News

As we move forward into spring on our beautiful Agricultural Campus I realize this season of growth and renewal mirrors where we currently stand within the Faculty of Agriculture.  With a strategic planning process coming to fruition and our campus master planning process underway, we are on the precipice of significant growth. 

I will be taking the opportunity to highlight the multitude of campus success and good news stories under this heading in our weekly campus newsletter, so stay tuned. 

David Gray

Agriculture sandbox

The Government of Nova Scotia is supporting universities and Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC) with funding for four sandboxes—environments where students, faculty, mentors and experts can experiment with new ideas that could become businesses.

The sandboxes will be “pre-accelerator” environments with access to resources that can help in idea generation and business development. Dalhousie University is involved in the creation and hosting of two of the four sandboxes and the Government of Nova Scotia will provide each sandbox with $150,000 annually over the next three years. Students will begin taking part in the sandbox initiatives this fall.

The Nova Scotia Agricultural Sandbox is a partnership between Dalhousie (Faculty of Agriculture) and Acadia, both with campuses connected to rural communities and focused on supporting and growing the agricultural economy of the province. Each campus will host a sandbox space.

The Nova Scotia Agricultural Sandbox holds great potential for students from each partner institution to meet, exchange and develop ideas, mentor one another and develop businesses. Modern agriculture is a high-tech industry with expertise required across a multitude of disciplines, from bio-technology, to precision engineering, to computer and environmental sciences. The Nova Scotia Agricultural Sandbox will bring students together across these disciplines to develop new and innovative business ideas for the sector that both serve local industry and provide export opportunities for Nova Scotia-based startups.