Major innovation conference in May will highlight the importance of agrifood research.Ottawa—While the initials remain the same, the Agricultural Institute of Canada has renamed itself the Agri-Food Innovation Council to better reflect the current state of farm and food research in Canada.The AIC can trace its roots back to 1920 with the formation of the Canadian Society of Technical Agriculturists, which focused on boosting farm research across the country. Over time it evolved into the Agricultural Institute. It has become far more active in recent years both in dealing with the federal government in Ottawa and agrifood associations across the country.Next month, it will hold a conference here on Canada's Innovation Superclusters and the research Clusters funded by Agriculture Canada's AgriScience Program that will enable delegates to talk with the leaders of crop and livestock research projects across Canada.Serge Buy, CEO of the AIC, said the organization's membership includes individuals as well as organizations, associations and corporate entities. Its organizational membership has grown in recent years and it was decided to change to the name to better reflect the full scope of its mandate. “It better reflects our mission and the direction we're going in in the future.”The membership includes some university and college agrifood programs and Buy hopes that will lead to increased cooperation with all the post-secondary school programs across the country. “We could coordinate our activities a lot more.”On top of the importance assigned to research in the agrifood strategy table report last year, Buy said the recent federal budget also contained positive measures for agrifood research.Key measures include the creation of a new Strategic Science Fund, expansion of the Scientific Research and Experimental Development Tax Credit Program by $395 million during the next five years and an allocation of $100 million to the Strategic Innovation Fund to support innovation in the food processing sector, he said.Other measures related to food, food production systems, education and rural priorities are also positive steps taken by the government as was the $5 billion over 10 years to support rural broadband, he said.However, “the next few months will provide critical information on the way the government intends to implement its promises – and this will be key,” he said.Other encouraging budget promises include $100.5M over 5 years to Genome Canada to launch “launch new large-scale research competitions and projects, in collaboration with external partners.”AIC also praised the Let's Talk Science is a program to engage youth especially girls in science, technology, engineering and math with an allocation of $10 million over two years, starting in 2020-2021 to support its work. Student researchers will be in line for almost $40 million in financial aid through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.The Council will also receive $114 million over five years with $26.5 million to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to create 500 more master's level scholarship awards annually and 167 more three-year doctoral scholarship awards annually through the Canada Graduate Scholarship program.Alex Binkley is a freelance journalist and writes for domestic and international publications about agriculture, food and transportation issues. He's also the author of two science fiction novels with more in the works.