Lending a robotic hand for the highly skilled work of mushroom harvesting. | 12
Protecting apples and profits
Protective netting for orchards has benefits beyond hail and sun protection. | 16
Speaking to the future
Top 4 Under 40 winners share advice. | 18
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Saskatoon berry
This Prairie berry is growing in popularity in Canada and abroad for its nutritional qualities and cold hardiness.
vegetable seed systems critical to building resilience.
Automating mushroom harvest
Lending a robotic hand to help with the highly skilled work of mushroom harvesting.
BY ABIGAIL CUKIER
Protecting apples and profits
Protective netting for apple trees has benefits beyond preventing hail and sun damage. BY
TOM WALKER
Into the future: Horticulture’s rising stars
Our Top 4 Under 40 contest winners share advice with industry newcomers. BY ALEX
BARNARD
A cluster of Saskatoon berries. See page 8.
Photo courtesy of The Saskatoon Farm.
Listening in
In my role with Fruit & Vegetable, I’m lucky enough to get to speak with people from across the industry and country on a regular basis. Most of these conversations are structured to gather information, naturally. And, as much as I enjoy learning about other people and what they know, I was recently reminded that sometimes the wisest words come not in the form of an answer, but in the easy exchange of words when there’s no need to perform for an audience.
The absence of live events over the past year has made these casual conversations rarer and all the more precious for it. As Top 4 Under 40 winner Susan Judd says on page 19, networking and collaboration are central to the Canadian ag community. She also notes the other key component of a good conversation – listening. A casual conversation over a cup of coffee can lead to great and unexpected things.
Our cover story is all about Saskatoon berries and their unexpected popularity. The native plant’s hardiness, unique flavour and health benefits have caused demand for the fruit and trees to
benefits beyond those intended. The netting prevents hail and sun damage to the delicate fruit, but it also lowers the temperature and traps humidity. This allows for apples to be grown in a wider range of areas and reduces irrigation.
This issue also features the winners of our Top 4 Under 40 contest. The contest, run throughout February, sought to recognize the next generation of trailblazers driving the Canadian fruit and vegetable industry forward. We received some truly excellent nominations – not unexpectedly – and it was fantastic to see the passion and ambition of the under-40 folks.
Read up on what our winners –Hayden Dooney, Susan Judd, Philip Keddy and Nicholas Ploeg – have to say on page 18. They discuss advice they’d give to anyone looking to join the industry and have some great insights. And be sure to keep an eye out for our AgAnnex Talks podcast series featuring more indepth discussions with the winners, beginning on April 26.
As usual, this is the last issue of Fruit & Vegetable you’ll receive until
“Sometimes the wisest words come when there’s no audience.”
jump in recent years. Popularity isn’t always a good thing, though; rising prices and commercialization of the fruit mean that a Prairie staple is less accessible for Indigenous and Prairie communities than before.
Tom Walker’s story on protective netting for apple orchards, found on page 16, shows how some innovations have unexpected
November. So, I’d like to take this time to wish you the best of luck in all you’ll face between now and then – whether it’s planting, weeding, advising, spraying, scouting, harvesting, selling, and everything in between. And if you’re in need of inspiration or motivation, strike up a conversation.
We’ll see you on the other side. •
MARY BURNIE mburnie@annexbusinessmedia.com 519-429-5175
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Vineland Research and Innovation Centre (Vineland) in Ontario and INO, a Quebec-based optics and photonics technology centre, have partnered to develop new robotic harvesting solutions for mushrooms and greenhouse cucumbers. This automation technology will help Canadian growers be more efficient and productive while offering relief from labour shortages.
“Addressing labour challenges in horticulture through automation is a key priority for Vineland and this new collaborative relationship with INO will play a significant role in helping us advance automation technologies for the sector,” says Phillip Stephan,
Vineland’s vice-president of business and client development.
“Food autonomy and the buy-local movement are the future way of living and producers need innovative solutions to meet demand,” says Louis Martel, INO’s vice-president of business development and partnership. “Our collaboration with Vineland is targeted to our mission: to help businesses to be more productive and competitive. With vision and detection technologies, we hope to offer new solutions for labour shortages and farming process automatization to Canadian growers in a near future.”
