Success stories

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Wheat, oats and barley are 3 of the most important cereal crops grown in Canada and the long-term health and competitiveness of this critical part of our agri-food sector depends on a number of factors, including the ability of plant breeders to develop new and better varieties. Researchers are using advanced genomics technologies to better target and accelerate the breeding process.
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Damage inflicted by insects costs the Canadian agricultural industry billions of dollars a year. Canadian researchers are helping to show how, in many cases, genomics-based approaches can reduce and even eliminate the need for chemical control.
Federal government researchers have undertaken the controlled destruction of a riparian area along a small experimental watershed in the South Nation River basin east of Ottawa in order to study the impact of common agricultural and water management practices on both ecosystem and human health.
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Researchers at the AAFC research station at Harrow in southwestern Ontario are collaborating with a team from ECCC to study how agricultural practices can affect microbial communities in the soil and the impact on the health of the soil and nearby watercourses, including contributing to the development of harmful algal blooms.
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Researchers at the Public Health Agency of Canada have developed a computer-based tool for subtyping Salmonella bacteria. Called BioHansel, the new tool will allow enhanced surveillance, source attribution and risk assessment for Salmonella, one of the most common causes of food poisoning in Canada and the world.
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Equipped with advanced genomic technologies, federal researchers are building the knowledge that may enable prediction and possibly even prevention of harmful algal blooms—the often-toxic green slime caused by uncontrolled growth of cyanobacteria that invades our waterways every summer.
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Federal researchers are using genomics technologies to enhance monitoring of biodiversity at the bottom of Canada’s lakes and rivers—a key indicator of the health of a body of water.
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Researchers from 7 federal departments involved in the Ecobiomics project have adopted the same protocols for conducting and reporting metagenomic analysis of thousands of soil and water samples collected across Canada.
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Research funded by the GRDI has found no evidence to suggest antimicrobial resistance in beef cattle is being transmitted to humans.
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Research funded by the Government of Canada's Genomics Research and Development Initiative (GRDI) has revealed that while antimicrobial resistance—AMR—may be transmitted to humans by food crops grown in fields fertilized with manure, readily available technologies can reduce the risk.