Attendees from across Canada and the globe gathered in Winnipeg on October 23, 2025 for EMILI’s sixth annual Agriculture Enlightened conference.
EMILI’s one-day conference focused on Driving Agriculture Innovation. Attendees heard from 24 smart farm leaders, lawyers, producers, academics, and leaders in digital agriculture about the importance of driving agriculture innovation to increase productivity and sustainability across the sector.
Jacqueline Keena and Ray Bouchard welcome attendees to EMILI’s 6th annual Agriculture Enlightened conference (Photo credit: EMILI).
This year’s event drew business leaders, producers, civil servants, technologists and investors from across North America. Some came from as far as Ghana and Mongolia.
Keynote Speaker Mirjana Prica travelled from Australia to share expertise on building a national food and agtech ecosystem. Prica is Food Innovation Australia‘s managing director. She shared her perspective on how to scale agtech ecosystems, and her insights on what the next big opportunities in agtech are around the world. She talked about the value of bringing diverse cohorts of businesses together in a concentrated region to build “engines of growth” that share dialogue, resources, and opportunities to unlock the potential of the sector.
Left to right: Jacqueline Keena in conversation with Lysa Porth, Mirjana Prica, and Bram Strain in conversation with Gary Mar (Photo credit: EMILI).
The audience had the chance to hear an insightful conversation between Gary Mar, president and CEO of Canada West Foundation and Bram Strain, president and CEO of Business Council of Manitoba. They discussed agriculture’s position in the shifting global trade landscape; from the state of trade relationships, to the importance of diversification and strategic policy-making amidst a volatile market and geopolitical instability.
24 speakers share expertise
The day began with a presentation by Jacqueline Keena, highlighting some of EMILI’s 2025 milestones including the development of a new strategic plan focused on driving agriculture innovation through innovation, partnership, and engagement.
Attendees had the chance to learn about spray drones and emerging agtech regulations from the diverse perspectives of a lawyer and a researcher in a panel featuring MLT Aikins LLP lawyer Erika Carrasco and Corteva Agriscience Field Modernization Scientist Kevin Falk.
Kevin Falk shares insights from spray drone trials at EMILI’s Innovation Farms. Erika Carrasco provides a legal perspective on regulations (Photo credit: EMILI).
Falk shared some examples of use cases that would benefit from spray drone technology.
“There’s definitely some great uses, and with the technological change that’s happening, it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when,” he said.
“It’s incredible what can be done just to make ag more efficient, more innovative, just by using drones to capture data that would normally take hours or days to capture,” said Carrasco.
Lysa Porth discussed ways to leverage innovation to drive productivity, and a panel of innovation farms leaders from across Canada discussed work being done to bring new innovations from pre-commercial to market.
Graeme Millan, Johnny Park, Rebecca Franklin, and Jason Tennenhouse discuss ways to validate agriculture innovation to foster adoption (Photo credit: EMILI).
The audience also had a chance to hear from investors and startups on what it takes to achieve farmer market fit, and to hear from Farm Credit Canada’s Graeme Millen in disccussion with Jason Tennenhouse and Johnny Park from the Wabash Hearthland Innovation Network, and Rebecca Franklin from EMILI’s Innovation Farm Network on the importance of validating agriculture innovation to foster adoption .
Celebrating a successful year, and looking ahead
Collaboration is essential to EMILI’s work. EMILI Managing Director Jacqueline Keena highlighted this in a presentation celebrating how, in 2025, 41 small and medium enteprises were given on-farm engagment opportunities. More than 820 visitors toured Innovation Farms, including 100 students who had opportunities to see how innovative and technologically advanced careers in agriculture are. Since 2023, EMILI has partnered with 35 different organizations on 39 unique projects at Innovation Farms representing a wide variety of technology being tested and brought to scale.
Graeme Millen shares insights from FCC Capital. Darcy Herauf, Susanne Cork, Chuck Baresich, Leanne Koroscil, and Herman Simons talk about bringing new innovations from pre-commercial to market (Photo credit: EMILI).
2025 marks EMILI’s sixth year hosting its annual Agriculture Enlightened conference. Over the past six years, more than 1,450 people have heard from more than 144 expert speakers in 47 sessions. We are proud to bring this dynamic conference to industry leaders across the country.
John Cassidy, Kyle Folk, Mohammed Asefi, and Terry Sydoryk talk about achieving farmer market fit (Photo credit: EMILI).
As we look ahead to 2026 and the opportunity to celebrate EMILI’s first decade, there are exciting plans in the works. To be the first to learn about Agriculture Enlightened 2026, be sure to save your seat!