A new report from the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute (CAPI) is calling for digital agriculture to be made a national strategic priority, with focused funding in the next federal-provincial-territorial policy agreement to boost farmer-level adoption. This clarion call is the result of a collaboration with EMILI, a Manitoba-based non-profit organization dedicated to digital agriculture proving and adoption.
The CAPI-EMILI report is the latest in a series of studies over the past eight months that have examined the barriers to agriculture technology success. However, it stands out by consciously focusing on policy recommendations aimed at encouraging farmer adoption, rather than broader ag tech ecosystem issues. “It’s really about building those bridges between some of the promise and some of the on-farm realities,” says Dan Lussier, director of the Canadian Agri-Food Data Initiative at EMILI, and one of the report’s authors.
The report makes five key policy recommendations to governments. Firstly, it suggests making digital agriculture a national priority by incorporating it as a core pillar of the next federal-provincial-territorial agreement and establishing a 10-year digital action plan for the Canadian agriculture sector. Currently, the Sustainable Canadian Agriculture Program encourages innovation but lacks specificity on digital agriculture.
Secondly, the report advocates for the creation of digital agriculture hubs to connect farmers, technology developers, ecosystem organizations, and governments. These hubs would facilitate meaningful engagement and support commercial-scale testing to encourage farmer confidence in new tools. EMILI already performs some of this work, but the report highlights La Ferme Digitale in France as a successful model that has brought together 100 startup companies and paired them with farmers.
The third recommendation is to launch a coordinated program suite that supports infrastructure, commercial-scale technology testing, and encourages early adopters. This approach would include funding commercial technology trials on working farms and producing data that is relevant and useful at the farm level.
The report also suggests that the federal government should facilitate the development of markets that leverage agriculture data to deliver tangible results to farmers. This would involve finding ways for farmers to be compensated for the data they create, providing financial incentives for them to use digital technologies.
Lastly, the report recommends that the federal government implement a comprehensive national data strategy to make it easier for ag tech tools to integrate with the broader digital economy.
The report’s recommendations stem from an evaluation of what’s limiting data adoption on farms. Despite the hype around ag tech, there is often a disconnect between the marketing of new products and the on-ground realities of implementing them on working farms. Farmers are looking for technologies that provide tangible, profitable benefits. If these are not evident, adoption is unlikely.
The report also identifies several challenges hindering the adoption of digital technologies by Canadian farmers. These include a lack of reliable internet and cellular connectivity, persistent data coverage issues, and concerns about data stewardship and trust. Farmers are often reluctant to share their data due to a lack of transparency about how it will be used by ag tech companies. However, this data is most valuable when it can be aggregated and compared to larger datasets. Moving towards transparency, interoperability, and standardization of systems, along with privacy protections, could help address these concerns.
The report estimates that digital tools could unlock potential annual sales of $750 million to $1 billion for farmers, based on aggregated estimates from other studies of productivity improvement potential in agriculture. This significant potential underscores the importance of addressing the barriers to digital agriculture adoption and implementing the report’s policy recommendations.
Lussier collaborated with Kyle Hiebert, Elisabeta Like, and Tyler McCann of CAPI on the report. Their work highlights the need for a concerted effort to bridge the gap between the promise of ag tech and the realities of farm-level implementation, ultimately driving farmer-level adoption of digital agriculture.