The technology, called EpiHerd, is now being piloted in Canada after a Manitoba dairy farmer reached out to Antler Bio seeking solutions for his crossbred herd — animals that often fall outside the scope of traditional genomic testing programs.

WHY IT MATTERS: Tools that help farmers pinpoint ways they can increase productivity while reducing health issues could offer new options for improving farm profitability.

Antler Bio, founded in 2020, uses blood testing and advanced gene expression analysis to identify environmental and management factors, including stressors and nutritional deficiencies that could be affecting herd health and performance.

While conventional genomic tools examine the genes an animal carries, EpiHerd focuses on epigenetics, which looks at how active those genes are and how they respond to the animal’s environment.

“We measure about 27,000 individual genes, not just whether they’re present, but how active they are,” says Andrew Lessey, chief operating officer for Antler Bio.

“That allows us to see what signals the animal’s biology is giving us about what’s holding it back or where it may be deficient.”

The company collects blood samples from about 10 per cent of a herd. They’re analyzed alongside a farm’s production and health data, and, using artificial intelligence and machine learning, EpiHerd develops practical recommendations for farmers to implement.

Dairy demand offered opportunity

Antler Bio traces its roots to the horse racing industry, notes Lessey, but co-founders Maria Jensen and Nathalie Conte soon realized the larger opportunity was in livestock, where improvements in efficiency and animal welfare could have broader impact.

Within 18 months of launch, the company secured initial funding support and completed a proof-of-concept study identifying key biological markers in dairy cattle linked to health and productivity.

Today, Antler Bio works with more than 130 dairy farms across five countries, with strong adoption in Finland and growing interest in the U.K. and Scandinavia.

Early results suggest the company’s insights can translate into measurable improvements on farm, according to Lessey.

In one dairy farm example he cites, gene expression analysis revealed several management issues, including selenium and vitamin D imbalances, dehydration signals and underlying metabolic stress within the herd.

“The farmer made changes around improving selenium and vitamin D, changed feed sources to improve metabolic stress and added more water facilities — changes that were relatively straight-forward,” Lessey says.

“The outcome was a significant uplift in milk yield that translated into an additional €30,000 (about $47,000 CDN) per year in profit on 100 head.”

The improvements also extended to animal health. Mastitis dropped by 95 per cent and ketosis and milk fever disappeared, reducing veterinary costs and production losses.

Canadian early-adopters wanted

The technology itself is not entirely new. Similar gene expression testing has been widely used in human medicine, particularly in advanced cancer diagnostics. Antler Bio’s innovation lies in adapting the approach for livestock and integrating it with farm management data.

It was through Innovate U.K.’s Global Business Innovation Program that Antler Bio landed a spot in a recent cohort of the Cultivator, powered by Conexus, incubator in Saskatchewan and started to make connections to Canadian agriculture — including with the Manitoba dairy farm where they’re starting their first project in North America.

Although a rapid expansion into Canada isn’t in the immediate plans, Lessey says they hope to recruit a small number of early-adopter farms to build local data and validate the technology under Canadian conditions. Canadian dairy farmers interested in participating in pilot programs are encouraged to contact the company directly.

Long term, Antler Bio hopes its platform will help dairy farmers worldwide improve herd health, profitability and environmental performance.

“If farmers can produce the same amount of milk with fewer animals and the same inputs, that’s good for the farm business and it also reduces the environmental footprint,” Lessey says.

Although currently focused on dairy, the platform could also be adapted for other livestock species or even companion animals in the future.

The post Epigenetics startup brings new insights to dairy herd performance appeared first on Farmtario.

Now, new research from Chonnam National University in South Korea is shedding light on what’s happening inside plants during those sudden temperature drops — and how we might help crops cope better.

The research team, led by Professor Jungmook Kim, has uncovered a rapid molecular “switch” that helps plants survive freezing conditions by rewiring how their roots grow.

WHY IT MATTERS: Frost damage hits yield potential early, which can be an expensive hit on the bottom line. It’s a growing threat as extreme weather swings become more frequent.

For years, scientists have known that cold stress reduces plant growth. What wasn’t clear is how quickly plants sense the cold and what internal systems they activate to survive it. Understanding how plants respond at the molecular level to freezing temperatures could help researchers develop varieties that recover faster — or avoid damage in the first place.

Kim and his team found that cold temperatures don’t just put growth on pause. Instead, they trigger a fast breakdown of specific regulatory proteins known as Aux/IAA repressors.

Under normal conditions, these repressors act like brakes, preventing certain growth genes from turning on. But when temperatures drop, those repressors rapidly break down, releasing two key regulators that then activate a “master gene” called CRF3.

According to Kim, cold stress doesn’t simply slow plant growth, it actively rewires hormone signaling to adapt root development. The study showed that once CRF3 is activated, it reshapes root architecture.

In simple terms, the plant switches gears and instead of following its usual growth pattern, it reorganizes root development to better survive cold soil conditions. It’s a fast, coordinated reaction rather than a slow decline, which is why frost damage is visible almost immediately.

The work was done using tobacco plants as well as a small member of the mustard family called Arabidopsis thaliana, which is popular with plant scientists because of its short life cycle and prolific seed production. Both species are commonly used in plant science because their genetics are well understood, and Arabidopsis was the first-ever sequenced plant genome.

But according to Kim, the mechanism is likely broader. That’s because the proteins in question are found in all known land plants, including major, economically important crops like corn, soybeans, wheat and canola.

Fields for real

The next step for Kim’s team is to confirm how the switch behaves under real field conditions before they can look at implementable on-farm applications. If it pans out, it could mean new varieties capable of maintaining stable root growth in cold soils or better nutrient absorption and less fertilizer use.

The research also suggests the possibility of developing synthetic molecules or biostimulants that could protect seedlings during extreme cold spells, something that could interest both farmers and input suppliers.

According to the Weather Network, “spring in reverse” events, where cold arctic air hits after a warming trend, have been a reasonably frequent occurrence in southern Ontario in recent years.

In 2020, there was more snow in May than April, for example, and in 2021, May tied March for snowfall levels.

Longer-term, this discovery could even become a target for precision breeding or gene-editing approaches such as CRISPR. Rather than simply selecting for general cold tolerance, breeders could focus specifically on strengthening this molecular switch to improve how roots respond at the moment cold stress hits.

That could support earlier planting windows, particularly in northern areas where sub-zero temperatures can often last well into May, as well as lower replant risk and improve crop stability and even food security in marginal climates or more remote regions.

The post Scientists uncover plant ‘cold switch’ that could reduce costly spring frost losses appeared first on Farmtario.

Leduc is the founder of Mon Système Fourrager (My Forage System), a digital decision-support platform built specifically for forage-based livestock operations. He’s currently one of 10 semi-finalists in Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Agricultural Methane Reduction Challenge.

WHY IT MATTERS: There is currently little to no good quality field-level data Canadian farmers need to identify problem areas, calculate production costs or assess impacts of best management practices for forage crops.

Finalists will be selected this spring, with up to two winners to be announced in 2028, who will each receive up to $1 million to scale their solutions.

Leduc, a sheep and beef farmer with a PhD in animal science from Université Laval who completed post-graduate work with McGill and Lactanet, kept running into the same issue: farmers are being encouraged to adopt best management practices for forages, but few had the data needed to know whether those changes actually worked.

“Forage systems are long-term systems,” he said.

“If you make a mistake in seeding, you might not see the impact for a long time. If you choose the wrong bull, it’s two years before you fully understand the outcome.”

That makes it harder to connect management decisions to results — and even harder to justify change. The core problem, Leduc said, is data.

“In forage systems, data is not collected in a standardized way. Producers want answers right away. But to get analytics, you need data — and in forage, that takes time,” he said, adding this gap limits progress not only on productivity, but also on greenhouse gas reductions.

Enter Mon Système Fourrager, an integrated platform that connects data “from soil to animal,” letting users log and import field management data, harvest information, forage and silage analyses, and observations such as winter survival or stand density.

