Awarding innovation

INNOVATION HAS DRIVEN ADVANCES IN AGRICULTURAL TECHNOLOGY FOR CENTURIES – at the turn of the 20th century, a Canadian farmer could feed 10 people; today, that number tops 120. The constant turning of the wheels of change over the past century and a quarter has moved agriculture from an industry highly dependent on human – and animal – power to one that harnesses the power of mechanization, electronics, data, and artificial intelligence, allowing farmers to improve yields, reduce inputs, and maximize labour-saving efficiencies to meet the challenge of feeding the world’s projected 8.7 billion people in 2050.

Highlighting the technologies that will advance the industry and help farmers get a competitive edge is the goal of Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show (COFS), an annual event that, in 2024, brought more than 37,000 people to its Woodstock, Ontario site to see what is new and innovative in the agriculture industry – and what can help make their farms more streamlined, efficient, and profitable.

The show, says Rob O’Connor, business development lead and show director, is where “… farmers come every year to meet friends and neighbours, look at hundreds of products in one place, and see how farm and livestock equipment works in real situations.”

THE NEXT ‘BIG THING’

Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show, supported by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness, hosts an annual Innovations Program to feature the latest ideas and products in farming and showcase innovative solutions for Canadian farmers. The Innovations Program recognizes companies and start-ups for creative solutions in five categories: agronomics, business solutions, environmental sustainability, equipment, and livestock.

Jeremy Matuszewksi, president of Thunderstruck Ag Equipment in Manitoba, winner in the 2024 agronomics category, says innovation is at the heart of everything they do in his company.

Matuszewksi – whose background is in the oil and gas industry – says that agriculture wasn’t even really on his radar when he started out as an entrepreneur. But he quickly saw how much innovation was coming out of the industry – often initiated by farmers themselves – and saw how he could help bring those innovations to market.

“My first product was in oil and gas, and it was invented by a farmer,” he says. “It turns out that farmers are really innovative and brilliant. Farmer ingenuity is something that a lot of people don’t even understand how powerful it is.”

The Thunderstruck product line includes a wide variety of products, including closing wheels, row cleaners, skid steer and loader attachments, and fertilizer and grain handling solutions. The company’s Innovations Program award-winning product is its TNT Cover Plates.

Working with an Australian Farmer, Robert Ruwoldt, Thunderstruck aimed to fine-tune the efficiency of concaves used in combines. Combine concaves work together with the rotor to thresh and separate the crops automatically.

The challenge, says Matuszewksi, is that “as that rotor spins right, it’ll typically overload one side of the combine separating area or the other because some rotors spin one way, some rotors spin the other way, but they all have the problem of overloading one side or the other.”

Thunderstruck’s innovation creates a funnel to control how that material is unloaded through that concave section into the separating area. “What we’re able to do is completely change the settings of that combine just by controlling how we drop the material into that separating area.”

Matuszewksi says that Thunderstruck Ag continues to advance innovations that help farmers – and they appreciate the support from Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show’s Innovations Program to help get their products out in front of farmers.

“One of the really unique things about being recognized for innovation is farmers are always looking for, you know, something that can help them,” he says. “One of the unique things about the award out of Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show is the judges were farmers. Having [farmers] recognize our product is awesome.”

Find out more about Thunderstruck Ag’s products at www. thunderstruckag.com.

ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY INNOVATION

To support farmers’ adoption of sustainable on-farm practices, the Innovations Program highlights companies working towards finding solutions that will help farmers achieve environmental sustainability on their farms. The 2024 winner of this category was LEMKEN Canada Inc.’s Solitair DT Seedbed Prepping Seeder.

The seeder, used to plant small grains and cereals, incorporates shallow tillage to get rid of ruts, mechanically kill any weeds that had sprouted before seeding, or bury trash, says Ivor Bernatsky, LEMKEN Canada’s marketing specialist. The tilled area then gets tamped down with a set of packer wheels or roller wheels that just firm everything back down again before the seeding component goes through.

Bernatsky says that preparing the seedbed at the time of planting – rather than weeks or months earlier with tillage or spraying off weeds — means that there is less opportunity for soil erosion and nutrient loss; along with eliminating a pass over the field lined up with the Innovations Program environmental sustainability category.

“Typically, that’s happening in two passes, and what we’ve done is designed it so we can do everything in one pass,” he says. “If you’re doing two tasks in the same pass, there should be a significant decrease in greenhouse gas emissions.”

“It’s an environmental savings,” he says, “but it’s a cost savings for sure. In addition to that, there certainly is the labour savings.”

It can also save on wear and tear on machines.

More information about LEMKEN’s products and services can be found at www.lemken.com.

FARMER’S CHOICE

CATTLEytics Inc. “Moo To Do Farm Task Management System” was the winner in the category of Business Solutions, G.C. Duke Equipment Ltd.’s Altoz Switch won in the category of Equipment, and rounding out the categories, BioFerScience Inc.’s ProFlora Cattle Energy-Balance Capsule won in the category of Livestock. The winners in each category were then put forward for the “Farmer’s Choice Award.” In the week following Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show, farmers voted for their favourite, with CATTLElytics taking home the award. •