Industry will decide the research topics under PIC. OTTAWA—Although its creation was announced in February with considerable fanfare, Protein Industries Canada (PIC) is still waiting for finalization of the contribution agreement with the federal government to enable it to start operating.While PIC and the federal government talk of resolution in the near term, no one will say whether that will be before the New Year. “Significant work and due diligence has already been completed,” PIC said in a statement. Four other economic superclusters are also working on completing their federal contribution agreements.Meanwhile Bill Greuel has been appointed PIC's CEO. The former assistant deputy Saskatchewan agriculture minister also worked for a biotech start-up, in the canola industry and at BASF Canada.“PIC is well positioned to grow the western Canadian economy,” Greuel said. “Farmers, service companies, value added processors, academic institutions, consumers--everyone on the prairies and throughout Canada will stand to benefit.”PIC Chairman Frank Hart says the supercluster “is an industry-led consortium of small- to large-sized enterprises, research, academia, associations, and governments involved in the food and food ingredient manufacturing, agriculture and food-related services.”While based in Western Canada, PIC will be working to position Canada as the leading centre of high-quality plant-based protein and has been allocated $153 million in federal funding that will be matched with private sector investment, he said.PIC is an industry-led alliance of over 120 private-sector companies, academic institutions, and other stakeholders aimed at fully developing the potential of plant-based proteins from crops such as canola pulses, grains, hemp, and flax. It will focus on developing the potential of plant-based proteins from a variety of crops such as pulses, hemp, oats, wheat, canola, and flax through crop breeding, crop production, value-added processing, and export development.The federal funding supplements roughly $400 million of cash, in-kind commitments and venture capital support that PIC has already secured from its members, he said. It's expected to generate more than $700 million in new commercial activity and billions in incremental GDP over the next decade together with approximately 4700 new jobs.Speaking recently to the Senate agriculture committee, Jo-Anne Buth, CEO of the Canadian International Grains Institute, said PIC will help industry to make Canada the place to go for novel protein and co-products, fractions, ingredients, food, feed products and technologies.“Our expectation is that the organizations in the cluster will cooperate to develop a new range of plant-derived foods, ingredients and feedstuffs by manufacturing crop proteins and other crop ingredients like fibre, starch, carbohydrates and natural health products by using these proteins and ingredients in food, beverages, personal care and natural health products, pet food, fish food, livestock feed and non-food materials.”The interesting aspect of the supercluster is that it's industry led, she said. “The universities may have thought, 'Great, here is $150 million that will go into research.' Well, it will go into research that is industry driven. Industry will come forward with projects and issues they want to address. I think there is truly an opportunity there.“There is no other example in the world where the government has put the amount of money it has into the formation of superclusters,” she said. “Superclusters typically form organically when you have industry and researchers all working closely geographically.”She said one topic for the supercluster could be canola “where 42 per cent of it is oil and the rest of it essentially is going into feed, because we haven't determined how to use it for human consumption.”The goal will be to find more uses for canola meal than livestock feed especially on the human food side, she said. Corteva Agriscience will work with smaller companies and the National Research Council on the project.“That is our goal in the superclusters, namely, to try to move things along and pick the low-hanging fruit that is out there right now and move it,” she said. “I think there is also an opportunity for better coordination amongst research institutes on the food side.“What I would stress is that we don't need another institute out there trying to coordinate. There needs to be better coordination on an organic basis to try to make sure resources are being used properly.”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.