Canadian agriculture is facing a digital challenge

The world is well into a fourth industrial revolution, with digital systems transforming our economy and society. A range of new digital applications are changing what we can do, how and where we will do things, and who will benefit. While much of our national conversation about the digital future is focused elsewhere, Canadian agriculture is at the cutting edge of trying to figure out how it can adapt to this new challenge. Given that the agri-food sector is one of Canada’s largest, most dynamic, and globally competitive industries, it will be important to mange this transition. There is substantial effort globally to adapt and adopt digital technologies to the agriculture and food sector. Geomatics, GPS-coordinated mobility, sensors, algorithms, big data, distributed ledgers and artificial intelligence are all being tested in agriculture somewhere in the world today. The level of global investment in digital applications in agriculture has accelerated in recent years. Venture capital and corporate investment in the agri-food tech industry globally totalled more than US$50-billion over the past seven years, with recent trends to more later-stage investments and greater interest beyond the continental U.S. Canada ranks about third in terms of this activity. The Canadian agri-food sector is differentially adapting and adopting these technologies. In Western Canada, most commercial farmers now use at least one, and most use many digital applications. Almost all farmers surveyed recently used GPS guidance systems for their operations (98 per cent), more than 85 per cent of the combine harvesters used some form of real-time monitoring and 70 per cent of chemical, 37 per cent of fertilizer and 26 per cent of seed applications used automatic section control (with variable rate applications in response to land and soil conditions). About two-thirds of farmers report using temperature and moisture sensors to monitor grain stores and 40 per cent use remote imagery in-season to monitor crops. While farmers are adapting the technology, there are some serious gaps in our national capacity. Right now, most of the large integrators developing these tools are off-shore farm machinery or seed companies—the strategies and tools they are developing are often suited more for farming operations different than ours. While there are many small entrepreneurial firms trying to build apps and tools to support farmers, most of them have difficulty gaining scale. As in other sectors, there is a risk that the large foreign presence at the core of this industry could lead to a hollowing out of the value-added jobs in Canada. More coherent and aggressive Canadian policy could help. Farmers report a lack of access to greater bandwidth and skilled labour impede their ability to use some of these technologies. Both are issues that federal ministries, and federal-provincial efforts could help to remedy, albeit with some lags as investments and programs take time to build. Rules around data ownership cannot wait. Farmers see data as a core asset of their operations—who owns and controls what they can do with it will be vital. These rules will determine whether Canadian agriculture benefits from or is hollowed out by digitization. The rules of engagement for data ownership and control are in play. But so far all of that effort is abroad—private firms, industry associations, and governments in the U.S. and EU are setting in place policies for their markets. Since 2014, the American Farm Bureau has worked with a coalition of major farm organizations and agriculture technology providers (ATP) to come up with principles that will define the rights of farmers and best practices of data use. The ATP principles cover ownership, collection, access and control, notice, third-party access and use, transparency and consistency, choice, portability, data availability, market speculation, liability and security safeguard, use and sales limitations, data retention and availability, contract termination, and unlawful or anti-competitive activities. Thirty-eight firms —most of the major global investors in this area—have signed the principles. More recently, the European Union developed a code of conduct on agricultural data sharing. So far Canada has left others to define our rights in this area. Who owns and controls the data that is gathered on farms and in food markets will determine whether digitization is good for this vital and dynamic Canadian industry. Now is the time to take action, before the system is defined in ways that disadvantage Canadian farms and Canadian industry. Peter Phillips is the director and research lead for bioscience and food policy at the University of Saskatchewan’s Johnson Shoyama Centre for the Study of Science and Innovation Policy. The Hill Times