Six years in the past, excessive climate, worldwide market closures and skyrocketing bills left Alberta farmers reeling from important losses.
“In 2019, we had a really dangerous 12 months and everyone knows it,” mentioned Chandra Singh, a analysis chair with Lethbridge Polytechnic.
“Whole losses of all of the crops in Alberta alone had been about $750 million.”
He and his group started working to seek out options to very actual issues within the agriculture trade.
“We’re specializing in three main crops that are distinguished in Alberta. All of the grain crops right here, potato is one other principal crop — notably in southern Alberta — and sugar beets are one other crop. We’re specializing in all three crops on the storage, dealing with, a few of the processing and the standard facet,” he mentioned.

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Whereas storage would possibly seem so simple as dumping crops in a container, Singh says that mindset is precisely what’s inflicting one-fifth of all Canadian-produced meals to go to waste.
“We’re engaged on totally different sensing applied sciences for monitoring with our industrial companions. They are going to enhance the monitoring, then (have the ability to) make higher selections. Additionally, the automation facet, so creating higher storage environments,” Singh mentioned.
“For instance, in grain bins you wish to first dry the grain, then cool it, then monitor and preserve it for so long as you want it to be there.”
He says a few of these options might save $75 million yearly.
“I’m not saying that you just can not do extra, however being lifelike, I feel that’s what the impression must be,” mentioned Singh.
It could not seem to be it, however discovering meals efficiencies is essential for all the things from higher beer to tastier tomatoes.
“There are such a lot of points. There’s the soil well being, there’s the plant well being, then there’s the agronomy facet of issues. We work quite a bit on the seeding charges and dates and all types of issues,” mentioned Mike Gretzinger, supervisor of the agronomy program at Farming Smarter.
“Virtually any issue that you can imagine goes to have an effect on the top consequence.”
He says analysis carried out by his group ensures farmers are higher ready within the occasion of a 2019 repeat.
“We are able to check out issues so 500,000 different particular person farmers don’t must fail at one thing. We are able to check it out and fail at it and provides a consensus over what we must be doing as a substitute.”
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