Secure and Sustainable Crop Production for Canada 365 Days a Year

受控环境农业（CEA）正在经历一个流行的热潮，由于对垂直农业和其他高强度城市农业倡议的兴趣日益增长。在过去几年中，这已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的承诺，以提供解决我们这个时代的一些最紧迫的问题。总的来说，CEA提供了有助于减轻和适应全球气候危机的影响和影响的选择。此外，这一“新农业”将有助于解决与粮食不安全有关的问题（例如，这些问题包括粮食安全和生物安全、土壤和生态系统生物多样性保护、药用作物和植物药物生产以及与过度消费和全球人口增长有关的许多其他问题。尽管CEA的宏伟承诺，仍然存在差距，目前可行的，或至少是实践，什么CEA必须渴望，如果它的全部潜力是实现。要对上述问题作出有意义的贡献，今天就需要进行有意义的研究和开发。为探索补助金支持提出的方案是以“促进受控环境农业对社会的积极影响”为长期目标设计的。受控环境农业（CEA）的积极社会影响将在几个关键重点领域进行，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CEA生产系统的技术进步。所要求的项目资金是整个项目早期发展的基本支柱，将主要用于支持HQP的发展。五个研究生课程（1个博士和4个硕士）和五个本科生研究项目将直接获得资助，同时在整个五年的资助阶段进一步利用额外的资金来支持额外的HQP项目;与发现补助金支持开发的知识相结合的项目。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，特别是在发现补助金支持期间，该计划旨在解决与脆弱的北方和偏远社区的粮食不安全有关的社会问题，使面临风险的药用作物适应CEA生产，使高密度城市CEA的粮食作物类型多样化，开发生物安全和食品安全技术，并促进CEA的资源回收。通过发现补助金计划进行的投资将在未来几十年内支付股息，并将改善加拿大人和我们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.