The Honourable Chuck Strahl, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and Minister for the Canadian Wheat Board today announced $11 million in funding initiatives designed to ensure farmers and rural communities have opportunities to participate in and benefit from increased Canadian biofuels production.

The Biofuels Opportunities for Producers Initiative (BOPI) provides $10 million dollars, this fiscal year, to help agricultural producers develop sound business proposals, as well as undertake feasibility or other studies to support the creation and expansion of the biofuel production capacity. The industry councils in each province and territory that administer AAFC's Advancing Canadian Agriculture and Agri-Food (ACAAF) will be invited to deliver this new federal funding.

“Canada’s new government wants to ensure that farmers and rural communities are ready to take advantage of the opportunities that will be created by our biofuels strategy,” said Minister Strahl. “These initiatives will not only help provide new opportunities to farmers, they will also help lay the foundation for Canada’s biofuels strategy. We expect to be announcing decisions on this biofuels strategy this fall.”

The new government is also supporting biofuels opportunities through a one-time $1 million dollar addition to the existing Co-operative Development Initiative (CDI). This funding will provide support to individuals, groups and communities wishing to develop co-operatives as a way to take advantage of opportunities associated with biofuels and other value-added activities.

These initiatives flow from the 2006 Budget, where the Government of Canada invested an additional $1.5 billion to ensure prosperity and growth in Canada's agriculture sector, which tripled original commitments to the agriculture sector.