June 19, 2024 • 27 mins
We live in an age where technology is ever changing. Advancements in communication, transportation and health care seem to be seen and understood across this country, but what about new tech when it comes to food production? Olds College in Olds, Alberta specializes in testing new technologies that can be implemented on Canadian farms and ranches. Their ‘Smart Farm’ works with companies to develop solutions for tomorrow’s problems, while educating students in hands-on learning. David Fullerton, the Director of Applied Research at Olds College, highlights how this partnership between tech companies, Olds College and farmers/ranchers works.
Host:
Clinton Monchuk grew up on a mixed dairy, beef and grain family farm outside of Lanigan, Saskatchewan. He received his Bachelor’s of Science in Agriculture majoring in Agricultural Economics from the University of Saskatchewan and Masters of Business Administration in Agriculture from the University of Guelph. Clinton has enjoyed numerous roles across Canada, the United States and Mexico as a researcher, educator, manager, economist and director of trade policy.
In 2016, Clinton accepted the role of Executive Director with Farm & Food Care Saskatchewan to promote farming and ranching to consumers. Clinton understands the value of increasing public trust in agriculture and actively promotes engagement between the agriculture industry and consumers.
Clinton, Laura and their children Jackson and Katelyn, are active partners on their family grain and layer farm in Saskatchewan and cattle ranch in Oklahoma.
Guest
David Fullerton M.c., P.Ag.
Director of Applied Research, Olds College of Agriculture & Technology
David is the Director of Applied Research at Olds College Centre for Innovation (OCCI). He provides overall leadership and management of applied research and innovation activities at Olds College with a focus on efficient delivery of high quality applied research projects. He works closely with the Vice President of Research in defining strategic vision and business and operational goals for the Centre to ensure OCCI’s work is aligned with the College’s strategic plan. David brings years of experience in promoting, developing and managing industry-focused applied research activities at colleges and universities in Canada and Qatar. He also worked in entrepreneurial development and has decades of practical on-the-farm experience. David earned a Farming Technology Diploma and B.Sc. in Agricultural Economics from the Nova Scotia Agricultural College. He also has a M.Sc. in Agricultural Economics from the University of Alberta where his research focused on enhancing rural economies through improved trading activities.
Resources
Smart Farm Newsletter
Smart Farm Website
AgSmart Educational Expo
Smart Farm Article
How are Farmers Using Drones
Precision Farming, What is it?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Clinton Monchuk (00:00):
From
Canadian Food Focus, this is
Ask a Farmer. I'm your hostClinton Monchuk, a Saskatchewan
farmer. In this podcast, wetalk to food experts to answer
your questions about your food.
(00:27):
Welcome to the podcast,everyone. Today we're going to
be talking a little bit moreabout some of the research that
goes into new technologies whenit comes to farming. Now we
live in an age that really hasa ton of new technology, and it
really is ever changing, butthere's a lot of new technology
when it comes to foodproduction as well. Olds
(00:48):
College in Olds, Albertaspecializes in testing new
technologies that can beimplemented on Canadian farms
and ranches. Their new SmartFarm works with companies to
develop solutions fortomorrow's problems, while also
educating students withhands-on learning. David
(01:08):
Fullerton, who's the directorof Applied Research at Olds
College, is going to highlightsome of these research things
that are going on there. Do youwant to just give us a little
bit of a background ofyourself, kind of how you got
into this position, just so alot of our listeners can
understand a little bit moreabout you.
David Fullerton (01:26):
Thanks, yeah.
So I've always been interestedin agriculture , ever since I
was, I suppose, a teenager. I'mnot from a farming background
myself; my parents wereteachers, but , certainly , the
family on both sides haveagriculture in their system. At
some point in the , in theancestry, I'm originally from
(01:46):
Nova Scotia, and sometime in myteenage years, I determined
that I was going to either buya farm or work in the
agricultural world. I went toschool at the Nova Scotia
Agricultural College andultimately chose the University
of Alberta, where I did amaster's degree in agricultural
economics with a focus on ruraldevelopment. And in 2022 , I
(02:08):
applied for and received aposition here at Olds College
in Alberta. And that's where wehave been, my wife and I,
living here in Olds andenjoying the western lifestyle
again, and certainly thesmalltown atmosphere. So, my
role here at the college as thedirector is I've sort of took
over from Joy Agnew, who's nowthe VP of Research here at Olds
(02:30):
College. I took over her roleto manage the research
enterprise at Olds College,which is called the Olds
College Center for Innovation,where we've got a team of 40
plus researchers, whetherthey're managers , research
technicians, researchscientists, and all in support
of agricultural research at anapplied level for western
(02:53):
Canadian agriculture.
Clinton Monchuk (02:55):
Can you give us maybe just for everybody
listening, just a generaloverview of what the Smart Farm
is at Old College and what aresome of the plans for some of
your accomplishments as youguys move forward?
