British Columbia touted as a world leader in agricultural technology

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A BC agtech leaders forum outlined how the province could become a world leader in advanced food production, during a Live Conversations project hosted by Stuart McNish on Tuesday night.

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The panel met to examine changes in food production and how technology is critical to meeting future consumption.

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According to a recent United Nations report, the world will need 50% more food by 2050, while climate change will reduce global yields by 25% in the same period, meaning agricultural technology must advance to help to meet the demand.

The panel included Peter Dhillon, President of Ocean Spray and a member of the BC Food Safety Task Force; Evan Fraser, director of the Arrell Food Institute and professor at the University of Guelph; Karn Manhas, CEO of Terramera, a company that develops plant-based alternatives to synthetic chemical pesticides and fertilizers; Philip Steenkamp, ​​President of Royal Roads University; Federica Di Palma, Chief Scientific Officer and Vice President of Research and Innovation, Genome BC and Bahram Rashti, Co-Founder and CEO of Fresh Green Farms and UP Vertical Farms.

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“Not long ago we didn’t talk about this, but food safety has become a priority in recent times. Food security is national security now,” Dhillon said.

He said BC can be a world leader in agtech if academia, lawmakers and farmers work together. The BC Food Safety Task Force advocates for the establishment of an incubation/acceleration strategy for the agtech sector and the creation of an agtech institute in BC

Examples of agrotechnology include seed genomics, climate-controlled greenhouses, sensor-monitored cultivation technologies, and advanced refrigeration systems.

BC produces more than 300 commodities including fruits and vegetables, grains and oilseeds, dairy, livestock, poultry, eggs, fish and other seafood, and is Canada’s most diverse agricultural province.

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The province also has 150 companies active in the agtech sector, including Fresh Green Farms and UP Vertical Farms. Last week, UP Vertical began operating Canada’s first hands-off vertical farm growing leafy greens at a facility in Pitt Meadows.

Rashti said her company uses 99 percent less water and land than regular growers of leafy greens, uses no pesticides or fungicides, and recycles CO2 within the facility.

He said that this type of agricultural innovation will become a necessity in the coming years.

“We have disrupted the system. We don’t have temporary workers, it’s just on-time production,” Rashti said.

Di Palma said that BC was in a great position to lead the way in agricultural technology because the province has lots of water, good agricultural land and an incredible amount of innovation.

Demand for British Columbia-grown fruits and vegetables is also expected to increase, as California produces less.

Fraser said that the change in demand for food and the sea change of the traditional agricultural model was a generational challenge and that technology must be applied to food production.

He said Canada needed to approach agriculture on a “war footing scale” by investing heavily in agricultural technology and finding ways to ensure a stable workforce given that most food production jobs in Canada are performed by temporary foreign workers.

He said 40 percent of land-owning farmers will retire over the next decade.

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