Leduc also acquired and is modernizing EweManage, a sheep and goat management software program, and is developing Agri-Doc, a module for agronomists to easily log information during farm visits, generate reports required for provincial support programs and transcribe voice notes directly into structured records. The goal is to make data capture faster and less burdensome.

“Data collection is like accounting,” said Leduc.

“Rationally, it’s good. Emotionally, it’s boring.”

He is also experimenting with mobile chatbot interfaces that will allow producers to ask questions and receive insights based on their own Excel-based records.

According to Leduc, helping producers measure yields, track forage analyses and link feed quality to animal performance will support more precise feeding strategies that can improve digestibility, reduce methane intensity and increase overall farm efficiency.

Leduc emphasized that practices that reduce emissions often also improve profitability — but only if producers can see and measure the impact.

“You need to recognize you have a problem, know the possible solutions, evaluate them and then monitor the results,” he said.

“Without data, you can’t do that.”

Rather than marketing directly to individual producers one by one, Leduc is focusing on partnerships with forage labs and agronomists who already need to collect and interpret data. If advisers adopt the platform, producers are more likely to follow.

He currently has a few hundred users of his technologies, mostly in Quebec, where he works closely with a network of producers, agronomists, agricultural organizations like the Canadian Forage and Grassland Association, and forage labs.

Next milestones include launching the agronomists’ tool and hopefully advancing to the final round of the methane challenge, which would provide an additional grant of up to $500,000 to support further development and testing of his system. He’s also received funding from Investissement Quebec.

His longer-term vision is straightforward: keep the business viable and help producers become more profitable while reducing their environmental footprint. The forage sector’s future depends on closing the data gap, he says.

“The answer lies in accessing and leveraging the data producers already collect, but don’t use fully,” he said.

The post Closing the forage data gap: innovation aims to cut methane and boost margins appeared first on Farmtario.

Why it matters

Fertilizer, seed and crop protection products can make or break margins, especially in years when commodity prices are tight and volatility is high.

“You need good information to make better deals, which leads to better terms, healthier businesses and less risk,” said Keith Busch, ClearCost founder and its CEO.

Busch grew up in Niagara Region and now lives in rural Saskatchewan where he sees firsthand how farm profitability connects to rural economic health.

“When you add that all up, it derisks farming and as a result, derisks rural communities. I live in one and I want them to be healthy economically and families successful, so I’m on a mission to provide this market the tool it needs to derisk farm business,” he added.

Billed as order tracking like an Uber to your bin yard, ClearCost started with fertilizer because that’s where the problem was most obvious, and it’s one input that affects virtually every farm and every ag retail outlet.

The goal isn’t to disrupt existing relationships, according to Busch.

“The issue is that the market lacks good information, which forces everyone to carry more risk than they should,” he said.

“We built this tool for both farms and dealers to punch above their weight class.”

ClearCost connects buyers and sellers in real time, helping move product — which now includes seed and generic crop protection products — more efficiently through the system. Larger farms can even co-ordinate collective purchases, while retailers can source supply more competitively and pass savings along.

For retailers and suppliers, the platform lowers transaction costs and opens access to customers they might not otherwise reach. It also gives sellers clearer insight into demand.

“Agriculture is one of the last industries without real price transparency,” said Busch.

“Younger farmers understand transparency, and the market is demanding it.”

For farmers, ClearCost provides price discovery, digital contracting, escrow-based trust payments and trackable delivery — all through a mobile app.

To get started, farmers can download the free app from the App Store or Google Play, and then register their business, verify signing authority and pin the location of their storage yards. ClearCost’s logistics software then calculates pricing based on geography and freight.

The platform is already live with paying customers in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, and after a year of user feedback, the team is heading back into engineering mode for several months to improve scalability and performance.

Interest from across Canada, especially Ontario, was a surprise, Busch said.

“I built this in a town of 1,000 people in Saskatchewan,” he added.

“I didn’t expect people across the country to care. But this is a global problem for farms everywhere.”

Farmers outside of the Prairies can already download and register on the app, with full functionality expected in the coming weeks as ClearCost works on rolling out a nation-wide expansion.