David Fullerton (03:08):
Certainly. So the Smart Farm Initiative
itself started in 2018 with thenew five year strategic plan of
the college to try to transformthe existing farm of about 1800
acres, transform it into anapplied research venue, a
showcase venue for agtechnology to try to support
(03:32):
the industry in adopting themand adapting them to what the
growing conditions are here incentral Alberta. So the
initiative started with alaunch of 110 acres, which we
call Field 1516 , a veryimaginative field name
to start out with datacollection and data analysis
(03:54):
and all these types ofactivities to try to make sense
of the growing conditions inthat field, and how can we
change them to apply thetechnologies in the new farming
ways, perhaps in a way thatthat's easily understood and
easily demonstrable. That's thecollege campus farm, we say, is
about 1800 acres. Since then,over the last six years, we've
(04:17):
been donated some land indifferent locations, and so
we're now about 3,600 acres insix different geographic
locations, five of them here inAlberta. And then we are also
located with 800 acres inCraik, Saskatchewan, which is
our new smart farm inSaskatchewan, where it's on
donated land, where we'retrying to apply the same
(04:40):
learnings that we have donehere into different growing
conditions , differentenvironment there. But the
intent of it is always tohyperfocus on accelerating
progress and innovation insupport of the ag industry in
western Canada. Particularlywhy it's called Smart Farm is
because we're using digitaltechnologies and trying to
(05:03):
identify the best technologiesthat are appropriate for our
growing conditions and how theyapply to both crop and
livestock production. Trying toultimately examine the
technologies and see how doesit support the farm operation,
what are the constraints, whatare the issues with that ,
helping validate technologiesand looking at how can they
(05:24):
improve the efficiency, whichultimately how do they improve
the profitability ofagriculture? The distinct part
of the Smart Farm itself isthat it's a demonstration
location. We're open to thepublic. We have tours all the
time. We have the Ag Smartevent in July of this year,
(05:45):
late July, and it's open as alab for the student education
here at the college. So it'susing the technologies for
education, for demonstrationand applied research. The whole
Smart Farm is the lab for thecollege, both for applied
research and for education.
Clinton Monchuk (06:01):
You have a lot of these different, say,
research facilities that arekind of out scattered
throughout Canada and othercountries as well. But it's
awesome to hear that you have acomponent where you're kind of
trying to get the communityinvolved as well and make sure
that they understand what'sgoing on. One of the things
that I saw when I was lookingthrough the videos is how you
(06:24):
have that integration betweenlivestock and crops. So you're
really trying to use both ofthem. And maybe you can
elaborate just a little bit onthat, just how you're trying to
kind of mimic a mixed farm thatwould be out in Alberta, right?
David Fullerton (06:39):
Certainly. So I'll speak to the distinction
around all the various researchfacilities that are in Canada.
And the challenge ofagriculture, as you would know
as a farmer, is everything isdifferent depending on where
you live. That's why you needto have research conducted in
the area where you're actuallyoperating. Here at Olds
(06:59):
College, we've been lucky inthe last number of years to
have the rains at the righttime, but 10 miles east of us,
it was bone-dry last summer andcrops failed. So that's why the
public needs to understand howresearch happens for
agriculture, because everythingis distinctly different
depending on where you are, andyou cannot apply everything
from one location to the other,which is also why now having
(07:23):
the Craik property is going tobe really interesting for us
because we're working and we'vegot many years of research on
technologies, well, andpractice, but how do we apply
that in very different growingconditions? The integration
between crops and livestock isan interesting perspective. We
still have purely grain fields,and we still have pastures and
(07:47):
never do they cross over , soit's not fully integrated. One
of the activities I would liketo see is how do we integrate
livestock onto grain crops? Canwe manage to find out how to
grow a cover crop on our grainfields and move the cattle out
there so that they're grazingand they're depositing their
(08:08):
manure and all these things sothat we're actually benefiting
from that. But at this stage,they are two separate
operations per se, but as partof the whole applied research
activities and thinking aboutclimate resiliency and
everything, I would suspect inthe future, we're going to
start trying to become moreintegrated.
Clinton Monchuk (08:28):
So, one of the things that I saw on the
website is there were kind offive areas that the college
focuses on, and maybe it'd begood just to highlight those
five areas so everybody canunderstand kind of what some of
the focus is with Olds in theSmart Farm.
David Fullerton (08:43):
Certainly. So, the five areas that, that we're
working within is cropproduction, whether that's the
large scale production onfields where, which kind of
makes us distinct is weactually are conducting
research at field scale , butwe also, our crops research
team is doing the traditionalsmall plot research. That's
(09:04):
number one. We have thelivestock production group,
which again, has that thousandhead capacity in the feedlot
and a hundred cow calf and thesheep. We also have a purebred
Angus herd as well that we'redeveloping in partnership with
the student club. We're workingin the environmental
stewardship world; primarily atthis stage around water
(09:26):
management issues, looking atagricultural change , climate
change management practicethrough the water , and other
environmental stewardshippractices. We're moving into
partnering with a couple ofrenewable energy companies on
agrivoltaics, trying to examinethe potential to grow crops and
(09:46):
create solar energy at the sametime. That's a relatively new
activity, sort of just at theinitial stages of development.
We're also in partnership withthe Field Crop Development
Center, who is a cerealbreeding facility in Lacombe .
That focus there is on barleyvariety development, triticale
(10:07):
variety development. So it's anice collaboration between our
two entities. And then the lastone, the fifth one is sort of
what we're known for is theSmart technology, Smart
integration. So that's probablyour largest group, and it's
where we've developed thefurthest in terms of growth of
(10:28):
activities, and that's theSmart Ag Applied Research group
where we're taking all thetechnologies that are out there
that people want us to examine,and understanding how that can
be applied, what are thechallenges , what are the
accuracies, what's thefunctionality of all these
various technologies, and howdo farmers apply those to
become more productive and moreefficient? That's a whole
(10:50):
growth area, and particularlybecause of the reliance on data
when you have technologies andcertainly within the livestock
group, we've got sometechnologies, massive amounts
of data that you've got toprocess to collect and manage
and process and make itunderstood. And I think that's
one of the biggest challengesfor farmers is their machines
(11:11):
are collecting data all thetime. What do you do with it?
What is it telling me? Helpingwith that stream of information
and data and helping makeevidence-based decisions.
Clinton Monchuk (11:22):
So with that, and you kind of highlighted a
few of those different partnersthat you collaborate with, do
you feel on the Smart Farmside, there's even more
companies or associations thatwant to collaborate with you
because of this new technology?
You kind of called it out therethat there's a lot of
information that's out thereand, you know, just, for me, as
(11:44):
a farmer, it's kind of toughto, you know, decipher what
would make sense, what'sbeneficial and what's not.
