{"id":1030,"date":"2017-11-23T21:29:19","date_gmt":"2017-11-23T21:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rbc.com\/en\/tl\/canadas-moment-agtech\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T15:16:28","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T15:16:28","slug":"canadas-moment-agtech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbc.com\/en\/thought-leadership\/ai-technology-and-innovation\/canadas-moment-agtech\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada’s Moment In Agtech"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\tThe latest #RBCDisruptors featured three entrepreneurs looking to put Canada\u2019s ag. industry on the world map. The science is there, but so are the challenges\u2026\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nThe annual event, the biggest agriculture show in Canada, now draws 130,000 farmers and agriculture specialists, and is becoming a showcase of innovation. It was also the stage this week for the latest #RBCDisruptors, our monthly forum on technology and how it’s changing the world around us.\n\n\u201cIf we don’t embrace technology, we can’t compete,” said one of our panelists, Murad Al-Katib, the president and CEO of Regina-based AGT Food Ingredients<\/a><\/b>, now the world’s largest distributor of lentils, peas and chickpeas.\n\nAgtech is among the hottest areas in innovation right now, spanning everything from automated fishing and artificial beef to grains and protein, an area Saskatchewan wants to transform. Al-Katib’s vision: to build a \u201cProtein Highway” that would connect the Prairies, through the port of Churchill, to billions of emerging middle-class consumers in Asia.\n\nCall it the Silicon Valley of soil. Working with the University of Regina, other large companies and investors, Al-Katib’s group is one of nine finalists in a national competition for federal money to build so-called \u201csuperclusters” in research areas where Canada can be a world leader.\n\nThe science is there. So are the challenges:\n

Scale<\/h4>\nThe new scale game isn’t about land; it’s about data. With sensors now attached to everything that moves, from livestock to plant stalks, competition is fierce for the biggest, and best managed, data sets. They’re needed to help machines learn the optimal way to run a farm.\n\n\u201cFarmers need to understand how the data is used,” said Kim Keller, Co-Founder of Farm at Hand<\/a><\/strong>,<\/strong> a Vancouver-based company<\/b> that runs a free, cloud-based app to help farmers run their operations through mobile devices. Right now, \u201cthey have no idea if the data will benefit them or not.”\n

Markets<\/h4>\nThe threat to NAFTA is not the only market access challenge for Canadian producers and processors. \u201cWe need to think and look at the rest of the world, at markets such as South America and Asia,” said Ian Meier, the CEO and co-founder of Saskatoon-based Bitstrada Systems Inc.<\/a><\/strong>\n\nMeier was recently in Germany, where the intensity of farming impressed him. And Canada now has preferred access to Europe, through the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).\n\nBut in a world that will add another 2-3 billion people in the next few decades, most eyes are on Asia. With its booming middle class \u2013 and more demand for protein \u2013 Asia will be the top market as food demand globally increases by a projected 70% by 2050.\n\nOther countries like Australia and New Zealand are moving fast to secure better access to those markets. Canada needs to, too.\n

Techno-quality<\/h4>\nBusiness strategists often fret about their products being commoditized. Tell that to a commodity producer.\n\nAl-Katib is trying to build a global enterprise based on quality. Not easy when you’re shipping your produce in giant bins and competing on the ground with Indian lentils. But he thinks technology has an answer. Using blockchain to enable every device in the world to know instantly what every other device is recording, he sees a new world of food distribution. Blockchain could allow a lentils dealer in Mumbai, for instance, to know where, when and how a batch was produced. Consumers, scanning food in a store, would know the same. \u201cWhen we embed in technology, we embed in traceability,” he said.\n\nIf Canada ups our quality game, distributed technology would be our game-changer.\n

Entrepreneurs<\/h4>\nThe tech world has evolved into a winner-takes-all economy, in which global giants are devouring all the companies in their way. Yet innovative economic clusters thrive on entrepreneurs. In fact, that’s all they thrive on.\n\n\u201cWe tend to focus on large companies, when small ones are driving innovation,” Keller noted. \u201cWe need to focus on building an ecosystem: start, flourish and have the companies stay in Saskatchewan.”\n

Farmers<\/h4>\nIt may seem obvious that agtech’s success depends on farmers \u2013 a bit like health tech and nurses \u2013 but they’re often the forgotten link in the chain. Too often, agtech is developed with everything but the farmer in mind. \u201cTechnology isn’t used by farmers because it’s not easy enough,” Meier said.\n\nKeller designed her Farm at Hand app with the mantra, \u201cbig fingers, bad eyes,” to ensure big buttons that are adequately spaced out. Even then, she said her app’s biggest competition is pen and paper.\n\nA greater tech challenge for many farmers lies beyond an app developer’s control. Most machinery, and therefore data, is designed and managed by the global equipment giants \u2013 and often their systems don’t integrate very well.\n\nThe profile of farmers is changing, too. No more American Gothic. Tomorrow’s farmer will need to be part techie, part globalist, part futurist.\n\nOne input that will be in greater demand: Diversity. More women, more new Canadians, more people who maybe didn’t grow up on the land. As Keller noted, \u201cagtech takes the gender out of farming.”\n\n\u201cWe have a long way to go,” Meier said, \u201cbut we’re in the right direction.”\n