ClearCost earns revenue by routing payments through its licensed system, and funds held in escrow earn interest, which ClearCost retains. The company is also preparing to launch premium data subscriptions and exploring low-rate financing options tied directly to input purchases and on-farm storage investments.

The company was a participant in the Saskatchewan-based Cultivator AGTECH ACCELERATOR, and its seed round raised $1.6 million from 18 local Saskatchewan farms when ClearCost was nothing more than an idea.

Next milestones include hiring a sales director, completing a Series A financing round and growing to 5,000 registered farms and 1,000 active traders by year-end.

“If we pull it all off this year, we will have a fully liquid input market with transparency in the palm of your hand — that’s our vision. We want the market to work for everybody that uses it,” he said.

The post Canadian startup looks to lower farm input risk through price transparency appeared first on Farmtario.

That question is no longer science fiction. It’s at the heart of cellular agriculture, a growing field that includes precision fermentation and cultivated meat that is being researched in many countries around the world.

WHY IT MATTERS: Cellular agriculture is seen by some as a solution to feeding the global population while reducing reliance on livestock production and other resources.

This includes Norway, a Scandinavian country strongly focused on sustainability and reducing resource use, where its largest food research institute, NOFIMA, is doing some of the most advanced work in the world in this field.

NOFIMA focuses on applied research that works closely with the agriculture and agri-food industry to “create value,” said Laura Garcia Calvo, a research scientist in microbiology at the institute.

“At the end of the day, the big question is how we are going to make enough food for 2050,” Calvo said, adding that the solutions involve using new technologies, just like agriculture once evolved from horses to tractors.

Cellular agriculture covers two main approaches, each designed to fill a different gap in the food system: precision fermentation and cultured meat.

Factories of fungi

Precision fermentation uses microorganisms such as yeast, fungi, or bacteria as tiny factories to produce very specific food ingredients. Scientists add a biological recipe into the microorganism so it produces proteins, fats, or other compounds, a process that is then refined before scale-up.

Ingredients that can be produced this way include dairy proteins such as whey and casein, egg proteins such as ovalbumin, collagen, fats, sweeteners, vitamins and even colourants.

Perfect Day is a company already selling milk proteins — essentially milk without the cow — in the United States. Together with Remilk from Israel, Perfect Day is now seeking regulatory approval in Europe.

NOFIMA’s work in the field includes developing new microbial strains, advanced bioprocess monitoring, and turning waste streams into valuable inputs — for example, converting dairy byproducts or leftover sugars from plant protein processing into new ingredients.

“This is very much part of the circular economy,” Garcia Calvo said.

Muscle media

Cultivated meat, sometimes called cultured meat, takes a different approach.

Instead of making individual ingredients, scientists grow actual animal muscle cells outside the animal — ultimately to make structured products like steak or unstructured meat like hamburger or chicken nuggets.

The science is complex, according to senior NOFIMA scientist Mona Pedersen.

Muscle cells require highly specific growth media, which are nutrients that tell the cells how to grow and specialize. Most existing media were designed for pharmaceutical use, not food, and many rely on animal-derived serum that is expensive and not suitable for large-scale food production.

“Upscaling is one of the biggest challenges,” Pedersen said. “We need to upscale a lot if this is going to reach a significant percent of the population.”

Denial or acceptance

Regulation and consumer acceptance are equally important hurdles. Singapore became the first country to approve cultivated meat for commercial sale in 2020. The U.S. followed in 2023, approving cultivated chicken from UPSIDE Foods and GOOD Meat.

Europe is still developing its regulatory framework, and European Union member Italy has banned cultivated animal-cell foods altogether.

Research suggests European consumers place high trust in regulatory approval, noted Pedersen, making clear rules critical to adoption.

“We need to develop consumer acceptance in parallel with the technology,” she said.

Advocates argue cellular agriculture could reduce land and water use, lower greenhouse gas emissions, improve food safety, and strengthen food security in regions with poor soils or limited growing conditions. A 2021 report by Ontario Genomics estimated the emerging sector could ultimately represent a $12.5-billion annual opportunity for Canada.

NOFIMA researchers see these technologies not as eliminating agriculture but rather about adding new tools to the system that could help make food production more resilient, efficient and future-ready.

Still, big questions remain and cultivated meat in particular has been struggling to gain traction and establish profitability.

Will these products replace traditional farming or simply supplement it? Who owns the technology? Where will the energy, water, and feedstocks for microorganisms come from? And will consumers choose to eat food grown this way?

The post How microbiologists are making protein without the farm appeared first on Farmtario.

WHY IT MATTERS: While the technologies and settings vary widely, farmers globally are grappling with remarkably similar challenges, and innovation is a shared language for solving them.

Different climates, different regulations, different farm sizes, different pressures — what could a Norwegian livestock producer, a Kenyan smallholder, or an ag-tech startup halfway around the world really have in common with Ontario farmers?

Quite a lot, it turns out.

At first glance, the contrasts are obvious. Farm size and scale vary dramatically. Climate ranges from Nordic cold to tropical Kenyan heat.

Cropping systems, livestock species, regulatory environments, and access to capital can look nothing alike.

But scratch beneath the surface and the same pressures appear again and again.

Farmers everywhere are trying to produce more efficiently with fewer inputs; manage rising costs and tighter margins; adapt to climate variability and environmental expectations; protect soil, water, and animal health; reduce labour demands; and access timely, practical knowledge that will let them do all those things.

Technology

One of the strongest themes running through global innovation stories this year has been that successful ideas start with real-world problems, and not technology for technology’s sake.

Virtual fencing, for example, isn’t about GPS collars and apps. It’s about grazing land that’s difficult, expensive, or impractical to fence.

In Norway and Canada alike, farmers are using it to better manage animals, protect sensitive landscapes, and reduce labour while improving pasture use.

Similarly, insect-based feed systems aren’t driven by novelty. They’re responding to feed cost volatility, protein shortages, and sustainability concerns.

By turning organic waste into high-quality feed, farmers and innovators are addressing multiple pressures at once: cost, supply security, and environmental footprint.

Even the simplest innovations tell the same story. A low-cost sensor that helps farmers keep equipment level while working fields, or a biological input that supports gut or soil health exists because someone saw a small but persistent inefficiency — and solved it.

The lesson for Canada’s agri-food innovation scene is clear: Innovation gains traction when it fits seamlessly into existing farm systems and solves problem farmers already feel every day.

Innovation and sustainability

Another common thread is how sustainability shows up not as a buzzword, but as a practical consideration woven into on-farm decision-making.

Across borders, farmers are showing that sustainability and profitability aren’t opposing goals.

Increasingly, they’re two sides of the same coin.

Livestock genetics programs in countries such as Norway focus on efficiency, animal health, and reduced environmental impact, recognizing that long-term productivity depends on animals that perform well under real-world conditions.

Biological crop protection and beneficial insects offer growers alternatives that reduce reliance on chemical inputs while still delivering results in the field.

Soil health tools that improve carbon capture or nutrient cycling are being adopted not just for environmental reasons, but because healthier soil is more productive, more resilient, and better able to handle extreme weather.

Perhaps the most unifying theme, whether here at home or around the world, is the importance of access — to information, to tools, and to support networks.

Innovation doesn’t always have to be expensive or complex to be transformative. Instead, what matters is that it reaches farmers in a usable form, respects local context, and delivers value quickly.

As we reflect on a year of global innovation stories, one message stands out: while farms may look different around the world, farmers themselves are remarkably alike.

They are practical problem-solvers who value tools that work. They balance tradition with change and care deeply about the land, their livestock, and the future of their farms. And they are constantly adapting, often with creativity and resilience that goes unnoticed outside the farm gate.

Innovation, in this sense, isn’t just about technology. It’s about shared challenges, shared thinking, and shared determination to keep farming viable for the next generation.

These stories remind us that Ontario farmers are part of a much larger global community, one that, despite its differences, is united by common goals and a common drive to find better ways forward.

The post Different places, shared challenges appeared first on Farmtario.

Working with Italian strawberry breeding consortium CIV (Consorzio Italiano Vivaisti), artificial intelligence powered crop-breeding company Heritable Agriculture, and Vineland Research and Innovation Centre, Red Sun is developing strawberry varieties bred specifically for indoor growing environments.