David Fullerton (11:52):
We're regularly--daily, it ,seems
sometimes--getting companiescoming to us and they want to
know more about what we can dowith them and their new ideas
or their technologies tovalidate them. We're not into
fundamental research. We'reinto applied research to help
validate and evaluatetechnologies and see how that
can be used to improve theproductivity of enterprises. So
(12:15):
we collect data all the time ,and statistics for reporting
purposes, but I think thenumber is, we've worked with
about 380 differentorganizations since 2018.
Anywhere from 75 to 85, 90groups a year at this stage ,
on research projects. Ourreputation has been enhanced
(12:36):
over the years, and people arenow knowing to come to us, but
our real mandate is to supportSMEs in the development and
enhancement of theirtechnology, validation of it.
Then the farmers can pick upthose technologies.
Clinton Monchuk (12:49):
Obviously you're getting, you know, you
mentioned the small and mediumenterprises SMEs, but you're
getting a lot of differentpeople that are coming to your
door saying, we want to doresearch with you, again for
the validation, to bring backto the farmers to say, hey,
this has been vetted, we knowit's going to work on your farm
so you can try it out.
David Fullerton (13:08):
So we'll work with anyone. And that's one of
the fundamental items that wewant to tell people is we want
to be seen to be a third partyvalidator, and so people will
come to us and based on whatwe're doing, they can trust our
information.
Clinton Monchuk (13:29):
This brings us to the part of the podcast
where it is the fun farm fact.
Did you know that based on aRBC study in 2022, a new
generation of agriculturetechnologies could help cut
potential 2050 emissions fromCanada's agriculture sector by
up to 40% . This would be ontop of the already low net
(13:53):
emissions reported in data dueto farming practices that have
already been implemented. And Ithink this gets into the next
area, David, that we're goingto be talking about, just on
trying to help everybody elseunderstand what some of these
new technologies could be andjust how we can do better going
forward.
David Fullerton (14:12):
A lot of the technologies that we're working
with, for the most part, areaimed at productivity. And
farmers, as business people,have to make a dollar. They're
not going to stay in businesslong if they don't make a
profit. So if we can work withthem to assist them to become
more productive and moreefficient, whether that's
(14:32):
increasing their yields withoutincreasing their costs or
saving money through a better,more efficient practice, then
we've done our job. But at thesame time, the industry is
also, as you said, beingmandated and encouraged to
reduce its emissions ofgreenhouse gases. But certainly
(14:52):
we have to recognize that, thatyes, farming practices do emit
greenhouse gases as a regularpractice, and so what can we do
as applied researchindividuals? And also examine
the opportunities forenvironmentally more
sustainable practices and helpthe industry reduce their
emissions footprint over time.
(15:14):
So we're at the stage ofdevelopment of our Smart Farm
and all the research that goeson where we feel that we're
ready to work on somegreenhouse gas projects. So
we're working with a number ofother granting agencies trying
to identify opportunities wherewe can buy the technologies to
(15:36):
allow us to measure emissions,and then put forward projects
that are going to examine howthese various farming practices
are emitting greenhouse gases.
But we need assistance throughthe industry questions. What
does industry want us to do? Wework with industry to address
their issues. So we need to, weneed to have lots of
(15:57):
consultations with industry tounderstand what their needs are
and see how we can conductresearch. Once we have that
understanding, we'll makeapplications to try to match
dollars, whether it's from anindustry association or
business or whatever, to try tomaximize the amount of
activities we can do. A lot ofthis new research costs money.
(16:17):
We are fortunate now at a stagefive years into our Smart Farm
development where we'vereceived grants over time and
we've bought lots of equipmentfor analysis and all these
things, but certainly thegreenhouse gas side is new to
us, and we're just ramping upour activities where we've got
some equipment that can monitorgreenhouse gas emissions from
(16:40):
soil on a real-time basiscalled the LI-COR system ,
which is coming out of NovaScotia, I believe. But that
only does a small amount ofresearch because of the scale
of what it is. So we need manymore of those things so we can
expand it away from us , onesmall plot to large amounts,
and that costs a lot of money .
(17:01):
So we're fortunate that we'rein partnership with other
universities and colleges wherewe're applying for large
grants. If we get them, we canscale up our activities. But
what we're trying to do is, inthis case, it's around nutrient
management practice, using thecoated fertilizers, applying
the right rate, the right time,and the right source at the
(17:21):
right place. And how do farmersactually apply those things and
what are the results back fromit? Farmers know a lot of good
practices, but how can theydemonstrate to the various
regulatory agencies and so onto say , or the public even to
say, what we're doing or whatwe're adjusting to is having
(17:42):
this impact, X impact ongreenhouse gas emissions,
therefore we're moving in theright direction, and the same
time the farmer is still makingthe profit that they need to
continue their business andhelp it grow and succeed.
Clinton Monchuk (17:57):
Yeah .
David Fullerton (17:58):
As economists we're recognizing that farmers
cannot afford to adopt apractice if it's not going to
help them survive as abusiness. Just because
everybody says you need to dothis, if the farmer's farm's
going to go out of business,well, there goes a business and
there goes the food that weneed. So we have to figure out
what works from theenvironmental perspective and
(18:19):
balance that with theeconomics.
Clinton Monchuk (18:22):
That sometimes gets missed in that general
discussion that, you know, ifyou want a sustainable, long-
term beneficial food systemand, you know, the environment
obviously is a key point.
Because if you don't take careof that, then you're not going
to grow the crops. You've gotto make sure you're growing
something that society actuallywants, but you also have to
(18:43):
make sure that there's level ofprofit in there, because like
you said, if you can't makemoney, then, then you're not
going to be able to do that.
