Places of the Alliance
World-class innovation platform
The Alliance brings together Ontario’s Agri-Food Research Centres with cutting-edge research facilities at the University of Guelph to create a world-class research and innovation platform.
These places are the testing grounds for new ideas and technologies, enabling our experts to train the next generation of agri-food innovators and deliver farm-tested innovations for Ontario’s $48.8-billion agri-food sector.
- Ontario’s agri-food research centres attract vital talent and enable the sector to adopt new technology. These centres are owned by Agricultural Research and Innovation Ontario and managed by U of G.
- Unique on-campus facilities invite multidisciplinary collaboration among researchers at Canada’s Food University.
Alliance Places
- $6.9 million in average annual research centre revenue
- Every year, revenue generated from research centres -- including the sale of agricultural products including milk, eggs and crops -- is reinvested to advance innovation.
- 2,100 hectares of land
- Land dedicated to Ontario's network of research centres, delivering farm-tested crop and livestock innovations for Ontario's farmers.
- 20+ crop varieties, 7 livestock species
- Supporting farm-tested innovations at research sites across Ontario.
Alliance places making an impact
Explore in-house stories of Alliance places making an impact, or browse articles from popular and trade media outlets.
In the media
- Tomato breeder travels the world to evaluate her creations (Brantford Expositor)
- Ontario tomato breeder developed practical skills at Ontario Crops Research Centre, which has been strengthening the fruit and vegetable industries for more than 60 years.
- Ontario soybean yields proof of crop resilience (Farmtario)
- Some of the plot results from the Ontario Crops Research Centre in Winchester yielded over 100 bushels an acre.
- Diverse crop rotations bring savings in poor growing conditions (Farmtario)
- Data from the Ontario Crops Research Centre sites in Elora and Ridgetown contributed to a public database of crop rotational information, designed to inform farmers, policy makers and others about cropping systems, policies or programs that can reduce risk.
- Dairy beef changes dairy management, beef market (Farmtario)
- Dr. Michael Steele has found that feeding high-energy diets to dairy beef animals post-weaning is “extremely efficient”.
- Local research aims to make wheat varieties more resistant to fungal blight (Hamilton Spectator)
- Developing new wheat varieties resistant to diseases growing more prevalent with climate change is the focus of work by Dr. Helen Booker.
- New chipping varieties catch the eyes of producers (Farmtario)
- At an Ontario Crops Research Centre open house, research technician Vanessa Currie explained how potato trials help find varieties that can be grown sustainably.
Delivering on Grow Ontario
Explore Grow Ontario: a provincial agri-food strategy
The Alliance supports the province’s plan to build and maintain world-class research infrastructure to encourage the use of innovation and enhance the sustainability and profitability of the agri-food sectors.
Testing new technologies
Facilitating knowledge mobilization
Supporting farm-to-fork research
Stay connected
Follow us @AgInnovationON
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This website is managed by the University of Guelph. Views expressed here are the views of the University and do not necessarily reflect those of the Government of Ontario.