An Assessment of Agri-Environmental Decision Making Tools

Client: Ontario Federation of Agriculture

In February 2018, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture received funding from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) to complete a project examining the current range and availability of agri-environmental decision support system tools in Ontario. We engaged key agricultural stakeholders to build awareness and understanding of the available agri-environmental practices assessment tools and determine what type and format of assessment tools are useful to Ontario’s agricultural sector.

So What?

Ultimately, a scan of 103 tools was developed. This was a novel approach aimed at creating a database of agri-environmental decision tools. This study identified two important gaps:

• Lack of a single, simple access point for these tools, and

• Lack of an overarching, ‘umbrella’ platform that integrates existing tools to reduce duplication

In a constantly evolving and innovating sector, we were able to work with the OFA to make sense of the abundance of agri-environmental decision tools available, and more importantly, how the sector can move forward and reduce overlapping efforts.

For more information about the results of this project, an OFA article and final report here.

This project was funded by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs

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