One of the things that lines upwith that is you've had the
ability now for the last fiveyears to try some of these new
technologies and theseadvancements. Is there any
(19:05):
advancement or a solution thatfarmers or ranchers have been
looking for that you'veactually done some work on that
you can say, you know what,this one's kind of a game
changer. We feel this is goingto influence farmers going
forward. I don't know if youcan tell that. I don't know if
it's proprietary or not, but Ithink for me as a farmer, I
think it'd be super interestingto understand, and I think for
(19:27):
consumers as well, just to knowwhat's coming out in the
future.
David Fullerton (19:31):
So a lot of the work we do, some of it is
proprietary. We're like everyother institution, where we'll
do non-disclosure agreementsand all these things to protect
what that company, and thenperhaps a company that's got a
technology that's not ready forthat information out there. But
we also pride ourselves on theability to let people know what
we're working on and help sharethe information, the knowledge
(19:52):
dissemination side of all theactivities that we're doing. So
is there something I could talkabout right now? There's
already existing technologiesthat we've evaluated. There's
an interesting soil probecalled ChrysaLabs out of Quebec
that they wanted us a coupleyears ago to evaluate in the
conditions that we have.
Basically take the probe, shoveit into the ground, and it
(20:14):
gives you a real timemeasurement of nutrients. So no
longer do you have to take asoil sample, ship it off to a
lab, and wait the 30 days toget the results back and see
what the nutrient levels ofyour soil is. It basically
shove it in the ground in realtime . It'll tell you you've
got X amount of nitrogen in thesoil.
Clinton Monchuk (20:35):
Wow .
David Fullerton (20:35):
Really interesting technology and it's
for sale. People can use it.
It's a prescription-based toolthat allows you to go onto your
farm and sample it to sort ofsee where you're at. That's a
real technology that wasdeveloped out of Quebec. They
wanted us to make use of ithere and see how it works. So
we did two years worth of workwith them and sent the data
(20:59):
back. They modified theiralgorithms trying to make it
appropriate for here. To me,that's a great tool for a
farmer who perhaps they didsampling and now conditions
have changed. Well, so theycould mainly just go out there,
do some sampling across theirfields to sort of see how that
fits and then adjust theirpractice accordingly. Perhaps
(21:20):
they need to put more nitrogenon or or so on. That's, to me,
a really good example of thetype of work we've done and how
that can apply. We're doingsome work now with two
different companies, one withSpornado , it's a company out
of Australia that both measurespores in the air for disease.
We always say, once you've gotdisease present on your plant,
(21:43):
it's too late. You've missedthe time just to spray a
fungicide or whatever. Whatthese technologies do is
they're capturing spores thatare blowing through the air.
You can take a look withSpornado; it quantifies the
amount. You have to send thesample off, but it comes back
right away and it says, okay,you've got X amount and then so
you know when you should sprayor if you should spray or not.
(22:03):
The other one, so the company'scalled BioScout. It does it in
real time , telling you whatthe pressure is, how much and
what the actual disease is. Soit allows you to make an
informed decision around ,should I spray or not? And a
business decision is ultimatelyto say, do I put this $50,000
fungicide on my field or do Inot? Am I going to make $50,000
(22:27):
or more back, or am I betteroff allowing to have a little
bit of disease and not have toincur that cost? So we're
evaluating those kind oftechnologies to see how they
work here. It comes fromAustralia, does it work in
Western Canadian conditions?
Some of the other work we'redoing, which a lot of people
would sort of recognizeimmediately is around drone
(22:48):
work and the applications ofdrones for disease monitoring,
for soil evaluation, comparingthat with satellites and all
these kind of things. We'redoing a lot of work in that
area to collect data andevaluate really, how does a
farmer use drone information?
How do they use satellites totell you if a disease is
(23:11):
present in your field? Well,again, it's too late. You fly a
drone over on a regular basisand maybe you could start
seeing it, or you could usedifferent image capabilities
and sort of know what it shouldlook like on the drone image of
disease or fertility or hail orother things. So , we're trying
to apply all those kind ofdifferent technologies that
people wouldn't think of: "well, that's not farming." (23:33):
undefined
Well, yes, it is.
Clinton Monchuk (23:36):
So we talked a lot about how some of these
different technologies and someof the research going on kind
of feeds back to the farmers.
Do you see some of thisresearch feeding back to
consumers? Is there anythingthat you feel that, that you
can kind of pinpoint and say,you know what, consumers are
going to benefit from this andthis is something good then
(23:56):
that farmers and ranchers canimplement?
David Fullerton (23:59):
We don't directly do consumer-based
research. Our focus is toassist the producer themselves,
but ultimately the consumerwants cheap food, cheap
product. And so the result isfarmers need to consider how do
we become more efficient so Ican still maintain a good
lifestyle for my family andmake a profit for my business
(24:20):
and provide the resulting foodproducts or industrial products
right back to the consumer. Sowe're, we're focused around
supporting the industry. If wecan do right by the industry to
meet their needs, that's goingto benefit ultimately the
consumer in the long run. Thefact of the farm community is
(24:42):
becoming obligated to addressenvironmental issues because
that's what the public wants. Ithink farmers understand
environmental sustainability.
They're looking at the legacyof passing on the land to the
next generation, whether it'sin their family or not. They
don't want to to ruin things,but at the same time, you have
(25:03):
to recognize that perhaps theconsumer doesn't understand
that. And so whatever practiceswe can do to support them to
get the message across and helpthem perhaps improve their
practices to address thatspecific issue is going to
benefit the the consumer in thelong run. It's a challenge, and
I think it's ultimately a roleof the farming community
(25:24):
themselves to continually getthe message across to the
consumer that what they'redoing is not because somebody's
told them to do it, but it'sbecause it's the right thing to
do for themselves and the rightthing to do to try to feed the
world. Right in our strategicplan is to talk about that the
ag industry around the worldhas to feed 9 million people by
(25:46):
2050. And we're trying tofigure out how to do that, and
that's what the farmingcommunity wants to do too.
