduate students will also be explored.

The centre will be a source of current, comprehensive information on renewable energy for a range of audiences through publications, newsletters, electronic media, demonstrations and conferences as well as collaboration with visiting scholars. Specifically, CARES will transfer technologies to producers and other stakeholders by completing risk/benefit and economic analyses and by using this benchmark data and other information to create databases and protocols.

AGRICULTURAL FOOTPRINTS
CARES will integrate rural production systems with renewable energy technologies to create carbon neutral and environmentally responsible energy as well as secondary products. Our efforts will result in the optimization of the biophysical components (i.e. nutrient, water and carbon cycles) in the agricultural setting.

ENERGY PRODUCTION
In order to facilitate research and technology transfer goals and to assist in the centre’s long-term self-sufficiency, energy will be produced. The revenue generated from this energy production can be used to help sustain the operation of the Centre.

RURAL DEVELOPMENT
In order to reduce risk exposure to agricultural producers, the centre will evaluate the many types of renewable energy and closed-loop technologies intended for the agricultural setting. In addition, it will work on the development of products, processes and services which will directly lead to increased rural development. These efforts could include:
• Commercialization of farm-level energy production technologies
• Demonstration of integrated farm energy system for revenue generation and sustainability
• Production of value-added co-products from integrated biomass production and processing
• Identification of new business opportunities along the farm-energy value chain
• Evaluation of the socioeconomic impact of on-farm renewable energy production and utilization
• With the centre’s launch this summer, SOBIN and its partners are committed to demonstrate that agriculture really CARES about sustainable energy.

Matt McLean (mmclean@sobin.ca) is Executive Director of the Southwestern Ontario Bioproducts Innovation Network (SOBIN)