Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, June 18, 2025 – The Canadian Agri-Food Automation and Intelligence Network (CAAIN) today unveiled the ninth of 11 stories illustrating the success of its two 2023 funding calls.
CAAIN’s mandate from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) is to fund technological responses to the most significant opportunities and challenges facing the nation’s agri-food producers and primary processors. That means supporting promising efforts with the potential to provide economic or environmental value. The featured stories demonstrate that CAAIN is doing just that, as does the $33M it is investing in 36 projects with a combined total value of roughly $100M.
“Pork producers and processors deal with many of the same challenges faced by other agri-food sectors,” noted Darrell Petras, CAAIN’s CEO. “That includes factors such as environmental footprint, emissions, tariffs, and labour shortages. But livestock producers must manage additional issues influenced by public perception. Those pressures have led lawmakers in some markets to impose stricter import requirements that might significantly impact the profitability of pork farmers here in Canada. Hence our decision to approve the funding application from the Quebec Pork Development Centre (CDPQ) to our 2023 Livestock Innovation Program Competition.”
The CDPQ and its partners from Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan, and the United Kingdom want to improve the resilience and sustainability of Canadian sow barns. To this end, the project team is testing, validating, and demonstrating AI technologies in research facilities, and is collaborating with industry stakeholders, including developers, dealers, and users, to accelerate and facilitate the adoption of precision livestock farming in sow barns across the country. Specifically, they are evaluating the merits of tech that focuses on optimal insemination time and gestational nutrition, as well as a sow’s living conditions.
“We hope the CDPQ project will lead to better outcomes for production facilities here in Canada, while opening export markets that have adopted stricter requirements in terms of the treatment of animals they allow to be imported,” explained Mr. Petras. “Supporting the development and adoption of technology that improves the bottom line of our nation’s agri-food industry is CAAIN’s founding principle.”
For more information, read the attached story or check it out online.
-30-
The Canadian Agri-Food Automation and Intelligence Network is a not-for-profit company launched in July 2019 with funding of $49.5‑million from the Government of Canada’s Strategic Innovation Fund. CAAIN drives collaborative agri-food technology research and innovation from coast to coast to coast.
| Project Funding Inquiries Darrell Petras, P.Ag. CEO Canadian Agri-Food Automation and Intelligence Network darrell.petras@caain.ca |
Media Inquiries Eric Morin, CMP Director, Communications and Marketing Canadian Agri-Food Automation and Intelligence Network 780.405.3742 | eric.morin@caain.ca |
