Can machine-grown lettuce help cut Canada's reliance on U.S. greens? This farmer is betting on it

As Canada's reliance connected U.S. nutrient hits the spotlight, 1 Ontario farmer has a pitch: locally grown, year-round produce, grown by artificial quality and automation. 

In a sprawling two-hectare greenhouse, tucked wrong a woody reddish barn successful King City, Ont., an animated Jay Willmot, husbandman and entrepreneur, shared his vision. 

"From sowing and seeding, each the mode done to harvest and packing, nary 1 touches this crop," helium said successful beforehand of rows and rows of lettuce shoots. 

Instead, multimillion-dollar AI and machinery does the work; the whirring and clicking of conveyor belts, hooks and levers, fills the abstraction that was erstwhile portion of his family's equine farm. 

Willmot built his business, Haven Greens, to tackle the Canadian wintertime and a laundry database of obstacles that farmers look — from precocious labour costs to unpredictable weather. He's not alone; national and provincial governments person offered incentives to encourage automation. 

Some experts bash impulse caution though — saying wide adoption could person unintended consequences.

Lettuce adjacent to home

Even without AI, a traditional greenhouse, oregon a vertical farm, would person addressed the contented of year-round growth. It's a way galore are choosing to take; Canadian greenhouse lettuce accumulation unsocial has quadrupled implicit the past decade, according to Statistics Canada.

Willmot said automation and artificial intelligence allows him to maximize the magnitude of lettuce helium tin grow, portion cutting labour costs, typically a greenhouse grower's biggest operating expense.

The institution besides uses star power, rainwater and different "energy-efficient systems" to support costs down, helium said. And helium says the AI cuts retired a batch of the discarded that comes with guesswork. 

WATCH | See however this Ontario workplace produces hands-off greens:

"We person sensors that measurement temperature, airy intensity, humidity levels, and unit levels. Everything wrong this greenhouse is automated by that cardinal machine to execute optimal maturation conditions." helium added. 

The institution says the greenhouse produces much than 4,000 kilograms of lettuce per day. It's being sold done the Ontario nutrient terminal and straight to a fig of autarkic market stores. 

For Willmot, the extremity is simply a reliable merchandise that doesn't request to question crossed a continent to deed store shelves.  

"I was sick and bushed of old, slimy, smelly lettuce," helium said. When California, wherever most of Ontario's lettuce comes from, was deed by drought and illness successful 2022, lettuce prices deed a grounds high. 

"We request this each crossed the state truthful that we tin physique these section nutrient systems that person inherent nutrient sovereignty wrong them, that combat nutrient insecurity, that tin provender our section communities," helium argued. 

Even with the "tens of millions of dollars" successful start-up costs for the customized machinery and AI tech, Willmot calculates helium tin crook a nett connected this model, portion keeping the retail terms "competitive." 

Less reliance connected workplace labour

It's a concern lawsuit provincial and national governments are counting on. 

Even earlier commercialized tensions pushed Canada's dependence connected U.S. nutrient backmost into the spotlight, determination was a push to incentivize cultivation technology, to marque Canada much self-sufficient. 

In Ontario, for example, the authorities dished retired $547,720 successful 2021 to Great Lakes Greenhouses Inc, an cognition successful the bosom of Leamington, Ont. — dubbed North America's greenhouse superior for having the highest density of greenhouses connected the continent. The currency was to assistance the institution aviator an artificial quality strategy that would "allow greenhouse operators to remotely turn cucumbers and eggplant crops, reducing in-person contact," a provincial property merchandise reads.

B.C. besides has an On-Farm Technology Adoption Program, offering cost-sharing backing for labour-saving tech similar autonomous weeders, harvesters and sorters.

The state is heavy reliant connected impermanent overseas workers for workplace labour. Nearly fractional of the radical moving successful Canada's agriculture assemblage were employed connected a seasonal ground successful 2022, according to Statistics Canada. It is simply a spread that Willmot believes automation tin fill. 

But Canada's Research Chair successful Science and Society, Kelly Bronson says, the interaction connected migrant workers request to beryllium considered carefully.

"There's each sorts of ethical issues presented by that labour proviso solution successful that  these workers thin to beryllium precise precariously paid, precariously employed successful presumption of having nary ineligible infrastructure to enactment them," said Bronson, who has done probe consulting migrant farmers. 

"Many of them truly beryllium connected this income. We person to deliberation astir the consequences of displacing already the astir marginalized actors."

Willmot, however, believes Canada's reliance connected overseas workers is portion of the problem.

"For us, we truly similar supporting radical that are here," helium said. "I'll instrumentality giving section radical that unrecorded successful our ain backyard good-paying jobs 10 retired 10 times." The institution says it has hired 35 full-time staff. 

A telephone for a person look

Bronson, who has specifically studied the maturation and interaction of cultivation technology, acknowledges the excitement astir nutrient sovereignty amidst a "geopolitical tariff warfare."

But she urges caution — adjacent with the company's star PV's, rainwater usage, recaptured emissions, and wider net-zero promise.

"If you deliberation astir the vigor costs of sustaining an indoor farming environment, they're beauteous huge. And adjacent if you instrumentality a fuller presumption of AI, we cognize present the biology costs successful presumption of information storage, the vigor costs, the interaction connected clime successful presumption of data, retention facilities."

She calls for detailed, autarkic probe into the usage and interaction of the automation and AI exemplary successful Canada's nutrient systems, to trial the claims its proponents make. 

Cambridge University researchers person besides warned astir imaginable risks from accelerated deployment of AI successful agriculture, successful a 2022 Nature Machine Intelligence paper, including accidental nonaccomplishment and unintended consequences.

"I deliberation it is the future," said Rozita Dara, manager of the Artificial Intelligence for Food inaugural astatine the University of Guelph. But she excessively urges the sector, and governments, to deliberation astir who tin payment from this often costly, technology.

"We person to support smaller businesses successful caput due to the fact that we privation them to run and thrive successful this situation." 

Back successful King City, Willmot is confident in his vision. The third-generation farmer, and lawyer, is keenly alert that Canada's farmers are aging out, and the caller procreation isn't keen to instrumentality up the mantle. By 2033, 40 per cent of Canadian workplace operators are expected to retire, and Statistics Canada numbers find that 66 per cent don't person a succession plan. 

We privation "to amusement young radical there's breathtaking worldly happening successful agriculture. And we request much radical to travel successful and turn nutrient for Canada," helium pitched.