Clinton Monchuk (25:52):
Awesome. So, I , want to say thank you very
much for taking the time to beon the podcast, David, this was
really interesting. I think wegot a lot of insight into the
Smart Farm and Olds College ingeneral. So thank you very much
and we look forward to havingyou again sometime.
David Fullerton (26:08):
Oh, thank you very much. Very pleased to
discuss what we're doing andhave a great conversation on
the ag industry and technologyintegration.
Clinton Monchuk (26:23):
I want to thank you for taking the time
to listen to our Ask a Farmerpodcast. We at Canadian Food
Focus value the input from ourlisteners and ask that you
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(26:45):
To do this, please click on the'Ask Us' icon at the top of our
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newsletter. This segment wasproduced and edited by Angela
Larson, research and writing byDorothy Long and Penny Eaton,
(27:06):
music by Andy Elson . I'm yourhost Clinton Monchuk, and from
all of us at Canadian FoodFocus, we wish you good health
and great eats.
Ask a Farmer. I'm your hostClinton Monchuk, a Saskatchewan
farmer. In this podcast, wetalk to food experts to answer
your questions about your food.
(00:27):
Welcome to the podcast,everyone. Today we're going to
be talking a little bit moreabout some of the research that
goes into new technologies whenit comes to farming. Now we
live in an age that really hasa ton of new technology, and it
really is ever changing, butthere's a lot of new technology
when it comes to foodproduction as well. Olds
(00:48):
College in Olds, Albertaspecializes in testing new
technologies that can beimplemented on Canadian farms
and ranches. Their new SmartFarm works with companies to
develop solutions fortomorrow's problems, while also
educating students withhands-on learning. David
(01:08):
Fullerton, who's the directorof Applied Research at Olds
College, is going to highlightsome of these research things
that are going on there. Do youwant to just give us a little
bit of a background ofyourself, kind of how you got
into this position, just so alot of our listeners can
understand a little bit moreabout you.
David Fullerton (01:26):
Thanks, yeah.
So I've always been interestedin agriculture , ever since I
was, I suppose, a teenager. I'mnot from a farming background
myself; my parents wereteachers, but , certainly , the
family on both sides haveagriculture in their system. At
some point in the , in theancestry, I'm originally from
(01:46):
Nova Scotia, and sometime in myteenage years, I determined
that I was going to either buya farm or work in the
agricultural world. I went toschool at the Nova Scotia
Agricultural College andultimately chose the University
of Alberta, where I did amaster's degree in agricultural
economics with a focus on ruraldevelopment. And in 2022 , I
(02:08):
applied for and received aposition here at Olds College
in Alberta. And that's where wehave been, my wife and I,
living here in Olds andenjoying the western lifestyle
again, and certainly thesmalltown atmosphere. So, my
role here at the college as thedirector is I've sort of took
over from Joy Agnew, who's nowthe VP of Research here at Olds
(02:30):
College. I took over her roleto manage the research
enterprise at Olds College,which is called the Olds
College Center for Innovation,where we've got a team of 40
plus researchers, whetherthey're managers , research
technicians, researchscientists, and all in support
of agricultural research at anapplied level for western
(02:53):
Canadian agriculture.
Clinton Monchuk (02:55):
Can you give us maybe just for everybody
listening, just a generaloverview of what the Smart Farm
is at Old College and what aresome of the plans for some of
your accomplishments as youguys move forward?
David Fullerton (03:08):
Certainly. So the Smart Farm Initiative
itself started in 2018 with thenew five year strategic plan of
the college to try to transformthe existing farm of about 1800
acres, transform it into anapplied research venue, a
showcase venue for agtechnology to try to support
(03:32):
the industry in adopting themand adapting them to what the
growing conditions are here incentral Alberta. So the
initiative started with alaunch of 110 acres, which we
call Field 1516 , a veryimaginative field name
to start out with datacollection and data analysis
(03:54):
and all these types ofactivities to try to make sense
of the growing conditions inthat field, and how can we
change them to apply thetechnologies in the new farming
ways, perhaps in a way thatthat's easily understood and
easily demonstrable. That's thecollege campus farm, we say, is
about 1800 acres. Since then,over the last six years, we've
(04:17):
been donated some land indifferent locations, and so
we're now about 3,600 acres insix different geographic
locations, five of them here inAlberta. And then we are also
located with 800 acres inCraik, Saskatchewan, which is
our new smart farm inSaskatchewan, where it's on
donated land, where we'retrying to apply the same
(04:40):
learnings that we have donehere into different growing
conditions , differentenvironment there. But the
intent of it is always tohyperfocus on accelerating
progress and innovation insupport of the ag industry in
western Canada. Particularlywhy it's called Smart Farm is
because we're using digitaltechnologies and trying to
(05:03):
identify the best technologiesthat are appropriate for our
growing conditions and how theyapply to both crop and
livestock production. Trying toultimately examine the
technologies and see how doesit support the farm operation,
what are the constraints, whatare the issues with that ,
helping validate technologiesand looking at how can they
(05:24):
improve the efficiency, whichultimately how do they improve
the profitability ofagriculture? The distinct part
of the Smart Farm itself isthat it's a demonstration
location. We're open to thepublic. We have tours all the
time. We have the Ag Smartevent in July of this year,
(05:45):
late July, and it's open as alab for the student education
here at the college. So it'susing the technologies for
education, for demonstrationand applied research. The whole
Smart Farm is the lab for thecollege, both for applied
research and for education.
