Knowledge Mobilization, a Strategic Priority for Canadian Agriculture

Beyond Research: Knowledge Mobilization as a Strategic Priority for Canadian Agriculture

Reflections on key priorities, emerging trends, and opportunities identified across four regional and national agricultural conferences in Summer 2026.

– Love-Ese Chile, Network Manager, ACARN

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This summer, I spent a lot of time in conference halls, meeting rooms, and airport terminals attending four regional and national agriculture events. While each event explored a different part of the agricultural system, I was surprised by how often the same themes emerged. Looking across all four conferences, one takeaway stood out: 

Canadian agriculture does not have a research problem. It has an implementation problem. 

• We know a lot about climate adaptation. 
• We know a lot about beneficial management practices. 
• We know a lot about innovation and technology. 
• We know a lot about workforce development. 

The barrier is helping people adopt, adapt, and sustain change on the ground. 

For ACARN, this suggests that our greatest value is not necessarily generating more research, but strengthening the systems that connect research, farmers, industry, and decision-makers. 

The strongest signal: Extension is making a comeback 

I was struck by how often extension appeared, even at events that were not focused on extension. 

Participants repeatedly highlighted: 

• Loss of extension capacity. 
• Need for trusted intermediaries. 
• Importance of peer-to-peer learning. 
• Demonstration farms and field-scale learning. 
• Researcher-producer relationships. 
• Better communication and knowledge sharing. 

There appears to be growing recognition across Canada that innovation adoption requires people who can sit between research and practice. That is exactly where ACARN operates. 

A major opportunity: Knowledge mobilization is becoming a professional skill 

Researchers, faculty, industry organizations, and innovation groups all described challenges around: 

• communicating research, 
• engaging stakeholders, 
• supporting adoption, 
• facilitating collaboration, 
• measuring impact. 

These are not technical research skills. They are knowledge mobilization skills. 

I think this is one of the clearest programming opportunities that emerged across the summer. 

There seems to be demand for: 

• science communication training, 
• facilitation training, 
• engagement and co-development methods, 
• adoption and behaviour-change approaches, 
• impact evaluation. 

ACARN is a well positioned provincial leader in this space. 

Climate adaptation conversations are shifting 

What surprised me is that climate adaptation was often discussed indirectly. 

People talked about: 

• water security, 
• farm viability, 
• workforce resilience, 
• food security, 
• community resilience, 
• beneficial management practices. 

But often not climate adaptation itself. 

This suggests that messaging may be most effective when framing climate action through practical challenges producers already care about: 

• profitability, 
• risk management, 
• water, 
• labour, 
• succession, 
• resilience. 

The strongest message from the Atlantic Extension conference was essentially: farmers adopt practices that solve problems, not practices that achieve policy objectives. 

Relationships are increasingly recognized as infrastructure 

Across all events, whether discussing: 

• workforce, 
• extension, 
• climate adaptation, 
• regenerative agriculture, 
• innovation adoption, 

people consistently pointed back to relationships. 

The conferences repeatedly highlighted: 

• communities of practice, 
• mentorship, 
• peer learning, 
• farmer champions, 
• collaborative research, 
• trusted networks. 

The implication for ACARN is that convening may be just as important as communicating. 

Building connections between people may ultimately create more impact than producing another report. 

Regional priorities are becoming more important 

There was very little enthusiasm for one-size-fits-all solutions. 

Instead, speakers emphasized: 

• place-based approaches, 
• regional adaptation, 
• local knowledge, 
• community-led solutions, 
• producer context. 

This reinforces the value of ACARN’s network model, which can connect provincial priorities with regional realities. 

Overall, the conferences reinforced my view that ACARN occupies a highly valuable niche. Many organizations are funding research, generating research, or advocating for policy. Far fewer are focused on the work of helping people learn together, build relationships, and move knowledge into action. That appears to be exactly where some of the greatest needs, and opportunities, currently exist. 

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Take a deeper dive into our conference reflections: