EMILI is featured in a Globe and Mail article showcasing digital agriculture in Canada.
The story opens by pointing to how EMILI’s Innovation Farms, located on the farm of J.P. Wiebe Inc in MacGregor, Man., has started testing physical sensors from Calgary-based Cellar Insights on some bins. Potato farmer Sheldon Wiebe used to rely on visual and scent cues to detect if his product was rotting inside climate-controlled storage bins designed to withstand prairie temperatures. but now the first sign of rot may be a smartphone notification.
With data collection that can detect early signs of mold spores using artificial intelligence, the technology can predict spoilage before Mr. Wiebe’s spuds are ruined. This ensures more of his potatoes make it to Simplot Co.’s French-fry processing plant, a 12-minute drive east of his farm. Cellar Insights’ system also uses the season-long data sets it collects to train its models on Manitoba’s drastic climate, which varies considerably between the seasons.
“We’re in such a high-risk business and margins are very tight, and any kind of loss creates heartache financially, so good data really helps us to make good decisions,” Mr. Wiebe said.
He has access to the early-stage technology through a contract with the Winnipeg-based Enterprise Machine Intelligence and Learning Initiative. EMILI is an industry-led non-profit that helps farmers use new agricultural technology developed by companies around the world. Mr. Wiebe’s 10,000 acre, 18-person operation, which also grows other rotational crops, is one of the initiative’s two innovation farms that test new technology at scale.
Read the full article by Olivia Grandy in the Globe and Mail.