Kristjan Hebert, farmer and principal managing partner of Hebert Grain Ventures, northwest of Fairlight, Sask., checks a John Deere Field Connect soil moisture probe in one of his canola fields.Tim Smith/The Globe and Mail
From mushroom-picking robots in British Columbia to drones buzzing over Saskatchewan wheat fields that hunt for weeds, companies in Canada’s emerging agtech sector are racing to remove the least efficient element of modern-day farming from the equation: humans.
That push to bring the worlds of technology and agriculture together has taken on new urgency in recent months amid threats to food supplies from high fertilizer and commodity prices, the war in Ukraine, labour shortages and drought across many parts of the world. In just the first half of this year, venture capital investors injected a record US$5.6-billion into agtech companies worldwide, up nearly 20 per…
