Canadian agricultural technology tackles food insecurity with AI and automation

As climate change disrupts agriculture and threatens food security, Canadian agricultural technology (agritech) companies are finding innovative ways to help adapt.

According to Statistics Canada, 8.7 million Canadians – nearly one in four (22.7 per cent) – live in food insecure households. Climate change is expected to exacerbate this problem, affecting growing seasons and production patterns in some regions and damaging crops through extreme heat, flooding and prolonged drought.

Some of the worst affected areas are remote, where food insecurity is disproportionately higher than in other parts of the country. According to a report from Food Banks Canada, many northern regions are currently facing transportation challenges due to changing climate conditions.

Northern exposure

That was the problem Benjamin Feagin Jr. sought to solve when he and his partner, Fabian Prince Velez, launched AgriTech North, a vertical hydroponic farm and research center in Dryden, Ontario, in 2022. Mr. Feagin, who is Metis, he remembers the food insecurity of his childhood, when produce bought at the grocery store was so close to ripening that it would expire overnight.

“This story gets worse the farther you go from the highway,” adds Mr. Feagin. He combined his experience as a researcher at the US Department of Energy with Mr. Velez’s agricultural roots to build a vertical farm, promising increased access and a 25 percent reduction in the price of fresh produce for indigenous communities in the far north.

But soon after investing in the technology, Mr. Feagin quickly realized it didn’t live up to its marketing claims. “The costs of operating these facilities are so high and the systems have been skimped on to maximize energy to such an extent that they no longer work as they claim.”

AgriTech North has moved to a “living labs” model, using the operational farm as a testbed for new vertical farming technology. He began designing less expensive outdoor greenhouse technologies, a thermal and climate management system to improve the interaction between air conditioners and dehumidifiers in vertical farms, and software to manage complex food systems in remote communities.

They also address a problem known as the “carbon gap” in northern communities. “If you’re growing in minus-40 degrees or less, you don’t want to bring that air into your farm because it’s going to kill your crops,” Mr. Feagin says.

Rebuilding resistance

Vancouver-based Verdi applies the same high-tech approach to traditional agriculture, designing automation tools for climate-smart agriculture.

“Automation as it is today is very expensive,” explains Arthur Chen, CEO and co-founder of Verdi. “It’s complicated to install and use, and often single-purpose.”

Verdi hopes to make farms — and food systems — more efficient, more precise and more climate-resilient by automating old agricultural structures, such as irrigation systems, with smart software and devices, Mr. Chen says. “Think of it as turning legacy equipment from a farm into intelligent decision-making systems.”

But you still need carbon dioxide. “So we’re developing a new technology that can work (at temperatures of) down to minus 60.”

Mr. Feagin says the ultimate goal is to create a year-round, self-sustaining, net-zero growth unit. “This is the holy grail of food sovereignty for rural and remote communities…especially being indigenously owned.”

With Verdi’s software, a smart farm could autonomously manage crop water supply at the plant level, as opposed to the current model, which is done at the field or farm level, reducing the management burden for operators.

Verdi works with some of the largest international fruit, nut and vegetable producers as well as large vineyards. “It doesn’t matter what they grow, as long as the legacy tools they’re currently using are the same, we can attach to what’s already there and make it more efficient,” Mr. Chen says.

Error problems

Bug Mars, based in Havelock, Ont., is innovating in a different area of ​​agriculture: insects. Nat Duncan, the company’s co-founder and CEO, started the practice a decade ago, losing his colony every time he tried to expand. She realized that other insect farmers might be facing a data deficit similar to hers.

“Insects don’t like you around, so you can’t get accurate observations if they’re not behaving normally,” she says.

The company designed Hexapod, a software that uses machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) alongside computer vision and sensors to improve and eliminate processes in insect farms – particularly crickets for human and pet consumption and black soldier flies for food for animals – increasing efficiency and yield.

“Our goal is to make insects comparable to the cost of soybeans,” Ms. Duncan says. She sees bugs as a potential solution to food insecurity, especially amid population growth in big cities. “I think vertical farms are great, but we also need protein and we can’t raise cows in cities. So this is a viable option.”

Despite operating in very different worlds, AgriTech North, Verdi and Bug Mars share the belief that efficiency is a vital part of adapting to climate change and maintaining food security.

“Traditions and practices that have existed for decades will no longer work in this new normal, post-climate change world,” says Mr. Chen. “It’s already here, affecting farmers every day.”