AGRISTABILITY DROPS REFERENCE MARGIN
LIMIT
As a result of the federalprovincial-territorial (FPT) meeting of Canada’s ministers of agriculture on March, 25, the Reference Margin Limit (RML) has been removed from AgriStability. MarieClaude Bibeau, federal minister of agriculture and agri-food, took to Twitter to share the news. The removal of the RML is retroactive to the 2020 program year. In addition, the deadline for producers to enroll in the 2021 program year will be extended to June 30, 2021. According to
Agriculture and AgriFood Canada (AAFC), removing the reference margin limit could increase the overall amount AgriStability pays out to farmers by approximately $95 million nationally.
AAFC also notes that analysis continues on alternative risk management designs. This analysis will inform upcoming discussions on longer-term reforms, set to take place at the next in-person FPT Annual Conference in Guelph, Ont., scheduled for Sept. 8-10, 2021.
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menus and kitchen tables has grown. Farms like Prairie Berries in Keeler, Sask., which sells many of its products to Canadian restaurants and distilleries, have been following the health food market closely.
“There’s a big push right now for all-natural, non-GMO, vegan food to be introduced into people’s diets, and Saskatoon berries are one of those berries that hit all those health properties that people are looking for – whether it’s antioxidants, fibre, magnesium, potassium, all that kind of stuff,” says Jessica Alexander, marketing manager for Prairie Berries.
In the last five years, Prairie Berries has expanded their product range from purees, frozen berries and concentrates to include spreads, syrups, sweetened dried berries and chocolate-covered Saskatoons. Alexander says consumers are hungry for more healthy, tasty Prairie foods.
“Even just in the last three years, we’ve really seen a shift in companies wanting to use local products. There are companies all over Canada that are looking for fruits and products that are grown and processed in Canada,” she says. “So I think the local shift has definitely helped us get into more of these markets. And it has grown in restaurants, too. They want that unique flavour Saskatoon berries have.”
As farmers look for more commercial markets for their berries, researchers have continued to study the berry’s nutritional value and what other uses they might have.
Nicholas Low, a professor in the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Agriculture and Bioresources, studies the phenolics – naturally-occurring compounds with antioxidant properties – that are found in high quantities in Saskatoon berries.
As more growers are considering shelfstable products like pressed Saskatoon berry juice and concentrate, Low is studying whether the byproducts left over after the pressing process, like skins and seeds, retain their nutritional value and what other uses they could have.
“You could have a product out of what many people would consider to be a waste product – I call it a co-product stream,” he says. “So if you can produce the juice, and if you can get something from the [byproduct] that’s of value, then you have another marketable material.”
And while many growers and Prairie residents take pride in these berries for
ABOVE
In the last five years, Prairie Berries has expanded the range of products it offers, from purees and concentrates to spreads, syrups and chocolate-covered Saskatoons.
their specific local histories and flavours, Saskatoons are also taking root in international markets.
Hamer says he has sold millions of trees to growers on the Prairies and in regions with temperate climates all over the world who want to start or expand their own operations.
“We set people up with Saskatoon farms, and the model that we’ve got can be realized anywhere. We’ve set up farms in Romania, in Finland, in England –they’re becoming a popular fruit,” he says. “We’re talking with someone in China that wants to plant 300,000 trees.”
According to Alexander, growers should keep a few factors in mind when deciding whether to go all in on Saskatoons – but she says the advantages outweigh the challenges in the long term.
“You have to be committed and have a game plan, since Saskatoon berries take about seven to 10 years before you’re going to get full production out of your bushes,” Alexander says. “So it
is something you need to consider. But I can tell you that, over the last five years, the industry has grown a lot – and it continues to grow.”
With the rising commercial interest in Saskatoon berries, Wesaquate does worry about the accessibility of a critical and beloved food source in the years ahead.
“The commercialization of plants and products and whatnot is just a little bit too overwhelming. A lot of families can’t afford the prices of these natural berries,” Wesaquate says. “They’re just made a little bit too expensive in these natural food selection stories. The prices seem to keep going up, when it should be just a natural thing to be able to go out onto the land and pick.”
He hopes people will think about the berries “in a future-type context, not in a now-type context:” keeping large farming and U-Pick operations in balance with the little pockets of land in fields and by riverbanks where the Saskatoon berries have always been found and enjoyed. •
PHOTO
Regional vegetable seed systems critical to building resilience
“Due to overwhelming demand, our turnaround time is longer than expected.” “We thank you for your patience.” “We are so sorry, but these varieties are out of stock.”
