Rationale
Canada’s national biological research collections contain a wealth of data that can be mobilized to respond to challenges posed by climate change, threats from invasive alien species, and risks to beneficial species from changing agricultural practices. As the designated custodian, AAFC has already invested in making the data in these collections more accessible to a range of clients, from federal, provincial and municipal government departments or agencies, to NGOs and industry.
Funding to support genomics, digitization and data mobilization of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s biological collections.
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) is investing $30 million in Agricultural Science over six years to accelerate the DNA analysis, data capture and imaging of specimens from its collections of over 19 million specimens of insects, plants, fungi, bacteria and nematodes related to these collections. This data will be integrated to improve public accessibility to AAFC’s collections. By 2022, label data capture into database of six collections will be 100% done, plus 25% of the Canadian National Collection of Insects, Arachnids and Nematodes will be completed. Specimen imaging and DNA sequencing will also be dramatically increased. This work supports research in climate change, and rapid identification and prevention of threats to agriculture.