Darren Wolchyn (at right), founder and CEO of Smart Paddock, receives the Innovation Award from Kevin Chung, director of innovation investments and programs at Innovation Saskatchewan, at the Canadian Animal Ag Tech Awards. (Lisa Guenther photo)

At Agribition: Livestock tech companies earn new spotlight

Canadian Animal Ag Tech Awards presented

Three companies were crowned winners at the first annual Canadian Animal Ag Tech Awards on Thursday during Canadian Western Agribition in Regina. The event spotlighted companies creating technology for the livestock industry, with products ranging from water sensors to artificial intelligence-powered monitoring systems. Australia’s Smart Paddock received the Innovation Award. The company’s GPS ear tags


How data is compiled, analyzed and managed serves to magnify its impacts, be they good or bad.

Editor’s Take: The dark side of data sharing

Data is a big part of our lives. It is built into the cell phone plan we pay for every month, our credit score and every part of every supply chain that brings us the things we use and consume. It can be used to spot patterns, optimize operations, save money and create better end

Managing farm data needs to get simpler and connectivity must grow before digital agriculture can truly take off.

The roadblocks to digital agriculture

What’s it going to take for agriculture’s ability to use data to catch up to its ability to gather it?

You’d be hard-pressed to find a farmer who has bought into digital agriculture more than Rick Rutherford has. The seed grower and owner of Rutherford Farms has spent over a decade collecting data on his operation northwest of Winnipeg near Grosse Isle. He’s partnered with digital ag accelerator EMILI (Enterprise Machine Intelligence and Learning Initiative)


A new livestream brings anyone to the grasslands, even if only digitally.

Livestream beams view from Manitoba pasture

Langruth-area ranchers teamed up with McDonalds to highlight the beauty and benefits of Canadian grasslands

Picture this: It’s a mild October day. You’re sitting outside with a pasture spread out before you. Wind rustles through the long grass and through the sun-gilded leaves of the nearby poplar bush. You hear cattle just out of your line of sight and gentle music is playing. Viewers could get hours of that ambience

Cattle fitted with NoFence virtual fencing technology.

The arrival of virtual livestock fencing

Alberta researchers explore how well the technology withstands harsh Prairie winters

A livestock researcher in Alberta wants to see if virtual fencing lives up to its promises once winter hits the Prairies. “If you have a technology that can’t work in -40 or -45, it has no place in Alberta,” said Lakeland College’s Obioha Durunna during a Sept. 14 presentation to Manitoba producers north of Brandon.


(Romaset/iStock/Getty Images)

When right to repair is not right to repair

I’ve had a hard time getting my morning coffee lately. The culprit is the multi-buttoned, digital-screened, expensive coffee maker taking up way too much space on the kitchen counter. Instead of pressing a button, walking away and coming back to a cup of joe, I’m instead greeted with the message “Fill H20,” despite the brimming

photo: artistgndphotography/istock/getty images

Training on tap to fill farm labour gaps between ag and tech

The ‘agri-programmer’ may be on its way

Say there’s trouble with the automated GIS and mapping features on the tractor, but you can’t find a tech with enough knowledge to offer help. It’s a simple example of the kind of employment gaps that keep farmers up at night, and that prevent their adoption of new technology, said the manager of an “upskilling”


People visit crop plots at Discovery Farm Woodstock during Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show. Photo: Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show

Discovery Farm Woodstock joins Pan-Canadian Smart Farm Network

The research site joins its Saskatchewan counterpart on the initiative’s roster

Glacier FarmMedia’s eastern Discovery Farm has joined the locations that share data and research through Old’s College’s Pan-Canadian Smart Farm Network. The 330-acre Ontario site is the host of various demonstration research projects and Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show. It was established as the permanent home for the show in 2020. “The objective is to provide

“We have heard deep-seated frustration from both farm families and non-farmers about the state of connectivity in rural Manitoba, and providers cannot continue to ask us to pay for a service that is subpar, at best.” – Jill Werwey, KAP.

AMM puts rural cell service in the hot seat

Only a third of rural Manitobans consider their cell service ‘fully reliable’

Rural connectivity remains an issue for Manitobans. That was one of the main takeaways from a recent poll commissioned by the Association of Manitoba Municipalities. The poll, conducted by Probe Research, found that rural Manitobans are overwhelmingly concerned about mobile connectivity outside of the province’s cities. Why it matters: Unreliable cellular service can be a