Announced in January the Agri-Opportunities Program is designed to accelerate the commercialization of agricultural products, processes or services currently not produced or commercially available in Canada.

Eligible entities can apply for up to ten million dollars to bring their products or services to market.

Adaptation Division assistant director Nathanael Olson says the program is intended to help bridge the gap in available financial capital at the latter stages of commercialization.

Nathanael Olson-Agriculture and Agrifood Canada

The basic program criteria would be that the product or service that is being brought to the market place has to be new.

That means it isn't commercially produced in Canada or available in Canada already.

The second eligibility criteria that we'd be looking for is that the product or process or service that the business entity is wanting to bring to market is at the latter stages of commercialization meaning that it is ready to ramp up into commercial production so any pre-commercialization activities would not be eligible for this program.

Generally we will look at constructing or expanding buildings that are directly related to commercializing the product.

Working capital, the purchase of technical equipment or machinery would also be eligible.

Specialized services related to skills development would be eligible as well.

Olson says the intent is to stimulate demand for primary agricultural products benefiting the whole agriculture value chain.