In October 2023, Grainews spoke to EMILI’s managing director, Jacqueline Keena, who hosted a panel discussion on Innovation Farms during the Agriculture Enlightened conference.
“We’re just at the conclusion of our first growing season … and we have more than 22 project collaborators out on the farm doing … different projects to grow the digital ag industry and to develop all sorts of new innovations, be it software or hardware technologies,” she said.
The Innovation Farms panelists included Rutherford as well as Ray Bouchard, CEO of Enns Brothers, a major Manitoba ag equipment dealer, who also chairs EMILI’s board of directors.
Bouchard talked about how the work being done at Rutherford’s farm has created a unique micro-ecosystem centred around ag innovation and opportunities.
“We already have examples in year one where we’ve got companies that came to the farm to test out new technologies that have gotten into ideation with some of the other companies, and they are now working collaboratively and are working at putting together new technologies. That’s just an example in a very small micro-ecosystem that we’ve been able to create,” he said.
Read the full article by Mark Halsall in Grainews.