Feds provide up to $5M to improve greenhouses
Vineland centre to lead research cluster
The future of farming is one that includes automation and robotics, and a funding announcement made Monday morning in Vineland will aim to keep the greenhouse sector on the forefront of that future.
Federal Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Lawrence MacAulay was in Vineland Monday to announce up to $5 million in funding to develop new automation, artificial intelligence and precision agriculture technology for Canada’s greenhouse sector. Vineland Research and Innovation Centre will lead an automation cluster under the Canadian Agricultural Partnership, with the goal of creating tools to help harvesting and irrigation for greenhouse operators.
“We know farmers and their families can’t do everything themselves,” said MacAulay.
The research will include developing robots that can harvest greenhouse cucumbers at their perfect ripeness, gently picking the vegetables and preparing them to be shipped out to consumers.
Niagara Centre MP Vance Badawey said the technology will mean “cucumbers can be harvested, packaged and delivered to market the very same day.”
Other technology being developed will monitor moisture levels and automatically decide whether to water plants on a given day. The technology goes beyond that, though, determining not just whether to water, but how much to water.
MacAulay said it’s “about doing more with less” and the technology will reduce water consumption for greenhouse operators, one of the major expenses.
Tania Humphrey, chief scientific officer at the research centre, said this will be the first automation cluster in Canada and will improve the competitive position of Canadian growers. She called Monday’s announcement a “vote of confidence” for the work being done at the Vineland campus.
Following the announcement dignitaries were given a brief glimpse of the technology being worked on. A robot gently picked up small cucumbers, transferring them from arm to arm and laying them down. At another station researchers showed how sensors could precisely monitor moisture levels in the air and soil. That data can be sent straight to a farmer’s smartphone.
Canadian greenhouse vegetable sales totalled more than $1.4 billion last year, with nearly two-thirds of those sales in Ontario alone.