CAAIN
CAAIN
BH Frontier Solutions Inc., Toronto, ON
2652762 Ontario Ltd. (Farm Life Group), Keswick, ON & Lagos, Nigeria
Vineland Research and Innovation Centre, Vineland Station, ON
This project seeks to develop, validate, and demonstrate an autonomous agricultural robot that can eradicate weeds with high voltage electricity and data-driven precision agrochemical application. The electric weeding technology will be optimized to achieve efficiency and efficacy levels that compete with conventional herbicide weeding.
To date, CAAIN has funded, or committed to funding, 35 projects whose combined value sits at around $100M. Our partners are developing some truly remarkable technologies. Interestingly, no matter how complex, ground-breaking, or important software solutions and data-generating applications may be, what excites people the most and generates the most feedback is anything to do with robots and automation. The cool factor is off the charts, and we are delighted to present an interview we conducted with BHF CEO, David Tao, whose team is developing one such platform.
CAAIN: Thank you for taking the time to sit down with us today, David. We know how busy you and your team are.
David Tao: It’s my pleasure. You can imagine we’re big fans of CAAIN.
CAAIN: The feeling is mutual.
Before we get into your very cool robotics technology, tell us a little about you and how you came to be an agtech entrepreneur.
David Tao: Sure. I grew up in China and saw first-hand how back-breaking agriculture can be. As a kid I played in my grandfather’s rice fields and I guess in the back of my mind was a desire to help farmers like those in my family. I came to Canada when I was 19 to study Mechanical Engineering (Robotics stream) at Queens University…
CAAIN: …Go Gaels!
David Tao: …Go Gaels!
I worked in tech but I’ve always been very independent and prefer being my own boss, so I’ve become a bit of a serial entrepreneur. I launched my first company a few years ago, made it to Dragon’s Den, and negotiated a successful exit before the pandemic. I made some money and started a couple of other businesses.
CAAIN: Interesting. So you’re not an ag guy, per se. You’re more of a tech entrepreneur. But how, then, did you end up in the agriculture space?
David Tao: It was a total fluke. You never really know what will spark your next good idea. In 2020, during the early days of the pandemic, I visited a friend’s farm. He was frustrated by the difficulty of finding the labour needed to weed his crops by hand. And, while herbicides would appear to be a logical alternative, in addition to being bad for the environment, they are losing effectiveness as plants develop resistance to certain chemicals. His farm was literally infested with weeds. I’d already done a lot of work in the mechatronics/robotics arena, and it occurred to me that robots could be a great way to replace unskilled agricultural workers. I did some research and thought about the problem for a while and came up with our BHF Agrobot concept, which is to use high voltage electricity to kill weeds.
CAAIN: Why electricity?
David Tao: I was trying to figure out how to create a method to kill weeds that would not eventually lose its effectiveness.
CAAIN: What do you mean by that?
David Tao: There are currently 509 unique cases of herbicide resistance across the globe. Farmers have relied on new herbicide chemistries and hand weeding to deal with this issue. Since the early 1980s, there has only been one new herbicide mode of action discovered. Meanwhile resistance keeps increasing. At present, particularly for organic and vegetable farmers, crop yield is suffering due to the absence of viable non-chemical methods. Ineffective weed management can cause up to 80% yield losses. Add to that the issue of a growing North American agriculture labour shortage and you have a challenge that requires out-of-the-box thinking.
CAAIN: Fascinating. So how does it work?
David Tao: High voltage electrical energy travels at the speed of light. It is very hard—actually, it’s impossible—
for plants to develop resistance to electrical energy. The electricity flows through the plant upon contact and essentially boils all cells within the plant, including the roots. It is both effective and energy efficient. Zapping consumes around 0.25 mJ/ha (megajoule per hectare) vs. herbicide’s 15 mJ/ha. What’s more, electrical weeding kills weeds effectively in any growth stage in a single pass.
CAAIN: That’s crazy. You’re telling us that your electricity -based technology consumes 1/60th the power required of a herbicide treatment, in addition to avoiding the need to spray toxic chemicals?
David Tao: That’s correct.
CAAIN: Wow! Powerful and environmentally sound. So, what exactly does the robot do and how does it know to zap the weed rather than the crop?
David Tao: Good question. The agrobot travels through the field, automatically scanning for weeds, and applying high voltage electricity via foliage contact and conducting downward through the roots. We use deep learning and a sophisticated database to train the unit to distinguish among good and bad plants. Our platform has excellent potential overall, but particularly in three specific areas: On organic farms; on farms with herbicide-resistant weeds; and on vegetable operations where herbicides may injure crops. Simply put, our agrobot reduces input costs and reliance on unskilled labour, while increasing productivity through the dual mechanisms of decreased input costs and improved production. Then there’s the added bonus of diminished environmental impact, including GHG emission reduction and elimination of soil contamination.
CAAIN: This is really inspiring, David. Tell us, please, what CAAIN’s support has meant to this project?
David Tao: The CAAIN support has allowed us to target all row crops. We will develop and optimize the electric weeding technology, real-time plant detection models, and related electric autonomous robotics platform, so that our agrobot can attain a level of efficiency and efficacy that meets or exceeds standards associated with conventional herbicide weeding. Without CAAIN’s support, R&D and eventual market launch would have taken three times as long.
CAAIN: What’s your anticipated commercialisation rollout?
David Tao: We expect to have a market-ready prototype by the end of 2025. We will focus first on our home province of Ontario, then Alberta, followed by the other three western provinces, and then head east before turning our attention to the US.
CAAIN: It sounds as though you have things well in hand. Has it really been smooth sailing? You’re telling us there have been no challenges.
David Tao: Oh. No. There have been some big-time challenges. There’s a permanent dent on my desk from all the times I’ve banged my head on it. Here’s one we never anticipated. We were deploying the agrobot in pouring rain that was coming down so hard the water droplets bounced were bouncing back up. The agrobot’s design included protection from falling rain. We hadn’t considered water coming from below. That forced us to do some significant redesign. But, overall, things have gone very well. We feel we are on track.
CAAIN: You certainly appear to be making excellent progress, David. We congratulate the BHF team and look forward to watching you fine tune your technology and take the market by storm. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us today.
David Tao: It’s my pleasure. We’re grateful for CAAIN’s support and are very proud you chose to fund us.
CAAIN Contribution
$564,322
Total Project Value
$2,671,583
David Tao
Co-founder and CEO
BHF Frontier Solutions Inc.
david.t@bhfsolution.com