continued on page 8 ONTARIO GRAIN FARMER COVER STORY A growing community of farmers, researchers, facilitators, and innovators are partnering to validate new agricultural technologies on farms across the country. The intention – to eliminate the need for individual producers to prove agricultural technologies work, thereby making adoption easier for all. Many representatives of this growing community met near Bothwell at Haggerty Creek Ltd., On August 18, for a day of in-field demonstrations of different agricultural technologies. Many of those on display were involved in the Agriculture Innovation, Validation and Adoption (AIVA) network – an initiative created by Farm Credit Canada, EMILI Innovation Farms, and Wabash Heartland Innovation Network. Speaking at the field event, Carl Havixbeck, farmer network success manager for AIVA, says the organization’s mandate is rooted in “validation, adoption, and co-learning.” In practice, validation means getting technologies market ready, so farmers can adopt with confidence that the technology in question works as described in their unique field conditions. Co-learning refers to the organization’s focus on making all findings public, and holding events to demonstrate the effectiveness of the technologies being assessed. At the time of the Haggerty Creek field event, 133 technologies from companies around the world are in the AIVA assessment queue. The network’s core effort, says Havixbeck, is to figure out “what’s the tech that’s going to help you be better at what you do?” and argues the necessity of doing so is growing as the development of artificial intelligence means the ag-tech landscape is going to get “very noisy very quickly.” One of the farmers working with AIVA is Chuck Baresich, of Haggerty Creek Ltd. and Haggerty Creek AgRobotics. Long interested in the potential of agricultural robotics and other technologies, Baresich has many takeaways for tech developers. One of those is “please no more machine screws,” and to “use real bolts,” the context of the statement being tech developers must understand how tough field conditions are on hardware. “What farmers want to see is they don’t want to see breakdowns. They don’t want to see something that has a bad wiring connection or has a battery that only lasts an hour. It has to work in field conditions.” He also encouraged developers to really consider if they have a solution looking for a problem, and whether a farmer will actually “write a cheque.” “I don’t want to discourage inventors and entrepreneurs. When I say ‘you have a solution looking for a problem,’ I don’t mean that in a demeaning way. What I mean is we need to flesh that out together as a group,” says Baresich. “It takes time. The unfortunate thing with agriculture is it takes more time than other industries.” Photos: Matt McIntosh
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