.
With robotic milking machines and automated calf feeding systems, Bill Vanderkooi’s Abbotsford dairy farm has been an early adopter of farming technology in British Columbia.
Announcement 2
.
The second-generation dairy farmer said last year’s heat dome and atmospheric river flooding were a wake-up call for farmers to embrace agritech as a way to produce the food British Columbia needs in the face of disruptions caused by due to climate change.
That means farmers could be trading boots for lab coats to boost crops and improve BC’s food security, Innovation Minister Ravi Kahlon said ahead of his announcement Thursday of more funding for agritech education.
Kahlon today announces that a new center for agritech innovation will open at Simon Fraser University’s Surrey campus in September and will focus on developing and testing agtech innovations in both simulated environments and on the farm.
Announcement 3
.
The excitement around the burgeoning industry, Kahlon said, is drawing people who work for Microsoft and Google to take jobs in high-tech agriculture.
“For a long time, people used to have a vision of someone in a straw hat and now people who produce our food wear lab coats and goggles,” Kahlon told Postmedia News before the news conference at the farm. Vanderkooi, Bakerview EcoDairy. “So the whole food production system is changing.”
Vanderkooi, 53, is less of a farmer and more of a scientist, with a master’s degree in animal science from Michigan State University. The most recent innovation adopted by his farm is a HydroGreen feed grower that allows him to grow 50 acres of grass feed vertically in a 2,000-square-foot space.
Announcement 4
.
While the technology you have adopted results in lower labor costs, the expensive initial investment may be prohibitive for some farmers.
Therefore, he said, the new center could provide the necessary funds for other farmers to buy the technology and improve their efficiency.
Vanderkooi’s farm was one of many farms in Sumas Prairie hit by the atmospheric river last November, which caused billions of dollars in damage, swept away roads, bridges and homes, and prompted the evacuation of 14,000 people, hundreds of which are still displaced. .
“What we have experienced in terms of climate change, the flooding, the heat dome, there have been so many challenges. Technological innovation is one of the solutions that I believe can help us be better prepared and be able to sustain livestock and agriculture.”
ad 5
.
The center, funded with $6.5 million over three years from the province and $10 million over five years from the federal government, has already begun accepting applications from agritech operators in BC
The center, Kahlon said, will create economic opportunities for indigenous peoples and help farmers with small and medium-sized businesses grow, increase profits and create jobs.
In speaking with farmers across the province, Kahlon has heard about the uncertainty created by climate change and how too hot a summer, too cold a winter or too wet a fall can mean the difference between profit or loss.
That’s why it’s crucial, he said, that farmers have the opportunity to use innovation and technology to increase their crop yields, produce food in a way that emits fewer greenhouse gases, and grow, year-round in BC, foods normally found in warmer climates. climates
ad 6
.
Lenore Newman, who holds a Canada Research Chair in food safety and the environment at the University of the Fraser Valley, said BC lags far behind the booming agritech sectors in the Netherlands, Singapore and California.
“If we’re going to be food secure in BC, we have to produce food in the province year-round using technology,” said Newman, who was part of the province’s food security task force launched in July 2019. “It’s a race and we still have a long way to go”.
Newman said funding for the new agritech innovation center “is a seed” that could boost the food industry and a “sign from this government that it’s a priority for them.”