Visit any vegetable seed company’s website this year and you’ll see some kind of message to this effect due to an overwhelming demand for vegetable seed. The pandemic has upended so many systems we previously took for granted, and the vegetable seed system is no different. While this increased demand has generated strong revenue growth for seed companies, it has brought to light some of the complexities of how our vegetable seed is produced.
The vast majority of the vegetable seed planted in Canada – organic or not – comes from imported seed. Most vegetable varieties used in Canada are bred in the U.S. or Europe, scaled up by seed multipliers in the U.S., France, Italy, Israel, China and South Africa, and then sold to North American seed companies wholesale. This mainstream model of importing, repackaging and reselling seed provides high volumes of
quality seed to farmers who need consistency and reliability in their seed supply.
However, this system relies on predictability of demand, so seed contracts can be issued to growers around the world well in advance of when that seed will be purchased and planted in Canada. This system leaves most vegetable farmers completely dependent on an opaque network of international suppliers for their most critical input. Organic vegetable farmers are even more vulnerable in this model, as vegetable breeding needs are predominantly directed by large-scale, non-organic vegetable producers. While organic vegetable breeding and seed production are improving, more attention needs to be paid to regionally adapted seed that thrives in organic and climate-resilient farming conditions.
COVID-19 has shown us that our seed systems need to be more resilient. With the impacts of climate change becoming increasingly unpredictable, it is important that we build resilience into our seed systems to ensure farmers across Canada have access to seeds that perform
ABOVE
Kim Delaney, organic seed farmer at Hawthorn Farm Organic Seeds in Palmerston, Ont.
PHOTO COURTESY OF KIM DELANEY.
well in their regions.
Regional, small-scale, organic vegetable seed companies –who sell mostly what they grow themselves – are part of the tapestry of farmers in Canada trying to build this alternative. These companies offer regionally adapted, open-pollinated varieties, which are grown in organic or ecological farming conditions. This model moves a much smaller volume, but a higher diversity of seed in Canada. It relies on local transportation and shipping systems and trusting relationships between growers of a similar scale and skill level.
Since 2013, the Bauta Family Initiative on Canadian Seed Security, a SeedChange program, has been working to strengthen these kinds of regional seed systems. In Ontario, we work with the Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario (EFAO) to deliver regional seed programs. We envision a seed system where farmers across Canada are growing a diversity of high-quality, regionally adapted seeds for organic and climateresilient farming practices.
On paper, this sounds great. In practice, it’s a lot more difficult. There are a number of barriers to growing organic vegetable seed in Ontario and the rest of Canada: climatic challenges, absence of agronomic extension, limited domestic plant breeding for organics, and constraints on skilled labour and time for farmers and seed growers. Farming isn’t easy at the best of times, and now, during a pandemic, many organic vegetable farmers are feeling increasingly overwhelmed. There is so much to do and no single farmer or seed company should be expected to do it alone. We share the following suggestions to encourage farmers to think about how they can participate in building a seed system that is more resilient:
Learn how to save organic seed: Learning how to save your favourite open-pollinated varieties on your own farm is a great first step towards regional seed security. If you are an aspiring vegetable seed grower in Ontario, enroll in the Canadian Organic Growers online course on organic vegetable seed production or attend any of the field days, webinars, and workshops on farm-scale seed production held by the EFAO (efao.ca/events).
ABOVE
Annie Richard, seed producer and budding plant breeder with Kitchen Table Seed House in Wolfe Island, Ont.
Ontario, visit efao.ca/seed-security.
The Organic Council of Ontario (OCO) represents more than 1,400 certified organic operators, as well as the businesses, organizations, and individuals that bring food from farm to plate. OCO works to catalyze sector growth, support research, improve training, increase data collection, encourage market development, protect the integrity of organic claims, and inform the public of the benefits and requirements of organic agriculture. •
Conduct an organic variety trial: Conducting onfarm variety trials can help you identify which vegetable varieties are suitable for seed-saving on your farm. Programs like the Canadian Organic Vegetable Improvement Project (seedsecurity.ca/302-canovi) and the EFAO’s Farmer-Led Research Program help farmers design and conduct variety trials to help identify the best performing open-pollinated vegetable varieties for their area.