Clinton Monchuk (06:01):
You have a lot of these different, say,
research facilities that arekind of out scattered
throughout Canada and othercountries as well. But it's
awesome to hear that you have acomponent where you're kind of
trying to get the communityinvolved as well and make sure
that they understand what'sgoing on. One of the things
that I saw when I was lookingthrough the videos is how you
(06:24):
have that integration betweenlivestock and crops. So you're
really trying to use both ofthem. And maybe you can
elaborate just a little bit onthat, just how you're trying to
kind of mimic a mixed farm thatwould be out in Alberta, right?
David Fullerton (06:39):
Certainly. So I'll speak to the distinction
around all the various researchfacilities that are in Canada.
And the challenge ofagriculture, as you would know
as a farmer, is everything isdifferent depending on where
you live. That's why you needto have research conducted in
the area where you're actuallyoperating. Here at Olds
(06:59):
College, we've been lucky inthe last number of years to
have the rains at the righttime, but 10 miles east of us,
it was bone-dry last summer andcrops failed. So that's why the
public needs to understand howresearch happens for
agriculture, because everythingis distinctly different
depending on where you are, andyou cannot apply everything
from one location to the other,which is also why now having
(07:23):
the Craik property is going tobe really interesting for us
because we're working and we'vegot many years of research on
technologies, well, andpractice, but how do we apply
that in very different growingconditions? The integration
between crops and livestock isan interesting perspective. We
still have purely grain fields,and we still have pastures and
(07:47):
never do they cross over , soit's not fully integrated. One
of the activities I would liketo see is how do we integrate
livestock onto grain crops? Canwe manage to find out how to
grow a cover crop on our grainfields and move the cattle out
there so that they're grazingand they're depositing their
(08:08):
manure and all these things sothat we're actually benefiting
from that. But at this stage,they are two separate
operations per se, but as partof the whole applied research
activities and thinking aboutclimate resiliency and
everything, I would suspect inthe future, we're going to
start trying to become moreintegrated.
Clinton Monchuk (08:28):
So, one of the things that I saw on the
website is there were kind offive areas that the college
focuses on, and maybe it'd begood just to highlight those
five areas so everybody canunderstand kind of what some of
the focus is with Olds in theSmart Farm.
David Fullerton (08:43):
Certainly. So, the five areas that, that we're
working within is cropproduction, whether that's the
large scale production onfields where, which kind of
makes us distinct is weactually are conducting
research at field scale , butwe also, our crops research
team is doing the traditionalsmall plot research. That's
(09:04):
number one. We have thelivestock production group,
which again, has that thousandhead capacity in the feedlot
and a hundred cow calf and thesheep. We also have a purebred
Angus herd as well that we'redeveloping in partnership with
the student club. We're workingin the environmental
stewardship world; primarily atthis stage around water
(09:26):
management issues, looking atagricultural change , climate
change management practicethrough the water , and other
environmental stewardshippractices. We're moving into
partnering with a couple ofrenewable energy companies on
agrivoltaics, trying to examinethe potential to grow crops and
(09:46):
create solar energy at the sametime. That's a relatively new
activity, sort of just at theinitial stages of development.
We're also in partnership withthe Field Crop Development
Center, who is a cerealbreeding facility in Lacombe .
That focus there is on barleyvariety development, triticale
(10:07):
variety development. So it's anice collaboration between our
two entities. And then the lastone, the fifth one is sort of
what we're known for is theSmart technology, Smart
integration. So that's probablyour largest group, and it's
where we've developed thefurthest in terms of growth of
(10:28):
activities, and that's theSmart Ag Applied Research group
where we're taking all thetechnologies that are out there
that people want us to examine,and understanding how that can
be applied, what are thechallenges , what are the
accuracies, what's thefunctionality of all these
various technologies, and howdo farmers apply those to
become more productive and moreefficient? That's a whole
(10:50):
growth area, and particularlybecause of the reliance on data
when you have technologies andcertainly within the livestock
group, we've got sometechnologies, massive amounts
of data that you've got toprocess to collect and manage
and process and make itunderstood. And I think that's
one of the biggest challengesfor farmers is their machines
(11:11):
are collecting data all thetime. What do you do with it?
What is it telling me? Helpingwith that stream of information
and data and helping makeevidence-based decisions.
Clinton Monchuk (11:22):
So with that, and you kind of highlighted a
few of those different partnersthat you collaborate with, do
you feel on the Smart Farmside, there's even more
companies or associations thatwant to collaborate with you
because of this new technology?
You kind of called it out therethat there's a lot of
information that's out thereand, you know, just, for me, as
(11:44):
a farmer, it's kind of toughto, you know, decipher what
would make sense, what'sbeneficial and what's not.
David Fullerton (11:52):
We're regularly--daily, it ,seems
sometimes--getting companiescoming to us and they want to
know more about what we can dowith them and their new ideas
or their technologies tovalidate them. We're not into
fundamental research. We'reinto applied research to help
validate and evaluatetechnologies and see how that
can be used to improve theproductivity of enterprises. So
(12:15):
we collect data all the time ,and statistics for reporting
purposes, but I think thenumber is, we've worked with
about 380 differentorganizations since 2018.
Anywhere from 75 to 85, 90groups a year at this stage ,
on research projects. Ourreputation has been enhanced
(12:36):
over the years, and people arenow knowing to come to us, but
our real mandate is to supportSMEs in the development and
enhancement of theirtechnology, validation of it.
Then the farmers can pick upthose technologies.
Clinton Monchuk (12:49):
Obviously you're getting, you know, you
mentioned the small and mediumenterprises SMEs, but you're
getting a lot of differentpeople that are coming to your
door saying, we want to doresearch with you, again for
the validation, to bring backto the farmers to say, hey,
this has been vetted, we knowit's going to work on your farm
so you can try it out.
David Fullerton (13:08):
So we'll work with anyone. And that's one of
the fundamental items that wewant to tell people is we want
to be seen to be a third partyvalidator, and so people will
come to us and based on whatwe're doing, they can trust our
information.
