Canadian Agricultural Adaptation Program (CAAP)

The Agriculture and Food Council is managing Alberta’s $21.9-million share of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s five-year, $163-million Canadian Agricultural Adaptation Program (CAAP).

CAAP will build on the success of the previous program, Advancing Canadian Agriculture and Agri-Food (ACAAF). 

Its objective is to facilitate the agriculture, agri-food and agri-based products sector’s ability to seize opportunities, to respond to new and emerging issues, and to pathfind and pilot solutions to new and ongoing issues in order to help it adapt and remain competitive.

CAAP will focus on:

• Seizing opportunities, taking advantage of a situation or circumstance to develop a new idea, product, niche, or market opportunity to the benefit of the sector.
• Responding to new and emerging issues, addressing issues that were not of concern previously, or were not known about at all.
• Pathfinding and piloting solutions to new and ongoing issues, testing ways of dealing with new issues, or find new ways to deal with existing issues.

·  Pathfinding means looking at different options to prepare the sector to face the future and remain competitive.

·  Piloting means the testing of ideas or approaches to see if they are effective enough to use in everyday applications in the sector.

CAAP will fund:

• Projects that have projected benefits that exceed costs.
• Applied and adaptive (not basic) research.
• Projects that analyze or test solutions and strategies to address issues and opportunities.
• Projects that test or analyze innovative products, processes or technologies.
• Regional and multi-regional projects.

CAAP will not fund:

• Advertisement, promotion or awareness activities that brand one region, commodity and/or product over another.
• Information sharing and/or general awareness activities (symposia, AGMs, tradeshows, conferences, or speakers at general meetings) unless they are components of a broader project and are meant to disseminate project’s results.
• Ongoing activities, normal commercial expansion or normal operations.
• International marketing and promotion.
• Human clinical trials.

Eligible applicants are any Canadian legal entity capable of entering into a contract with CAAP Alberta, such as: organizations and associations, cooperatives, marketing boards, aboriginal groups, for-profit companies and individuals.

Federal, provincial and territorial government departments or agencies, and colleges and universities are not eligible. However, if university or government researchers are the most qualified to carry out project activities, an industry group can contract the work to those respective researchers.

If project’s benefits accrue to private interests rather than the public good, funding will be provided as repayable contribution. In general, support for not-for-profits will be approved as non-repayable contributions. For-profit entities will receive support as repayable contributions, unless public good is demonstrated.

All project activities must be completed by December 31, 2013, and final reports submitted no later than March 31, 2014.

Eligibility Criteria:

• Total combined funds from federal, provincial, territorial and municipal sources may not exceed eighty five percent (85%) of total project costs
• Not-for-profits must have at least 10% of industry cash of project’s cash costs; for-profits must have at least 25% of industry cash of project’s cash costs
• Capital expenditures will not exceed 25% of CAAP contribution

Start by submitting a Letter of Intention (LOI). LOIs can be submitted at any time.

Inquiries may be directed to caap-pcaa@agfoodcouncil.com, or to Cory Rybuck, Executive Director of Federal Programs at 1-866-955-3714 ext. 235.

Pour l’information en français, cliquez sur PCAA Fiche d’information, ou veuillez nous contacter à caap-pcaa@agfoodcouncil.com ou au 780-955-3714.