Secure and Sustainable Crop Production for Canada 365 Days a Year

由于人们对垂直农业和其他高强度城市农业的兴趣日益浓厚，环境控制农业（CEA）正受到广泛欢迎。在过去的几年里，这已经转化为全球数十亿美元的商业和基础设施投资。越来越多的兴趣和相关投资在于这些系统有望为我们这个时代的一些最紧迫的问题提供解决方案。作为一个整体，CEA提供的选择将有助于减轻和适应全球气候危机的影响和影响。此外，这一“新农业”将有助于解决与粮食不安全（例如，北部和偏远社区）、食品安全和生物安全、土壤和生态系统生物多样性保护、药用作物和植物药生产以及与过度消费和全球人口增长有关的一系列其他问题有关的问题。尽管CEA有着宏伟的承诺，但在目前可行的，或者至少是实践的，以及如果要实现其全部潜力，CEA必须追求的目标之间仍然存在差距。对上述问题作出有意义的贡献需要今天进行有意义的研究和开发。该项目旨在为“探索基金”提供支持，其长期目标是“促进可控环境农业对社会的积极影响”。受控环境农业（CEA）的积极社会影响将分布在几个关键的重点领域，即：解决北方和偏远社区的粮食不安全问题，药用作物生产，高强度城市农业中的粮食作物多样化，以及受控环境农业生产系统的技术进步。所要求的项目资金代表了整个项目早期开发的基本支柱，并将主要用于支持HQP的开发。5个研究生项目（1个博士和4个硕士）和5个本科研究项目将获得直接资助，同时在5年的资助阶段进一步利用额外的资金来支持更多的HQP项目；在探索基金的支持下，由知识发展而来的项目。该计划概述和总体目标代表了CEA 20多年的前瞻性愿景。更直接的是，特别是在探索基金支持期内，该项目寻求解决与脆弱的北部和偏远社区粮食不安全相关的社会问题，使有风险的药用作物适应东部农业生产，使粮食作物类型多样化，以高强度城市为基础的东部农业生产，发展生物安全和食品安全技术，并推进东部农业资源回收。通过“发现基金”项目进行的投资将在未来几十年带来红利，并将改善加拿大人和我们的全球合作伙伴的生活。

Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) is experiencing a popularity groundswell due to growing interest in vertical farming and other high intensity urban agriculture initiatives. Over the past few years this has translated into billions of dollars in business and infrastructure investment globally. The growing interest and associated investments lie in the promise of these systems to deliver solutions to some of the most pressing issues of our time. Taken as a whole, CEA provides options that will help to both mitigate and adapt to the effects and implications of the global climate crisis. Further, this `new ag' will help address issues related to food insecurity (e.g., northern and remote communities), food safety and biosecurity, soil and ecosystem biodiversity preservation, medicinal crop and phytopharmaceutical production, and a host of other issues related to excessive consumption and global population growth. Despite the grand promise of CEA, there remain gaps between what is currently feasible, or at least practiced, and what CEA must aspire to if its full potential is to be realized. Meaningful contributions to the aforementioned issues require meaningful research and development today. The program being proposed for Discovery Grant support is designed with the long term goal of `Advancing Controlled Environment Agriculture's Positive Impact on Society'. The positive societal impacts of Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) that will be delivered are spread across several key focus areas, namely: Addressing Food Insecurity in Northern and Remote Communities, Medicinal Crop Production, Food Crop Diversification in High Intensity Urban Agriculture, and Technological Advancements in CEA Production Systems. The programmatic funding requested represents the essential backbone to the early development of the overall program and will be used primarily to support HQP development. Five graduate programs (1 PhD and 4 MSc) and five undergraduate research projects will be directly funded, while further leveraging additional funds throughout the five year funding phase to support additional HQP programs; programs born of the knowledge developed with the Discovery Grant support. The program outlined and the overarching objective represents a forward looking 20+ year vision for CEA. More immediately, specifically within the duration of the Discovery Grant support period, the program seeks to address the social issues related to food insecurity in vulnerable northern and remote communities, adapt at risk medicinal crops to CEA production, diversify the types of food crops available to high intensity urban-based CEA, develop biosecurity and food safety technologies, and to advance resource recovery in CEA. Investments made through the Discovery Grant program will pay dividend for decades to come and will Improve Life for Canadians and our global partners.