Feeding the world without ruining the planet
Canada is well placed to be a leader in the next agricultural revolution, Farmer 4.0, John Stackhouse says.
The rail blockades and Frontier mine decision have left Canadians deeply divided over the future of energy development. We can’t afford a similar fissure over the future of farming.
As global population heads toward 10 billion, a new generation of Canadian agriculture is needed to feed that world without ruining the planet. It’s one of Canada’s most important economic opportunities, and could be a critical way to bring Canadians together.
Over the next 40 years, the world will need to produce as much food as it’s generated over the last 40 centuries. To do that, we’ll need another agriculture revolution, and Canada can be a leader in it. No other country has as much land, water or market access — or the education system to develop farmers and food producers who can thrive in a hyper-connected, data-driven economy.
Over the past decade, Canada has doubled our agriculture and agri-food exports. With more technology, we’re in a position to grow the sector by another 25 per cent over the coming decade, according to RBC research, making it bigger than automobile assembly and aeronautics combined.
We’ll need a lot more agriculture technology, and a new generation of skills to harness tech platforms, artificial intelligence and advanced machines, from precision drones to robotic harvesters. We call it Farmer 4.0, a generation that seizes on data the way previous generations used infrastructure (rail), advanced machinery (combines) and science (genetics) to transform their work.
Unfortunately, Canadian agriculture didn’t roar into the 2020s. Our share of global exports is falling and productivity stalling.
It could get worse, as a historic retirement wave is underway and young Canadians show few signs of filling the gaps. By the mid-decade, one-quarter of our farmers will be 65 or older. We may be short 123,000 agriculture workers by the end of the decade.
Technology can help — not just to augment labour, but to attract a new generation.
You can find Farmer 4.0 in an indoor vertical farm in Burlington, Ont. that’s transforming the production of herbs. Or on a dairy operation in Blyth, where the farmer told me that to work on her farm, you need to speak Excel — that’s how she tracks and monitors everything happening on her operation.
This new generation knows what to do. Their spending on new technology is also growing much faster — four-times faster — than the rest of the economy.
But technology and talent won’t be enough. We also need more capital to finance Farmer 4.0, and that will require some changes to the economics of food production, which are not currently in the producer’s favour.
We can learn from others. Norway, for instance, has developed aquaculture clusters and issued “innovation” permits for producers to develop new technologies and aim for global scale. Australia has invested heavily in blockchain for its beef exports. And Israel continues to spend heavily on ag-tech research.
The United States — our biggest competitor and ally in the coming agriculture revolution — may also be the most advanced in its use of data. According to a survey by Indiana’s Purdue University, 80 per cent of precision agriculture dealers indicated pooled data had at least some influence on overall hybrid/ variety placement, up from 39 per cent just two years earlier.
Canada has taken important steps, including the protein supercluster based in Saskatoon. More efforts like that could help right some of our regional economic imbalances, scale our exports and bring Canadian together around a mission to help sustainably feed a world that has already doubled in numbers since 1970.
Canada can be the model of Farmer 4.0, but we can’t leave it just to farmers. Every sector and region has a stake in this agriculture revolution. Our country’s prosperity will need it. Our world’s sustainability may depend on it.