Two farms east of Toronto have garnered the top two prizes in the first Premier’s Award for Agri-Food Innovation Excellence, winning $100,000 and $50,000 respectively.

David VanderDussen, a Frankford beekeeper in Hastings County, took first place for the development and marketing of a pesticide that controls mites, the number one enemy of honey bees.

The $50,000 award went to Fritz and Paul Klaesi, from Cobden in Renfrew County. These two brothers used new technology to generate electricity from manure in their dairy barn.

The winners were selected from among 236 candidates.

Fifty-five regional winners have also been selected, each winning a prize of $5,000 in a competition that is slated to run for five years with a total budget of $2.5 million. VanderDussen and the Klaesi brothers are the grand champion winners in the first year of the competition.

All the winners aren’t known yet because the government is spreading the announcements over several months; we have listed below the winners so far in our coverage area.

Winners of regional awards get $5,000.

1. The Durham Region Dairy Products Committee produced a life-size plastic cow to educate consumers. The cow travels on a trailer with a glass-door display refrigerator and a freezer full of Canadian ice cream.

2. The Vandenburg family, owners of Mari-posa Dairy in Kawartha Lakes, has added cinnamon and cranberry to its goat cheeses and expanded its market.

3. Grant Moorcroft, of Moorcroft Hemp Farms in Hastings County, is running trials on a new fiber extractor and chopper that would permit him to process his crop and provide factories with a better product.

4. Ivan and Brian De Jong, of Youngfield Farms, Durham region, have developed Canada’s first vertical tillage tool, allowing years of corn production at a sustainable level. The De Jongs say they have increased yields of corn while decreasing fuel costs for soil preparation by 90 per cent.

5. Beachburg farmer Andrew Kenny invented a non-splash water bowl. He got the patent in January and sells each bowl for $95. He calls his invention the Kendu zero-spill water-bowl. By hitting the valve the cow gets water but it will not fill up the bowl and overflow because the cow will back off when water fills their nostrils.