The project is a first-of-its-kind effort in North America and representatives from eight retail chains, including four from Canada, recently had their first look at the more than 110 breeding lines currently in development.

Paul J. Mastronardi, Red Sun’s business development and account manager, says field strawberries are almost entirely June-bearing, producing fruit in one major flush.

Greenhouse operations, however, need ever-bearing varieties that deliver consistent and regular production.

Flavour is another perennial challenge: consumers want sweet, aromatic berries, not firm-but-bland fruit bred to withstand long-distance trucking.

“We are already working with North America’s largest retailers to bring these innovations to their customers,” says Mastronardi.

“We are looking to increase yield and flavour and no one is working on developing a greenhouse strawberry. Others are trying to put current plant genetic material into a greenhouse, but the yields aren’t there.”

To build those genetics, Red Sun Farms has assembled an unusual partnership.

Mastronardi first connected with Heritable Agriculture, a company born at X, Alphabet’s moonshot factory, and founded by computational and molecular biologists with deep expertise in plant genetics.

Heritable’s platform uses artificial intelligence-driven predictive breeding models to determine exactly which genetic markers deliver key traits, dramatically reducing the time and uncertainty of traditional breeding.

“Breeding is usually a guessing game,” Mastronardi says.

“Heritable has developed an algorithm model to tell you what markers you need for greenhouse performance. It’s faster, more accurate, and it transforms how we think about strawberry improvement.”

Through Heritable, Mastronardi was introduced to Italian strawberry genetics leader CIV, who has brought germplasm and decades of breeding expertise to the project.

Together, the partners are now working on more than 110 breeding lines, all grown under controlled conditions at Vineland. Vineland’s team is responsible for hands-on monitoring — measuring berry size, width, length, plant architecture, and overall performance — providing the data needed to fine-tune the AI models and guide selection.

A unique feature of the initiative is the involvement of North American retail partners, four of them Canadian, representing more than 8,000 stores across the continent.

According to Mastronardi, the conventional approach involves breeders and seed companies developing varieties they think are in demand and then taking those to a grower or distributor for trial.

If they like it, they approach retail partners.

“We’re bringing the retailers in from the beginning. With the time and money that developing new varieties takes, we want them to be part of what we are doing,” he says.

Recently, retailer teams joined the partners at Vineland for an exclusive first look at the early-stage breeding lines. Through guided sensory evaluations, they tasted sample groups of varieties, providing direct feedback on flavour, sweetness, texture, aroma, and visual appeal.

This real-time loop between breeders, growers, AI modellers and retailers is something Mastronardi sees as transformative.

The project represents a new era of produce development that no longer means having to choose between yield and flavour but is rather about developing what the market wants.

“We are effectively reverse engineering the perfect strawberry based on what consumers actually demand, ensuring that when these varieties hit the shelf, they are already proven winners,” he says.

As climate change increases pressure on outdoor production, particularly in California, which is the continent’s largest strawberry supplier, Mastronardi believes indoor-specific breeding will play a growing role in supply stability.

Selection is still underway, but the partners expect the first commercial greenhouse-specific varieties from the project to be in stores by 2029 at the latest.

The post The bid to create the first true greenhouse strawberry appeared first on Farmtario.

At her company, Harcourt Farm, millions of black soldier fly larvae transform waste from the city’s many produce market stands into high-protein animal feed and organic fertilizer, creating jobs, reducing emissions, and addressing food insecurity.

It’s an innovation story rooted in Kenya — but one with a strong Canadian connection.

Through support from the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), Wambui received business incubation, training, and access to technology that helped her turn her university thesis into a working enterprise.

ICIPE’s work is supported by Canada through the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), which funds programs to scale climate-smart agriculture and edible insect farming across Africa.

“Through ICIPE, I received training, free starter crates and mentorship to start my own insect farm,” Wambui said.

“They gave me the foundation I needed to build Harcourt Farm and connect with international partners.”

Her innovation journey began as an engineering student at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology. In her third year, she became fascinated by how black soldier flies (BSF) could convert organic waste into valuable resources.

