HURON PARK — Roughly $772,000 in federal government funding was announced Monday to aid the development of a new herbicide intended to dry crops faster for easier harvesting.

The announcement was made by Huron-Bruce MP Ben Lobb and Lambton-Kent-Middlesex MP Bev Shipley, on behalf of federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz.

The money will be used to develop a herbicide for dry edible beans. Canada produces nearly 10 per cent of the world’s dry bean exports, according to a government press release.

Canada also exported over $2 billion in pulse products to more than 150 countries last year, the press release states.

Pulse products are the edible seeds of a number of pod-producing plants, including peas, beans and lentils.

Roughly half the research for the new herbicide will take place at the Huron Research Station near Huron Park, with one quarter taking place in Manitoba and another quarter in Alberta.

“Each jurisdiction has different growing conditions and different crops — different market classes of beans that they grow,” said Chris Gillard, one of the project’s lead researchers.

“It’s important to be able to make sure that the solutions we find are going to work in all areas, because the crop is national and so the solution has to be national as well.”

The research will focus entirely on dry edible beans, which have been grown in Canada for over 100 years, Gillard said. He added that 85 per cent of Canada’s dry edible bean crop is exported.

“It’s a major export crop for agriculture, and it’s a high-value export crop because it goes directly from field to forage — directly from a farmer’s field to somebody’s plate and is eaten as a whole bean,” he said.

New restrictions on herbicide residues have resulted in fewer products available for desiccation (dehydration) as harvest aids for Canadian farmers, the press release states.

The aim of the funding is to help researchers evaluate existing products and develop a new harvest-aid programs that are environmentally and economically sustainable for dry beans.

“This project will provide growers with options to protect quality at harvest time and deliver the world-class products to the global market,” Shipley said in the press release.

Lobb said Canadian farmers grow and export more pulses than any others in the world.

“It’s a real success story for Ontario,” he said. “Our government is working to build on that success to make sure this industry can continue to grow and bring new opportunities to our farmers.”

It’s welcome news for Mike Donnelly-Vanderloo, a bean producer and a member of the board of directors for Pulse Canada, an industry group that is the direct recipient of the funding for this project.

“We’ve had some difficult years, and to grow some of the best crops (in the world) but then to have difficulty getting it off the fields, that’s a real concern to us,” Donnelly-Vanderloo said.

“We think this project will give us some new tools and should really make things easier.”

Research is already under way, with a completion date scheduled for March 2013.

“It’s our intention to have solutions in place by that point that will fit all aspects of our market,” Gillard said.