Thank you. That's a good question.
I think if there's one thing that excites farmers across the country, it is this possibility that they see in the biofuels industry. There is, of course, big excitement among canola producers on the biodiesel side. There are corn producers on the ethanol side. There are wheat producers and an increasing amount of interest in the whole potential for cellulosic ethanol production across the country.
Everywhere I go, I think people understand that there is the possibility of having a domestic made-in-Canada ethanol and biodiesel system. In other words, we would not just be importing cheap imports, but would actually have a domestic made-in-Canada industry. Also, they see this very much as an opportunity for rural redevelopment, because these plants are going to be dotted across the country, and they'll tend to be, of course, where the supply is available, which is in rural country, farm country. The prospects of that excite farmers and obviously excite me as well.
We've announced several programs. One of them, the BOPI program--biofuels opportunities for producers initiative--which I mentioned, has been oversubscribed, so we added an extra $10 million to it so we can make sure every applicant gets consideration. This is to allow farmers to get in for business planning purposes and to do some site analysis or whatever they might need to do in order to develop a viable business plan. So we're giving money for that, and we had to increase that, because it's been a very popular program.
The second program we announced is about more than biofuels, but certainly it's part of the whole biomass innovation program, which is basically to give farmers, producers, and processors money to help them develop all kinds of opportunities from biofuels to biocomposities, bioplastics--you name it--anything that adds value to basic commodities. Under that program another $145 million would be available for farmers and processors to come together to find ways to move that forward. Again, I'm hopeful that's going to help us develop those new products.
We also have another program that's similar in size and that will help take those products from the idea stage to commercialization. What happens too often in Canada is that we get lots of good ideas that come up to a certain point and all of a sudden they stop, and they never get into commercialization.
What we want is for farmers to be able to say we have the idea, we developed the product, and everybody wants it. We get a patent and then there is no commercial value. So we have to get commercial value out of that. That's another $135 million program.
Then there's the eco-agriculture biofuels capital initiative. It's an equity program for farmers specifically for biofuels plants and the equity position in that. Under that program, if farmers have as little as 5% investment in a biofuels plant, that plant will get a per-litre subsidy, if you will, an incentive, as an equity position to develop the plant.
As the percentage of farmer involvement increases, the amount of per litre incentive also increases. So the more farmers you get involved--or if you can get a co-op involved in a biofuels plant--the more money there will be from the government to help them take an equity position in that plant.
We announced that last week. The Canadian Renewable Fuels Association, the Canola Council of Canada, and other folks who were at the meeting said they were very pleased with the way it was designed. It's going to allow farmers--and you have to be a farmer, that's the deal--to take equity positions in these biofuels projects.
Finally, of course, we have a $2 billion program that's for the biofuels industry generally, and that's split into two pieces. One is just a per litre incentive--20¢ for biodiesel, 10¢ for ethanol--to make plants that will produce competitively with the Americans, to help them get on their feet and to make a made-in-Canada biofuels industry. It's $1.5 billion.
The second part of it is $500 million that will go specifically for kind of the next generation of ethanol production, which the scientists tell us is likely going to be cellulosic. So wood fibre cellulose, switchgrass, straw, and other bio-products that used to be waste products can now be used for the production of ethanol and biodiesel.
We have a $500-million program, and that will go across the country again, not just for grain production but for all of these other types of production. A region of the country that's not into corn, for example, might want to grow sweet potatoes, switchgrass, or who knows what. This program is specifically to get them up and going. My hope is that eventually we'll transfer from a grain-based biofuels industry into more of a cellulosic one. Then we can use our grain for other more value-added products.
That's the list of programs to help make that industry viable.
