Professional and Technical Services for Development of Decision Support Tools in Agriculture Meteorology.

An Advance Contract Award Notice (ACAN) is a notification through the open bidding methodology of the intent to award a directed contract.

An Advance Contract Award Notice (ACAN) allows departments and agencies to post a notice, for no less than fifteen calendar days, indicating to the supplier community that it intends to award a good, service or construction contract to a pre-identified contractor. If no other supplier submits, on or before the closing date, a statement of capabilities that meets the requirements set out in the ACAN, the competitive requirements of the government’s contracting policy have been met. Following notification to suppliers not successful in demonstrating that their statements of capabilities meets the requirements set out in the ACAN, the contract may then be awarded using the Treasury Board’s electronic bidding authorities.
If other potential suppliers submit Statements of Capabilities during the fifteen calendar day posting period, and meet the requirements set out in the ACAN, the department or agency must proceed to a full tendering process on either the government’s electronic tendering service or through traditional means, in order to award the contract.

Applicability of trade agreements and other obligations

Agreement on Internal Trade, World Trade Organization – Agreement on Government Procurement, North American Free Trade Agreement, Canada-Chile Free Trade Agreement, Canada-Columbia Free Trade Agreement, Canada-Honduras Free Trade Agreement, Canada-Korea Free Trade Agreement, Canada-Panama Free Trade Agreement and Canada-Peru Free Trade Agreement.

Objective of the ACAN

The mandate shall be to provide professional and technical services for the continued development of decision support tools in agricultural meteorology disseminated through the AgWeather Quebec and AgWeather Atlantic websites, using the processing and visualization computer system developed by the Oklahoma Climatological Survey (OCS) of the University of Oklahoma and adapted by the ministère des Forêts, de la Faune et des Parcs du Québec (MFFP; Quebec Department of Forestry, Fauna and Parks).

Statement of Work

Under this agreement with Mesonet Solutions, professional and technical services in the fields of informatics, geomatics, meteorology and web design will be required in order to:

• Develop and integrate new data, derived products, decision-support tools and functionalities to improve the content and user-friendliness of the AgWeather Quebec (A-QC, www.agrometeo.org) and AgWeather Atlantic (A-ATL, http://atl.agrometeo.org/) websites, in accordance with the instructions of the AAFC project manager. The informatics work shall be performed using the Oklahoma Climatological Survey (OCS) system and shall be documented. For information purposes, here is a non-exhaustive list of potential deliverables, for which the details will be specified when call-ups are issued against the standing order:

• • Integration of fifty additional bioclimatic models into the A-QC and A-ATL web sites.

  • Integration of four new agroclimate indices for forage crops.

  • Integration of improved short term weather forecasts (“Nowcasts”).

  • Integration of longer term probabilistic weather forecasts (“NAEFS”) into various agrometeorological indices and bioclimatic models.

  • Databases with high resolution “CaPA” precipitation analyses using the data from the new stations of the AgWeather Quebec network.

• • An improved version of the AgWeather Quebec and Atlantic mobile application.
  • New agroclimate summaries.
  • Integration of additional weather stations into the AgWeather Atlantic network.

Estimated Value

The total value of the contract will be $ 258 750.00 (tax included).

Time Frame

The required activities will run from the Standing Offer award date to March 31st, 2019.

Proposed Supplier

Solutions Mesonet

Édifice Delta 1
2875, boulevard Laurier, 9e étage
Québec (Québec), Canada
G1V 2M2

SOLE SOURCE JUSTIFICATION

The mandate must be carried out in accordance with the licenses and intellectual property rights associated with the use of software developed by the Oklahoma Climatological Survey (OCS) and adapted by the “ministère des Forêts, de la Faune et des Parcs du Québec” (MFFP; Quebec Department of Forestry, Fauna and Parks) and Mesonet Solutions. The contractor must hold the right to use and must agree to respect the confidentiality and intellectual property of the OCS system in accordance with the agreement signed between MFFP and the University of Oklahoma. In this context, the private non-profit organization Mesonet Solutions is the only entity in North America able to fulfill this mandate because it is the unique holder of rights to the OCS-MFFP tool. The use of the OCS system is essential – without it, the development of AgWeather Quebec and Atlantic would have to cease. In addition, the “ministère de l’Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l’Alimentation du Québec” (MAPAQ; Quebec Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food), the “Financière agricole du Québec” (FADQ; Quebec Crop Insurance Board) and the Maritime provinces have chosen to collaborate with Mesonet Solutions for the operational management of AgWeather Quebec and Atlantic. Notably, in 2015, MAPAQ and FADQ implemented over 80 new automated weather stations to feed data into AgWeather Quebec and chose Mesonet Solutions to manage this network. Finally, Mesonet Solutions already has access to weather data from various other partners which is necessary for the operation of AgWeather Quebec and Atlantic.

Suppliers’ right to submit a Statement of Capabilities

Suppliers who consider themselves fully qualified and available to provide the services described herein, may submit a statement of capabilities in writing to the contact person identified in this Notice on or before the closing date of this Notice. The statement of capabilities must clearly demonstrate how the supplier meets the stated requirements.

Closing date for the submission of the Statement of Capabilities:

October 4, 2016 at 2:00PM (Eastern Daylight Time)

Inquiries and Submission of Statements of Capabilities: requests for information shall be submitted IN WRITING to the contracting authority:

Carol Rahal

Contract Officer

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

2001 Robert-Bourassa, suite 671 TEN

Montréal QC H3A 3N2

carol.rahal@agr.gc.ca

Tel.: 514 315-6143

Fax: 514 283-1918