The President and CEO of Farmers Edge says modern agricultural technology is providing the tools farmers need to improve global food security and better communicate with their customers.
Keystone Agricultural Producers has called on all candidates running in the April 19 Manitoba election to commit to expanding government support for agricultural research with the goal of making Manitoba the Canadian Centre for Agricultural Innovation.
Farmers Edge is a precision agriculture company that uses the science data analytics to analyze farmers’ data to develop solutions and tools to help them improve productivity.
Wade Barnes, the President and CEO of Farmers Edge says western Canadian farmers are probably leading edge when it come to precision agriculture, ag tech and big data.
I think in agriculture right now there’s a real focus around food security and traceability and showcasing safety to the consumer. Farmers also need to be more careful about their cost of inputs and their management skills and so technology is going to allow farmers to have a closer tie to end users and it’s also going to allow them to spread their management expertise to a lot more acres in order to be competitive.
I think, with this new technology, it’s just going to make farmers much more competitive and in regions in areas of the world where they can adopt new technology like North America, like Canada, like Manitoba, you’re going to see the farmers become much more competitive than other parts of the world. ~ Wade Barnes – Farmers Edge
Barnes says Farmers Edge has attracted some of the largest technology investors to Manitoba and there’s an opportunity to expand from that.
He says Manitoba has the ability to be a world leader in agricultural technology but, he warns, that opportunity is time stamped so action from the provincial government to support a multi-billion dollar industry makes sense.
