By Lilian Schaer
Sustainability is reshaping agriculture and energy, and Ontario-based Grain Discovery is at the forefront of helping farmers and biofuel producers prepare for the shift.
With support from the Ontario Agri-Food Research Initiative (OAFRI) Commercialization Stream, the company has bridged a crucial technological gap in measuring the carbon intensity (CI) of grain production — a step that could open the door to premium markets for farmers and low-carbon feedstocks for biofuel plants.
OAFRI is funded by the governments of Canada and Ontario through the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership (Sustainable CAP), a five-year, federal-provincial-territorial initiative, and delivered by Bioenterprise Canada.
“This funding has been critical in accelerating our roadmap, hiring new employees, and scaling our technology faster than we could have on our own it’s like gold dust for start-ups,” says Rory O’Sullivan, Grain Discovery’s CEO.
From IP soybeans to carbon intensity metrics
Grain Discovery has built its reputation as a global leader in traceability for identity-preserved (IP) soybeans, developing a digital platform that helps farmers and processors seamlessly record and share crop information.
This latest project expanded this foundation, enabling the company to capture field-level data — like tillage practices, fertilizer applications and field locations — to generate CI scorecards for ethanol plants and grain buyers.
Partnering with IGPC Ethanol in Aylmer and local grain elevators, Grain Discovery piloted the approach with farmers who used the company’s app to submit sustainability metrics. IGPC, in turn, offered premiums for this data, creating one of Ontario’s first examples of CI-based farmer incentives.
“Carbon intensity reporting is still new for Canadian farmers, but it’s only a matter of time before it will become more mainstream or even a requirement in some cases,” O’Sullivan explains. “Our project demonstrated that it’s possible to capture the right data, generate reliable CI scorecards, and — most importantly — scale this process from a handful of farmers to thousands across the province.”
Jobs, growth and readiness for commercialization
The funding from OAFRI has had a direct impact on Grain Discovery’s growth trajectory, notes O’Sullivan. It helped the company create five new jobs, advance the technology readiness level (TRL) of its platform, strengthen its intellectual property strategy, and lay the groundwork for commercialization opportunities in both agri-food and biofuels.
“Our technology can scale quickly,” says O’Sullivan. “While our initial focus has been on biofuels, the same platform can support identity-preserved soybeans or food-grade crops. In the future, for example, a buyer in Japan could not only know where their soybeans came from, but also what the carbon intensity was in producing them.”
Positioning Ontario for the future
With ethanol already consuming about 40% of North America’s corn crop, the United States has already introduced a tax credit that pays ethanol plants a premium for sourcing low-CI grain. Although Canada doesn’t yet have an equivalent, O’Sullivan believes it’s inevitable — and Grain Discovery’s work ensures Ontario’s farmers and processors are ready.
“This project was about being proactive, and getting the industry ready,” he says. “We’ve proven the concept, built the tools, and shown that farmers can be rewarded for sustainable practices. When the Canadian market moves in this direction, we’ll be ready.”
For O’Sullivan, the OAFRI investment has been transformational.
“The funding let us accelerate product development, validate our approach with industry partners, and position ourselves for growth. It’s helped Grain Discovery move from a promising idea to a commercial reality,” he adds.