Grow organic seed on contract: Already know how to save seed? There’s never been a better time for skilled organic vegetable growers to get into the seed contract business. Contact a local organic vegetable seed company in your area (weseedchange.org/local-seeds) to see if they would be interested in purchasing seed from you.
In time, the impacts of the pandemic will pass, but climate change and other ecological, economic and political challenges will continue to test the resilience of our agricultural systems. Knowing how to develop and grow a diversity of quality seeds that thrive in Canadian organic and ecological farming systems is a critical step towards building that resilience in Canada.
To learn more about what you can do for seed security, visit takeactionforseeds.ca. To learn more about The Bauta Family Initiative on Canadian Seed Security, visit seedsecurity.ca. To learn more about how you can get involved in seed security programs in
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Automating mushroom harvest
Lending a robotic hand to help with the high-skilled work of mushroom harvesting.
BY ABIGAIL CUKIER
Growing and harvesting mushrooms is a labourintensive, complex process. Mushroom houses are carefully controlled for temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide levels. The cycle starts with compost, which is then mixed with the mycelium spawn that will produce the mushrooms. Once matured, the compost is spread into the mushroom beds inside warm, dark rooms. A layer of peat casing material is added on top of the compost to keep it moist. This layer is watered well to ensure moisture. The temperature in the room is then gradually lowered – a sign for the mycelium to start sprouting mushrooms. The mycelium forms little buds that will develop into mushrooms. They start to grow, doubling in size every day. Then it is time to harvest.
The harvester stands on a trolley, which holds packing materials. The harvester goes up and down the beds, hand-picking mushrooms, which is the best way to ensure they will not be damaged. On average, a picker can harvest between 18 and 30 kilograms of mushrooms per hour.
ABOVE
“Row after row of mushrooms are nestled in the compost bed, without a lot of room between beds. This makes it difficult to see and pick, compared to a greenhouse or an open field. Mushrooms are very perishable and bruise easily. Because they are a fungus and not a plant, they don’t change colour as they ripen. So it is difficult to know when it is time to pick them,” says Aaron Hamer, president and CEO of Highline Mushrooms, which operates nine farms across Canada. The largest mushroom grower in the country and the largest organic mushroom grower in the world, Highline primarily grows white, cremini and portobello mushrooms for retail, food service and industrial customers. The company also purchases, packages and sells exotic mushrooms.
It is demanding work. Mushrooms are grown and harvested throughout the year and it takes training, skill and a lot of manual labour to do it right. It is also difficult to attract workers to the rural areas where mushroom farms are usually located.
The solution’s imaging system captures data from each mushroom over its growth cycle and stores it in a database, which the Decision Support System uses to make decisions, such as the optimal time to pick a given mushroom.
“It is an enormous labour challenge. As consumption of mushrooms grows and the availability of labour declines all over the world, the industry is facing serious labour shortages,” Hamer says.
Mushroom production is an almost-billion-dollar industry in Canada, with more than 120 million kilograms of mushrooms produced in 2017. The industry employs 4,000 workers, about a quarter of them temporary foreign workers. But, according to a survey by the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council (CAHRC), the industry had a 19.3 per cent job vacancy rate in 2018. This was the highest in agriculture – and agriculture had the highest vacancy rate of any industry in Canada.
“The mushroom industry was very positive that, should they get enough people to work in the industry, it would grow and they would need more workers. But about one in three employers said they will fail because they were unable to find enough workers,” explains Debra Hauer, manager, AgriLMI (Labour Market Intelligence), CAHRC. “In 2018, employers estimated a $40-million loss in sales for the industry due to labour shortages. And this was not during the COVID-19 pandemic, so those shortages have become much more severe.”
LENDING AN EXTRA HAND AT HARVEST
A group at Vineland Research and Innovation Centre in Ontario is working to help solve this challenge. With support from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, through the Canadian Agricultural Partnership, Vineland has launched a $5-million Canadian Agricultural Automation Cluster, which aims to improve labour productivity using automation, artificial intelligence and precision agriculture technologies. One of the cluster projects is a robotic mushroom harvester.
The solution includes a vision (imaging) system, decision support system (DSS) and a gripper, which is the “hand” at the end of a robotic arm.
