First announced in Canada’s Federal Budget 2021, the On-Farm Climate Action Fund (OFCAF) is an initiative to help farmers tackle climate change. The Fund is part of the Government of Canada’s Agricultural Climate Solutions initiative, which falls under the $4 billion Natural Climate Solutions Fund, a program managed by Natural Resources Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada, and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

Perennia Food and Agriculture Inc. is a delivery partner distributing OFCAF program funding to farmers, co-operatives, and associations in Nova Scotia and in Newfoundland and Labrador. (Applicants from other provinces and territories can visit https://tinyurl.com/ofcafpartners to find their OFCAF program delivery organization.)

Program objectives and priorities

The objective of OFCAF is to support farmers in adopting and implementing beneficial management practices (BMPs) that store carbon and reduce greenhouse gases, specifically in the areas of:

  • Improved nitrogen management
  • Cover cropping
  • Rotational grazing

These practices also provide environmental benefits such as improved biodiversity and soil health.

Importantly, this program will only fund new implementation of BMPs, including expansion of BMPs to additional acreage, and/or improvement of existing practices in order to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve carbon sequestration. The program will not fund ongoing practices on existing acreage.

The expected result of the OFCAF program is a resilient food production system in Canada that:

  • helps Canada meet national emissions reduction targets
  • protects the environment and improves soil health
  • improves farm resiliency in a changing climate
  • builds the strength and competitiveness of our agricultural businesses and economy

We are very excited to now announce that this program is open to farms from Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador!

We will be regularly posting here on the Agriculture in a Changing Climate blog so please click on the button to the top right to subscribe to the RSS feed and never miss a post! Future posts will be about upcoming events, on-farm demonstration updates, training opportunities, more details on some of the BMPs promoted by OFCAF, and more!

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