“I heard people talking about the problem of market waste,” she said. “For me, that was a gap — nobody was doing anything about it.”

Her final-year thesis became the blueprint for a real business. In 2022, with guidance from an incubator program and her ICIPE mentors, she launched Harcourt Farm.

Support from business partners from the United Kingdom that she met through the incubator helped her secure 300 rearing crates, build a greenhouse, and expand to more than 2,000 active production units.

Today, the farm processes about 30 tonnes of organic waste each month, collected through a partnership with Kiambu County Government.

“We used to buy waste,” she says, “but now we get it free through local collection networks — and we employ three women from the community to manage it.”

Once processed and inoculated with beneficial bacteria, the waste becomes feed for BSF larvae. Within two weeks, the larvae are harvested, dried, and sold as protein meal for chicken and fish feed. The residue — called frass — is marketed as a natural fertilizer that improves soil health and crop yields.

“My joy is seeing beautiful eggs on a farmer’s tray and knowing that the feed came from what others considered waste,” she said.

Harcourt Farm produces about one tonne of dried BSF meal and six tonnes of fertilizer monthly. The farm sells to poultry and aquaculture producers, as well as feed mills, and even offers two-day-old larvae starter kits to help other farmers begin insect production.

The business now provides stable employment for several workers — mostly women — and contributes to climate mitigation by diverting organic waste from landfills and reducing methane emissions. She’s also completed the lengthy process of carbon credit certification, an effort she hopes will inspire other small-scale circular businesses in Africa.

Her biggest challenge today is keeping up with demand, and her goal now is to expand Harcourt Farm’s capacity, develop her own branded feed formulations, and capture at least three per cent of Kenya’s animal feed market.

“The largest feed miller in Kenya needs 40 tonnes of dried BSF meal a month. We can’t meet that yet — but it shows the potential of this market,” she says.

“Anywhere I go, I talk about insects. They’ve given me a purpose — and they can help feed the world.”

At just 24, she represents a new face of African agriculture — tech-savvy, sustainability-minded, and globally connected.

“When I started, people said I didn’t look like a farmer — because of my hair and my nails,” she said. “But innovation in agriculture isn’t about how you look — it’s about what you create.”

The post Insects, innovation, and a new feed frontier appeared first on Farmtario.

Two organizations are leading projects in Kenya that use digital tools to close the gap between research, extension and farmers.

The Artemis Project, an initiative of the Alliance of Biodiversity International and the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), is using smartphone-based AI to make research data collection easier, cheaper and faster and learn from smallholder farmers to help ensure research and agronomic advice meet their needs.

Traditional agricultural advice mostly flows one way from experts to farmers, and Dr. Stephen Mutuvi believes it’s time to flip that model.

“Farmers are researchers in their own right,” Mutuvi said.

“They experiment with compost mixtures, crop varieties and planting techniques every day. But that knowledge often stays in their heads or in their villages. We want to capture it, organize it, and make it useful to others.”

His team records farmers’ voices — often short audio messages shared through their phones — and runs through AI models that transcribe and interpret local languages. The result is a structured, searchable and shareable database of farmer insights that builds a network of peer-to-peer learning and generates advice that is relevant and grounded in real practice.

At the national level, Mutuvi noted this creates “adaptive, inclusive, and scalable” advisory systems that are continuously updated based on what farmers are actually experiencing in the field.

To ensure reliability, all information is cross-checked by human experts with existing peer-reviewed science. Data is anonymized before it’s shared publicly, and privacy and consent are built into every step.

Software engineer Abigail Wairimu Thuo is part of a team at not-for-profit organization iSDA focused on making sure farmers can get expert advice instantly without needing expensive apps or new technology.

They’ve developed the Virtual Agronomist that delivers tailored agronomic support directly through WhatsApp — so far to more than 250,000 farmers and counting.

Farmers share their location, crop type, and basic soil information such as pH and nutrient levels through WhatsApp, and the system uses a combination of AI and human expertise to generate specific fertilizer and management recommendations for their fields, along with reminders throughout the growing season.

