Tools · AgriMarketing eligibility
Will AgriMarketing pay for halal or other certification?
It can sit inside a market-entry project. It is not a named activity, so it is an argument to make.
The program funds activities directed at diversifying into non-traditional markets, and certification required by a destination is plainly such an activity. What the program does not do is name certification in its list of funded activities, which means the position has to be argued in the application rather than pointed at.
The argument that works is the market one: this destination will not admit the product without this certificate, the destination is non-traditional for the sector, and here is the evidence. The argument that does not is the capability one, that certification makes the company better at exporting generally.
Note the boundary with product development, which is explicitly ineligible. Work that changes the product to suit a market is product development. Work that evidences what the product already is, to a destination that requires the evidence, is not.
What has to be true
- The certificate is required by a specific destination in the project
- The destination is non-traditional for your sector
- The work evidences the existing product rather than reformulating it
Read next
- Getting halal certified, and the harder job of keeping it
The audit is the visible part and the cheap part. What a certifier is really assessing is whether the plant can demonstrate control it already exercises, and whether it will still be exercising it when nobody is watching.
- Which export funding programme you are eligible for, decided by what you make
CanExport and AgriMarketing are not two doors into one building. Which one is open to you is decided by your core business activity, and the programme documents themselves say where each kind of company should go. Getting it wrong costs an intake cycle.
The other activities
Market research
DependsA trade show booth
DependsTranslation, and label artwork for a market
EligibleLegal advice and trademark protection
DependsYour own staff time
Not eligibleDeveloping or reformulating a product
Not eligibleA new website or brand refresh
Not eligibleEquipment, software or plant
Not eligibleWork on a market your sector already sells to
This does not answer CanExport
CanExport SMEs is the other federal program exporters ask about, and it is not covered here. Its rules live on a Government of Canada host that refuses requests from our infrastructure.
Every answer we gave would come from memory rather than from a page we opened and dated.
That is a worse outcome than an absence.
A funding answer is acted on by somebody about to commit money, and the two programs differ on cost share, on who is eligible and on what counts as a fundable activity.
We would rather tell you the gap exists.
Read from
- AgriMarketing Program, Market Diversification for SMEs: 1. What this program offers. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, read 25 September 2026
- AgriMarketing Program, Market Diversification for SMEs: 2. Eligibility. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, read 25 September 2026