Nearly 40 members of the Manitoba Digital Agriculture Table met online on January 14 to learn about skills programming opportunities currently available in the agtech sector.
EMILI Managing Director Jacqueline Keena began the meeting with a brief overview of the previous year at EMILI, highlighting the addition of a new Innovation Farms site in MacGregor, Manitoba that has given EMILI new abilities to test new technologies related to potatoes and irrigation. Keena also highlighted collaborations with Elmer’s Manufacturing, Redekop Manufacturing and Bushel Plus during the 2025 season, and shared an example of how different product prototypes can be attached to the same piece of farm equipment during the season to provide data and insights.
Talitha McCloskey, senior manager of impact partnerships and government relations with Growclass shared three skills programming opportunities available through Digital Marketing Skills Canada (DMSC), a consortium supported by Growclass, Jelly Academy, and the Canadian Marketing Association. The consortium provides funded digital marketing education to several sectors including agriculture. McCloskey noted that these programs are valuable in a time when roles in agriculture are changing faster than the talent pipeline can keep up.
Through DMSC, marketers, founders and business owners in the food value chain may be eligible for funded training, and are matched to a specific program depending on the amount of marketing experience that they have. New and emerging marketers are best suited to Jelly Academy’s introductory content, while those with three to eight years of experience may find Growclass to be a good fit. Marketers with about a decade of experience may be eligible to work toward a Chartered Marketer designation through the Canadian Marketing Association. Since launching in 2024, more than 2,000 professionals have received marketing training through the consortium.
Angela Pearen, coordinator of the agriculture extension programs at Russ Edwards School of Agriculture and Environment at Assiniboine College shared success stories from the first two cohorts of the Digital Agriculture Fundamentals program. The eight-week upskilling program blends theory with hands-on experience to provide graduates with the skills needed to transition into new roles in agriculture. Pearen emphasized that the program is also an employment program.
“The impetus of the program is to get people employed and fill employment gaps,” she said.
The program, which is delivered primarily online through a mix of live and asynchronous learning has seen two successful cohorts, with a third beginning in January 2026. Pearen said that applicants have a wide variety of professional backgrounds ranging from IT and data analysis to gardening and retail agriculture, and that the program lays a foundational level of digital agriculture skills for people from different careers with strong transferable skills. The common thread between the applicants is that they know working in agriculture is their way forward in Manitoba.
The vision of the Manitoba Digital Agriculture Table is to increase collaboration between Manitoba’s thriving industry and academic communities in order to advance the digital agriculture ecosystem in the province.
Since launching in 2020, EMILI has engaged with approximately 500 participants at more than 20 meetings, fostering a diverse network across the industry to discuss issues, share opportunities, and exchange knowledge.