Innovation and collaboration | University, farm and business communities look at ag issues
Technology has valuably served many industries, but it’s truly freeing up the agriculture industry.
“It’s freeing up farmers to expand and progress their industry and their business,” said Anton Canitz, a participant in Canada’s first agriculture hackathon.
The University of Saskatchewan’s junior chamber of commerce organized the Emerging Agriculture hackathon at the university Nov. 21-23.
Canitz and team members Dustin Gamester and Erik Tetland joined with students, producers, business professionals and software programmers Nov. 22-23.
Hackathons bring experts together to collaborate over a fixed period of time to develop technology-based solutions for proposed problems or challenges.
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The U of S event was intended to help experts find solutions to problems affecting the agricultural industry.
“I’m just really happy we’re getting the opportunity where people can throw out ideas and spend a weekend where they’re supported,” Cantiz said.
Cantiz and his partners, under the name Team Flax, came up with an indoor greenhouse small enough to fit on a coffee table. The greenhouse can be used to grow any kind of fruit or vegetable and is completely computerized and automated.
Their innovation won them first place at the hackathon.
Gamester said his experience working in the automation sector makes him believe technology is the way of the future.
“I see the trend and it seems as if the rate of automation is advancing is incredible,” he said.
“If that trend continues in agriculture, it will only become more technology rich.”
Added Tetland: “As technology gets cheaper and cheaper, it’s going to be used more. These tools are out there.”
Second place winners Luke Burkholder, Ilia Rudnitskiy and Jeremy Tkachuk, known as Team Dairy, said they believe the relationship between agriculture and technology is going to keep growing.
“Nowadays everything is becoming cheaper, more accessible and interconnected,” Rudnitskiy said.
“It’s just a logical progress to develop technology for agriculture.”
Added Burkholder: “It’s not just technology becoming cheaper and more accessible, but more people know about it so more people can teach it to farmers.”
Team Dairy created an online prototype of the Saskatchewan Seed Guide, and it also included predictions for pest infestation and weather anomalies.
“Simply put, information is readily available via the internet,” said Brennan Turner, one of the judges at the event and president of FarmLead.
“More and more people can purchase new technology because it’s cheaper at cost and it’s easier to learn because of the hardships already experienced by first-time processors.”
Many entrepreneurs attended the hackathon showcase.
“You have a different outlook on things when you’re working for yourself,” Turner said.
“It gives you the opportunity to be creative and innovative and bring ideas to the table without hesitation or reluctance.”
Turner started FarmLead because he saw a need to create an open, transparent marketplace where farmers could identify new buyers, nearby or far away.
His online crop market brings together buyers and sellers, allowing them to post what they want to sell or buy and negotiate in real time from any location.
“Being able to provide a solution for a problem farmers face is something that’s personally rewarding,” he said.
Turner’s family has been farming in Saskatchewan for more than 100 years, and he said farming is something that has stuck close to him.
Turner wasn’t the only entrepreneur at the hackathon. Cantiz readily claimed the title, as did his partner, Tetland.
“My first true income source was selling saskatoon berries from my parents’ acreage. I’ve always had the drive to make my own money,” said Cantiz.
Added Tetland: “My major is physics but I’m doing a minor in entrepreneurship. I’ve always worked for entrepreneurs.”
robyn.tocker@producer.com
