Although Alberta has what it takes to be a global leader in agricultural innovation, farming lags other industries when it comes to digitization and adopting new technological solutions, says a report.
“Seizing the opportunity for advancement will require a closer look at what stands in the way of innovation on the farm,” said the report, which is titled Realizing the Potential for Agtech in Alberta.
Led by the Thrive program of SVG Ventures, the report was prepared for the provincial government and developed in partnership with Olds College and the United Farmers of Alberta Co-operative Ltd.
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The report identified key opportunities for agriculture technology, including crop protection and nutrition, farm financing, farm management, herd management and animal health, human resources and labour, post-harvest and animal marketing, soil health, and water management and irrigation.
UFA estimated more than half of Alberta’s farmers are willing to adopt new ag tech solutions before or as soon as they reach the market, said the report.
“As a leader in production and home to prominent agricultural research and academic institutions, an extensive arable land base, robust talent pool, growing technology sector, and large-scale agribusiness corporations, Alberta is well poised to be a global leader in agricultural innovation.”
However, the recent adoption of ag tech by producers has been moderate and varies greatly. Although larger farms had adoption rates of nearly 80 percent, rates dropped as low as 14 percent for small hobby farms.
“Studies highlight that larger operations have a greater ability to adopt solutions than smaller ones due to their higher cash incomes and profitability. Solution providers have followed by designing and marketing technologies that are tailored to larger farms, perpetuating this problem.”
Upfront costs could be lowered through leasing or hybrid ownership for hardware, or through a subscription model involving periodic payments rather than a single purchase, said the report. It also examined funding ag tech adoption through carbon offsets paid to producers by high-emission industries looking to lower their carbon footprints.
“Proponents for a system in which farmers can be compensated for being food stewards of their land argue that they will be a powerful mechanism for simultaneously addressing global challenges with biodiversity and climate change and improving the economic health and resilience of agricultural operations.”
Many farmers have been hesitant to adopt technologies without first seeing evidence, such as use by their peers, that it will be successful for their own operations, said the report.
“Some early ag tech solutions responsible for overpromising … have earned technology a poor reputation in the farming community, with many arguing that this has resulted in a setback for agtech as a whole.”
One way to earn back their trust could involve lowering the risk of making an initial commitment by offering trials that are free or compensate producers for their participation. UFA said about 30 percent of farmers have expressed an interest in co-development or participating in such trials.
Meanwhile, low internet speeds and spotty cellular data coverage are a universal challenge to the large-scale transformation of agriculture, said the report. They limit the adoption of emerging solutions such as data analytics powered by artificial intelligence, as well as the interconnected sensors and smart devices that are a part of the Internet of Things behind precision agriculture.
The Alberta and federal governments recently announced they plan to provide $780 million to expand rural broadband internet. Private investment is expected to raise the total to about $1 billion, with nearly 100 percent of rural households in the province expected to be connected in four years.
However, ag tech providers could also improve how their products perform in low-connectivity environments, said the report. It could include minimizing unnecessary data transfer by optimizing the balance between edge computing and cloud computing.
Creating an agricultural workforce skilled in software, engineering and other areas is also crucial to the growth of the ag tech sector, said the report. Recommendations include providing public funding for worker training and skill development.
Producers in turn need help to learn about new ag tech solutions and to figure out which ones will be the most effective for their operations. UFA said people most found out about such things through friends and family or by looking online.
The report said alternatives could include sharing development and test results via in-person events or workshops, as well as through digital channels. Meanwhile, other barriers limiting ag tech adoption include interoperability, which is the ease with which data can be exchanged and used between different systems and devices on the farm.
Legal complexities and competition between companies have acted to limit the integration of such technologies, said the report.
“Faced with managing an array of digital tools that are not integrated and do not seamlessly communicate leaves farm data in silos and results in inefficiencies.”
There needs to be investment and changes in policies to transform things at the systems level, linking data sources and tools to help bring about formal standardization of data-sharing frameworks. The report also pointed to decentralized, open-source solutions developed in other sectors to solve interoperability challenges.
In the meantime, it recommended creating partnerships with larger, established companies, along with bundling of products through platforms already used by producers. It said efforts should also be made to promote point-to-point connections via application program interfaces (APIs), which allow different software to communicate with each other.
