Growing agri-food, tech success

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/10/2023 (752 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s starting to look like there’s a new force in the agricultural technology ecosystem in the Prairies that cannot be ignored.

This year’s version of the Agriculture Enlightened conference organized by EMILI (Enterprise Machine Intelligence & Learning Initiative), the fourth such event, drew about 225 people — more than 30 per cent more than last year.

Thought leaders in the agri-food and agricultural technology fields, industry leaders, decision-makers, researchers and students from across the Prairies now attend.

The ag-tech field is starting to bust out and many likely attended to hear about the first year’s operation of EMILI’s Innovation Farm, located at Rick Rutherford’s farm in Gross Isle.

By all accounts it was a success, so much so that it has already inspired a second such enterprise in Ontario and collaborations are sprouting up across a newly created pan-Canadian network of smart farms.

The first year of operation at the Innovation Farm attracted more than 20 private sector collaborations with all sorts of partners, with 47 sensors deployed throughout the 6,000 acre farm collecting data

“The project is about how to provide a space for entrepreneurs and new innovations to test their technology at scale and see how it works in a commercial setting so we can share that information with farmers,” said EMILI’s executive director Jacqueline Keena.

Companies thinking about testing proprietary technology but don’t want to share the test results need not apply.

But plenty are keen to utilize the commercial production setting.

Joining up with EMILI was one of the first things Chris Bunio did when he started Theory Mesh, a Winnipeg startup company that is among the leaders in developing traceability technology for the food and agriculture industry.

“EMILI funded some early work we did and we have become part of the smart farm network,” said Bunio, whose company is one of close to a dozen deploying leading-edge ag tech at Innovation Farm.

“We deployed out there this summer, doing some more integration work, piloting some new projects,” he said. “It’s a very good relationship.”

The Innovation Farm is also becoming a big attraction for academia, both researchers and students.

“What we have come to learn over the last year is that it’s an amazing opportunity to show students what technology looks like in the real world,” Keena said.

With strong support from the Farm Credit Corp., PrairiesCan, the province and cash and in-kind support from industry, Keena believes its long-term planning — it has a budget of about $8 million over five years — was the key.

“The multi-year year commitment is really why we can be successful. We only have one growing season per year. We need to plan for multi-year projects (to accumulate meaningful data). It is what unlocked it for us,” she said.

While Thursday’s conference was not specifically geared to investors — although there was a panel discussion at the end of the conference about raising ag-tech capital in Manitoba — the expectation is that the space is on the cusp of a strong flow of venture investments.

Ray Bouchard is the chairman of EMILI’s board and helped found it in 2016. He’s also the CEO of Enns Brothers, a John Deere dealership operation, and is on the board of directors of the Manitoba First Fund.

He believes the province is in the right place right now for fostering innovation in the ag-tech field.

“We need to do a little work on the pre-seed and seed-funding side, the early stage,” he said. “We’ve now got the Manitoba First Fund, which is trying to put money out in all stages of development, including the seed stage. We need to do some work there but we’ll get there.”

Bouchard implied that some funding was coming together.

“Add that the to the province’s Small Business Venture Capital Tax Credit program and you’ve got a very powerful set of tools in place for investors. We just need to galvanize it,” he said.

Rick Rutherford just acquired another 6,000 acre farm and so the Innovation Farm will have that much more to work with.

“We’re really excited about the Innovation Farm. We have a team that works closely with me and we’re all excited about the opportunities for our farm. We think there’s so much value for the good of agriculture and the community and the good of our customers really,” he said.

While Rutherford has basically bet on the power of technology for the future prosperity and productivity of the agricultural sector, farmers need to be confident it will help.

He makes a strong argument against technology for technology’s sake on the farm.

“It has to help make the farm profitable, productive and sustainable. Some of these tech companies come forward but they have no real economic benefit to a farm and we should be able to know that at an early stage. There are some hard conversations we need to have sometimes.”

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca