Without addressing challenges, Canada risks falling behind in agritech innovation

While COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of Canada’s agriculture sector, there are several challenges to address if Canada hopes to be a leader in agricultural technology innovation. 

That was the theme at two agricultural innovation panels at the Canadian Science Policy Centre’s conference earlier this month, where scientists, government officials and agricultural experts discussed why agritech innovation is worth investing in, how to get the most out of research, and how to tap into one of the last industries to adopt digital innovation. 

“We often forget [agriculture] is a very large part of our economic activity, and this generates about 7% of our economy on an average basis,” says Peter Philips, professor of policy at the University of Saskatchewan. 

Expanding this sector is a high priority for the Canadian federal government. The country has a goal to export $75 billion worth of Canadian agriculture and food products by 2025. And COVID-19 demonstrated our system is in a good spot to do that; while international trade markets for manufactured goods like personal protective gear were strained and other countries were concerned with food shortages, Canada mostly faced retail disruptions where food would be temporarily unavailable or more expensive. But we were never short of protein, fibre and variety in our diets, says Philips.

“We produce way more than we can ever consume, and that puts us in an enviable position in terms of supporting global food security,” Philips says. 

Bridging the gap 

While Canada is an agri-food leader, we’re currently not playing a dominant role in research, says Philips, meaning “others are positioning to beat us at our own game.”

There are talented agrifood researchers across Canada, but there is little interconnection between them, says Deborah Bruszard, professor and agricultural scientists at the University of British Columbia. This makes it challenging for researchers to benefit from each other’s work. 

“We cannot do everything ourselves in these small, regional agricultural campuses,” says Bruszard, adding that the value of international collaboration is “enormous.” 

Tania Humphrey, vice-president of research and development at the Vineland Research Innovation Centre, gives the example of how, in 2019, the Centre collaborated with Louisiana State University to produce sweet potatoes that could be harvested in 100 to 120 days — making it easier to harvest before the Canadian winter. 

“A bit of openness and humility around partnering is important because we really can do more together,” Humphrey says. 

With COVID-19 keeping researchers out of classrooms, Bruszard added that fostering collaboration between Canada’s agriculture faculties and with world partners is important to support the next generation of talent and maintain momentum on research. 

“We don't want to burden our world-class researchers in these critically important areas with teaching when we could actually do a better job for the students by giving them the advantage of the breadth of the expertise we have across the country,” says Bruszard. 

Opportunities for technology

COVID-19 has exposed how Canada’s reliance on temporary foreign workers isn't sustainable. Extensive labour shortages and protecting farm workers amid fast-changing health recommendations have been challenging, and technologies and automation can step in to fill in gaps. 

“The government's role is investing in some of these challenges to help shore up the fruit and vegetable sector,” Bruszard says of the key role of automation.

Humphrey sees three main ways technology can make an impact: automating tasks, moving crop production into greenhouses and ensuring access to highly adapted plant varieties.  

Using technology can also have the added benefit of attracting more young talent to the agritech sector, says William Hsiao, associate professor in the faculty of health sciences at Simon Fraser University. 

“We have experienced a drain of young people away from agriculture; they go on to the cities,” Hsiao says. “By bringing agritech to agriculture, or technology to agriculture, we can reverse that trend.”

Before we can see these benefits, however, there needs to be more collaboration between agritech companies and the farmers that will use the technology. As an example of how the process can be fractured, Selena Basi, assistant deputy minister of trade and industry development for the B.C. government, says that it’s difficult for farmers to see the benefits of an integrated technology system if each agritech company develops something extremely specific, such as crop monitoring or pest control. 

Farmers need help to see how their investment will make sense for their farm in the long-term, and how these systems can be integrated. 

“We are now at this time for implementation, and we've got to bring more of the actual growers — existing or future — into the conversation,” says Basi. 

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