Clinton Monchuk (13:29):
This brings us to the part of the podcast
where it is the fun farm fact.
Did you know that based on aRBC study in 2022, a new
generation of agriculturetechnologies could help cut
potential 2050 emissions fromCanada's agriculture sector by
up to 40% . This would be ontop of the already low net
(13:53):
emissions reported in data dueto farming practices that have
already been implemented. And Ithink this gets into the next
area, David, that we're goingto be talking about, just on
trying to help everybody elseunderstand what some of these
new technologies could be andjust how we can do better going
forward.
David Fullerton (14:12):
A lot of the technologies that we're working
with, for the most part, areaimed at productivity. And
farmers, as business people,have to make a dollar. They're
not going to stay in businesslong if they don't make a
profit. So if we can work withthem to assist them to become
more productive and moreefficient, whether that's
(14:32):
increasing their yields withoutincreasing their costs or
saving money through a better,more efficient practice, then
we've done our job. But at thesame time, the industry is
also, as you said, beingmandated and encouraged to
reduce its emissions ofgreenhouse gases. But certainly
(14:52):
we have to recognize that, thatyes, farming practices do emit
greenhouse gases as a regularpractice, and so what can we do
as applied researchindividuals? And also examine
the opportunities forenvironmentally more
sustainable practices and helpthe industry reduce their
emissions footprint over time.
(15:14):
So we're at the stage ofdevelopment of our Smart Farm
and all the research that goeson where we feel that we're
ready to work on somegreenhouse gas projects. So
we're working with a number ofother granting agencies trying
to identify opportunities wherewe can buy the technologies to
(15:36):
allow us to measure emissions,and then put forward projects
that are going to examine howthese various farming practices
are emitting greenhouse gases.
But we need assistance throughthe industry questions. What
does industry want us to do? Wework with industry to address
their issues. So we need to, weneed to have lots of
(15:57):
consultations with industry tounderstand what their needs are
and see how we can conductresearch. Once we have that
understanding, we'll makeapplications to try to match
dollars, whether it's from anindustry association or
business or whatever, to try tomaximize the amount of
activities we can do. A lot ofthis new research costs money.
(16:17):
We are fortunate now at a stagefive years into our Smart Farm
development where we'vereceived grants over time and
we've bought lots of equipmentfor analysis and all these
things, but certainly thegreenhouse gas side is new to
us, and we're just ramping upour activities where we've got
some equipment that can monitorgreenhouse gas emissions from
(16:40):
soil on a real-time basiscalled the LI-COR system ,
which is coming out of NovaScotia, I believe. But that
only does a small amount ofresearch because of the scale
of what it is. So we need manymore of those things so we can
expand it away from us , onesmall plot to large amounts,
and that costs a lot of money .
(17:01):
So we're fortunate that we'rein partnership with other
universities and colleges wherewe're applying for large
grants. If we get them, we canscale up our activities. But
what we're trying to do is, inthis case, it's around nutrient
management practice, using thecoated fertilizers, applying
the right rate, the right time,and the right source at the
(17:21):
right place. And how do farmersactually apply those things and
what are the results back fromit? Farmers know a lot of good
practices, but how can theydemonstrate to the various
regulatory agencies and so onto say , or the public even to
say, what we're doing or whatwe're adjusting to is having
(17:42):
this impact, X impact ongreenhouse gas emissions,
therefore we're moving in theright direction, and the same
time the farmer is still makingthe profit that they need to
continue their business andhelp it grow and succeed.
Clinton Monchuk (17:57):
Yeah .
David Fullerton (17:58):
As economists we're recognizing that farmers
cannot afford to adopt apractice if it's not going to
help them survive as abusiness. Just because
everybody says you need to dothis, if the farmer's farm's
going to go out of business,well, there goes a business and
there goes the food that weneed. So we have to figure out
what works from theenvironmental perspective and
(18:19):
balance that with theeconomics.
Clinton Monchuk (18:22):
That sometimes gets missed in that general
discussion that, you know, ifyou want a sustainable, long-
term beneficial food systemand, you know, the environment
obviously is a key point.
Because if you don't take careof that, then you're not going
to grow the crops. You've gotto make sure you're growing
something that society actuallywants, but you also have to
(18:43):
make sure that there's level ofprofit in there, because like
you said, if you can't makemoney, then, then you're not
going to be able to do that.
One of the things that lines upwith that is you've had the
ability now for the last fiveyears to try some of these new
technologies and theseadvancements. Is there any
(19:05):
advancement or a solution thatfarmers or ranchers have been
looking for that you'veactually done some work on that
you can say, you know what,this one's kind of a game
changer. We feel this is goingto influence farmers going
forward. I don't know if youcan tell that. I don't know if
it's proprietary or not, but Ithink for me as a farmer, I
think it'd be super interestingto understand, and I think for
(19:27):
consumers as well, just to knowwhat's coming out in the
future.
David Fullerton (19:31):
So a lot of the work we do, some of it is
proprietary. We're like everyother institution, where we'll
do non-disclosure agreementsand all these things to protect
what that company, and thenperhaps a company that's got a
technology that's not ready forthat information out there. But
we also pride ourselves on theability to let people know what
we're working on and help sharethe information, the knowledge
(19:52):
dissemination side of all theactivities that we're doing. So
is there something I could talkabout right now? There's
already existing technologiesthat we've evaluated. There's
an interesting soil probecalled ChrysaLabs out of Quebec
that they wanted us a coupleyears ago to evaluate in the
conditions that we have.
Basically take the probe, shoveit into the ground, and it
(20:14):
gives you a real timemeasurement of nutrients. So no
longer do you have to take asoil sample, ship it off to a
lab, and wait the 30 days toget the results back and see
what the nutrient levels ofyour soil is. It basically
shove it in the ground in realtime . It'll tell you you've
got X amount of nitrogen in thesoil.