Because not every farmer has access to a smartphone or speaks English, iSDA relies on a network of local “lead” farmers — trusted community members who can use WhatsApp and understand the recommendations — to act as intermediaries and help interpret and apply the advice.

The results have been striking, said Wairimu.

Since launching in February 2024, corn growers in Uganda using Virtual Agronomist have reported average yield increases of 66 per cent, and many Kenyan corn growers have seen yields double, for example.

So far, more than 350,000 farms have registered, exchanging 6.5 million messages in three languages across seven countries and 21 crops.

“We didn’t need to invent a new platform,” Wairimu said. “Farmers already use WhatsApp. The goal was to make it work for them in their language, at their literacy level, and with information that truly fits their fields.”

While Kenya’s smallholder farms differ from Canadian farm businesses, their challenge is similar: how to move research into practice and make technical information accessible, relevant, and timely.

Despite Canada’s advanced research capacity, many innovations still struggle to reach farmers efficiently, to adapt to local conditions, or achieve on-farm implementation.

The Kenyan experience suggests several takeaways: use tools farmers already trust, enable farmer-to-farmer learning, combine AI with human relationships, keep feedback loops alive between research and practice, and value farmers’ own observations as part of the data.

The post From WhatsApp to the world appeared first on Farmtario.

Why it matters: As “buy Canadian” sentiment and a desire to buy local continue to gain traction with Ontarians, shoppers are actively looking for ways to help them find products of all kinds grown, produced, or raised close to home.

“Farmers know how to sell by word of mouth,” said Pischel. “But they need to be findable online. They need websites, emails and a way for people to discover them.”

That simple observation led to Alt Grocery, a digital platform he built to help local producers and small food businesses be visible online with no coding skills or marketing budgets required.

His idea first gained traction in early 2024, when Pischel, who already had a small Reddit following, launched Alt Grocery as a place where Canadians could find independent grocers and local food suppliers instead of big chains.

Within a week, more than 200,000 people had visited his site.

“I didn’t want it to be political,” he said. “I’m not anti-corporate — I’m pro small business. I wanted to use tech for good.”

And the community stayed. Even before the trade war with the United States started, Ontarians wanted to know where to buy local food – and farmers wanted help reaching them, said Pischel.

Platforms like Local Line have made online sales easier for farms, helping producers manage inventory, orders and deliveries. But Alt Grocery takes a different angle: discovery and engagement.

Pischel describes his platform this way: “think of it as a mashup between Google Maps and Instagram.”

Farmers can post photos of their products, tag their farm stand or business, and appear on a map where consumers can explore nearby producers.

“It’s not just a business directory, it’s a social experience,” he explained. “If someone sees your photo of fresh corn or handmade jam, they can find you instantly through the mapping.”

The goal is to help farms get digital visibility without needing to build a website or manage e-commerce, thereby lowering the barrier to online marketing.

After bootstrapping the first version with artificial intelligence (he used AI to code it himself), Pischel is now developing a new mobile platform called Local XP. It will merge Alt Grocery’s map concept with a gamified social network that rewards users for engaging with small businesses.

“Everyone’s on their phones. People love earning points or badges — think PC Points, but for buying local,” he said. “Small businesses could run their own campaigns, like ‘visit three farm stands this weekend and earn a reward.’”

Farmers’ markets and food-sector non-profits are taking notice. He’s already had conversations with several Ontario markets interested in using the tool to promote their vendors in a way they haven’t been able to before.

So far, Alt Grocery has mapped more than 4,000 independent businesses and farm stands across Canada, mostly added through community crowdsourcing. Users can recommend farms or claim their listings — similar to how Google lets businesses manage their profiles.

As a single person managing the site, Pischel knew he couldn’t cover a country as big as Canada on his own, so he turned to his Reddit community for help identifying and recommending food businesses, from independent grocers to farm stands, for his site.

For the next step in his commercialization journey, Pischel is looking for a pilot partner or two, such as a farmer’s market or regional food organization, to help him scale the idea and test new features.

“I believe in building something that actually helps people,” he said. “Farmers work hard to feed us. The least we can do is make sure they’re easy to find.”

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