Saskatchewan livestock industry gets $6.9M funding

WATCH: Saskatchewan’s livestock industry got a boost Wednesday as the 2025 Saskatchewan beef industry conference is underway in Saskatoon.

The provincial and federal governments are combining to support innovation in the livestock and forage industry.

“I’m proud to announce that we are investing $6.9 million in livestock related research for 2025,” said Daryl Harrison, minister of agriculture.

The funding comes from the agricultural development fund and sustainable Canadian agricultural partnership as well as industry partners.

Thirty research projects will be funded.

Harrison says the importance of that partnership cannot be overstated.

“We’re excited to see what kind of research, and the results of that research are going to yield for our producers,” he said. “It drives our production.”

One project is looking at managing the effects of ergot alkaloid mycotoxins on blood flow in cattle.

“The hope of my research is that we could offer a strategy where, in the feed, if we add something called isoflavones,” said Vanessa Cowan, Western College of Veterinary Medicine. “Potentially these could reduce the negative effects of ergot on cattle production.”

Another project is testing and validating different sensor and camera systems to assist producers during breeding and calving.

“That’s going to be really useful for the producers in the long run,” said Dinesh Dadarwal, large animal clinical sciences, Western College of Veterinary Medicine. “But we have found so far that the systems that’s out there have not been validated. So that’s where I see and we as researchers comes in to validate those systems.”

In the field of genomics, another project is creating selection indexes for commercial beef production.

“It’s been for years that producers just look at the appearance of their bulls, heifers, cows, and say okay that looks good, let’s do what happens,” said Razie Khorshidi, postdoctoral fellow at the University of Saskatchewan. “But this kind of selection may actually be very critical for the future of your profit.”

While there has been progress in dairy genomics, this database will allow producers to be confident they are selecting the best genetic values for profitability.

“In terms of beef, we are still progressing,” said Khorshidi. “But I believe that after four years, we have something really exciting, for not Saskatchewan but across Canada.”

Harrison says research like this is key for Saskatchewan to remain a global leader in agriculture practises.

The conference wraps up Thursday.