The imaging system captures data from the mushroom bed over time, which is passed to an algorithm that extracts data for each mushroom. The solution tracks various parameters from each mushroom over its growth cycle and stores them in a database, which the DSS uses to make decisions – such as the optimal time to pick a given mushroom. Growers can use an app that lets them filter data and view it in graphs and charts, allowing them to set harvesting parameters, such as mushroom size.
“Instead of taking a brief snapshot of the bed and making harvesting decisions based on what is seen right now, we look at the cumulative history of any given mushroom to determine when it is ripe. You can’t identify a ripe mushroom by just looking at it. So, we are not harvesting based on what it is now, we are harvesting based on what it has been over time,” says Kyle Crawford, senior research engineer with systems integration at Vineland.
When it comes to picking the mushrooms, the solution mimics the harvester going up and down the beds to pick and pack the mushrooms. The most challenging part is creating the robotic gripper that can pick the fragile mushrooms without harming them.
“We are not trying to recreate the human, but to produce the system that matches what they’re doing,” Crawford says. “There will always be humans involved, no matter how good the robots are. But it will reduce the amount of labour required. Using a combination of automated and human harvesting will increase overall yield and reduce labour costs.”
ABOVE
Growers use an app to operate the three-part automated mushroom harvester.
ADOPTING CHANGE
While there is a general concern about technology’s disruption on human jobs, Hauer says that is not the case in agriculture. “Farmers are happy to adopt new technology, varieties or production practices in order to decrease the need for labour or be more environmentally friendly. And if you have a 19 per cent vacancy rate, nobody’s concerned that it will be taking away Canadian jobs. As a matter of fact, those jobs that involve the application of technology in agriculture would likely be those that would be of great interest to Canadians, if they only knew they were there.
“One thing farmers do ask is, ‘Will it make me money?’ That is something each business needs to answer on their own. And also, having the people who will be running the technology and maintaining it, who need to have increased skills. Who are those people and are there plans to have them in place?” Hauer says, adding that there is a need for greater connection between agriculture and the knowledge economy.
Hamer says he is glad researchers are trying to solve the labour challenges associated with mushroom production.
“There have been attempts for probably 30 years at developing a solution, but no one has been successful yet. It is crucial to pick a mushroom at the optimal time. If it is left too long, you can’t pick it or sell it. To come up with an algorithm has been difficult,” he says. “Mushroom harvesting is a relatively high-skilled position with experience being a critical component of success. The human decision-making process on which mushroom to pick is something that is difficult to replicate. And to create a [gripper] that will have enough force to pick up the mushroom but not bruise it is very challenging. We hope this technology
Protecting apples and profits
Protective netting for apple trees has benefits beyond preventing hail and sun damage.
BY TOM WALKER
Protective netting has a wide range of benefits in apple production. While netting is primarily installed to protect apples from hail and sunburn, there are a number of additional advantages, as well.
A recent installation in the North Okanagan region of British Columbia reveals a variety of positive results. In May 2019, Farm Solutions, a Summerland, B.C., company, installed 10 acres of protective netting for Davison Orchards at a property located just northwest of Vernon, B.C. With the assistance of a $128,000-grant from the Canadian Agriculture Partnership (CAP), Farm Solutions rigged a polymer net to cover 10 acres of Honeycrisp, Ambrosia and Gala apples. An adjacent 10-acre block serves as control.
“Honeycrisp are a difficult apple to grow well,” says Tom Davison, owner of Davison Orchards. “But they are a favourite with our customers.” The high-value apple is a winner for the agri-tourism farm and protecting them makes good business sense.
Netting systems have developed in two styles. The high rigged system used in the North Okanagan is often described as “continuous over the top.” It completely covers an orchard block and is slung between large diameter posts at a height of 15 to 20 feet. An over-the-top system can also be enclosed with side netting to reduce insect and bird predation as well.
Drape netting, the second style, is becoming popular in Washington state. Initial costs are lower, as it can use existing high-density trellis systems, and there is also significantly less labour and equipment involved for seasonal set up and take down. Drape netting can also be cinched at the bottom to provide insect and bird protection.
The primary objective of the Okanagan installation was hail protection; a cost-benefit comparison was reported by Hank Markgraf, a long-time tree fruit specialist based in Kelowna B.C. “The initial cost of the netting was $16,500
CONTINUED ON PAGE 22
ABOVE Under the recently installed protective netting at Davison Orchards in the North Okanagan region of British Columbia.
