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🇨🇦🍁🧑🔎 Government Of Canada Announces Support for Innovative Solutions to Address Labour Challenges in The Agriculture and Agri-Food Sector 🌾🐄🚜

Friday, 19 April 2024 04:29.PM

Élisabeth Brière, Member of Parliament for Sherbrooke and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development and to the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health, on behalf of the Honourable Lawrence MacAulay, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, announced the five projects that will receive up to $1 million in funding each under Phase 2 of the Innovative Solutions Canada (ISC) program – Challenge Stream. The announcement was made at Exonetik Inc., one of the Phase 2 winners.

The five projects, approved for funding by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, will target the Canadian meat processing industry and the Canadian controlled environment agriculture industry with the goal of advancing automation and robotic technologies. These companies have developed ideas to address challenges such as work productivity, labour shortages, and operational efficiency.

Under the Canadian Meat Processing Technology Development Challenge, projects include:

• Exonetik Inc. - Developing a low-cost, collaborative robot to help automate tasks
• E.O.I Technologies Inc. - Developing sensors to collect data on fast moving conveyor systems

Under the Enhancing Automation in Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) Farming Challenge, projects include:

• Exonetik Inc. – Developing a robotic arm to work alongside humans to harvest fruits and vegetables
• Mycionics Inc. – Developing a robotic mushroom harvester, packer and harvester lift
• Kinova Inc. – Developing a robotic arm to pick, harvest and de-leaf cucumbers and strawberries

"These cutting-edge solutions will help the sector overcome some of the challenges it faces, leading to a more prosperous and competitive future for Canadian agriculture. Congratulations to all of the winners and thank you for your great work."
- The Honourable Lawrence MacAulay, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food

Quick Facts

• Meat processing plants rely heavily on manual labour, and are challenging environments, cold with high humidity levels to manage effectively. Technical innovation provides opportunities to improve the operational efficiency and safety of workers in meat processing facilities where people and machines often interact.
• Controlled Environmental Agriculture (CEA) production is labour intensive, requiring workers for a range of critical production tasks including propagation, planting, movement and management of plants, cleaning, harvesting, pest management, pruning, sorting and packaging. The greenhouse industry is by far the largest and fastest growing segment of indoor farming.

SOURCE: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

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