Clinton Monchuk (20:35):
Wow .
David Fullerton (20:35):
Really interesting technology and it's
for sale. People can use it.
It's a prescription-based toolthat allows you to go onto your
farm and sample it to sort ofsee where you're at. That's a
real technology that wasdeveloped out of Quebec. They
wanted us to make use of ithere and see how it works. So
we did two years worth of workwith them and sent the data
(20:59):
back. They modified theiralgorithms trying to make it
appropriate for here. To me,that's a great tool for a
farmer who perhaps they didsampling and now conditions
have changed. Well, so theycould mainly just go out there,
do some sampling across theirfields to sort of see how that
fits and then adjust theirpractice accordingly. Perhaps
(21:20):
they need to put more nitrogenon or or so on. That's, to me,
a really good example of thetype of work we've done and how
that can apply. We're doingsome work now with two
different companies, one withSpornado , it's a company out
of Australia that both measurespores in the air for disease.
We always say, once you've gotdisease present on your plant,
(21:43):
it's too late. You've missedthe time just to spray a
fungicide or whatever. Whatthese technologies do is
they're capturing spores thatare blowing through the air.
You can take a look withSpornado; it quantifies the
amount. You have to send thesample off, but it comes back
right away and it says, okay,you've got X amount and then so
you know when you should sprayor if you should spray or not.
(22:03):
The other one, so the company'scalled BioScout. It does it in
real time , telling you whatthe pressure is, how much and
what the actual disease is. Soit allows you to make an
informed decision around ,should I spray or not? And a
business decision is ultimatelyto say, do I put this $50,000
fungicide on my field or do Inot? Am I going to make $50,000
(22:27):
or more back, or am I betteroff allowing to have a little
bit of disease and not have toincur that cost? So we're
evaluating those kind oftechnologies to see how they
work here. It comes fromAustralia, does it work in
Western Canadian conditions?
Some of the other work we'redoing, which a lot of people
would sort of recognizeimmediately is around drone
(22:48):
work and the applications ofdrones for disease monitoring,
for soil evaluation, comparingthat with satellites and all
these kind of things. We'redoing a lot of work in that
area to collect data andevaluate really, how does a
farmer use drone information?
How do they use satellites totell you if a disease is
(23:11):
present in your field? Well,again, it's too late. You fly a
drone over on a regular basisand maybe you could start
seeing it, or you could usedifferent image capabilities
and sort of know what it shouldlook like on the drone image of
disease or fertility or hail orother things. So , we're trying
to apply all those kind ofdifferent technologies that
people wouldn't think of: "well, that's not farming." (23:33):
undefined
Well, yes, it is.
Clinton Monchuk (23:36):
So we talked a lot about how some of these
different technologies and someof the research going on kind
of feeds back to the farmers.
Do you see some of thisresearch feeding back to
consumers? Is there anythingthat you feel that, that you
can kind of pinpoint and say,you know what, consumers are
going to benefit from this andthis is something good then
(23:56):
that farmers and ranchers canimplement?
David Fullerton (23:59):
We don't directly do consumer-based
research. Our focus is toassist the producer themselves,
but ultimately the consumerwants cheap food, cheap
product. And so the result isfarmers need to consider how do
we become more efficient so Ican still maintain a good
lifestyle for my family andmake a profit for my business
(24:20):
and provide the resulting foodproducts or industrial products
right back to the consumer. Sowe're, we're focused around
supporting the industry. If wecan do right by the industry to
meet their needs, that's goingto benefit ultimately the
consumer in the long run. Thefact of the farm community is
(24:42):
becoming obligated to addressenvironmental issues because
that's what the public wants. Ithink farmers understand
environmental sustainability.
They're looking at the legacyof passing on the land to the
next generation, whether it'sin their family or not. They
don't want to to ruin things,but at the same time, you have
(25:03):
to recognize that perhaps theconsumer doesn't understand
that. And so whatever practiceswe can do to support them to
get the message across and helpthem perhaps improve their
practices to address thatspecific issue is going to
benefit the the consumer in thelong run. It's a challenge, and
I think it's ultimately a roleof the farming community
(25:24):
themselves to continually getthe message across to the
consumer that what they'redoing is not because somebody's
told them to do it, but it'sbecause it's the right thing to
do for themselves and the rightthing to do to try to feed the
world. Right in our strategicplan is to talk about that the
ag industry around the worldhas to feed 9 million people by
(25:46):
2050. And we're trying tofigure out how to do that, and
that's what the farmingcommunity wants to do too.
Clinton Monchuk (25:52):
Awesome. So, I , want to say thank you very
much for taking the time to beon the podcast, David, this was
really interesting. I think wegot a lot of insight into the
Smart Farm and Olds College ingeneral. So thank you very much
and we look forward to havingyou again sometime.
David Fullerton (26:08):
Oh, thank you very much. Very pleased to
discuss what we're doing andhave a great conversation on
the ag industry and technologyintegration.
Clinton Monchuk (26:23):
I want to thank you for taking the time
to listen to our Ask a Farmerpodcast. We at Canadian Food
Focus value the input from ourlisteners and ask that you
share the podcast with yourfriends and family. Remember ,
this is a two-way street, so weseek your input for future
segments that are of Interestto you about food and farming.
(26:45):
To do this, please click on the'Ask Us' icon at the top of our
website, canadianfoodfocus .org. While you're there, feel free
to follow our numerous socialmedia links and sign up for our
newsletter. This segment wasproduced and edited by Angela
Larson, research and writing byDorothy Long and Penny Eaton,
(27:06):
music by Andy Elson . I'm yourhost Clinton Monchuk, and from
all of us at Canadian FoodFocus, we wish you good health
and great eats.
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