Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, July 25, 2025 – The Canadian Agri-Food Automation and Intelligence Network (CAAIN) today introduced a new project from its recent Smart Farm Competition.
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 over 35 projects with a combined total value of roughly $100M.
“‘Smart Farm’ is a term that is both overused and misunderstood,“ explained Darrell Petras, CAAIN’s CEO.“ We define it as being a commercial, educational, or research agricultural facility where the latest knowledge and/or technologies are evaluated in a relevant environment to determine their ability to improve productivity and profitability. In the case of Professor Wishart’s project, SOIL-HUB: A Data Coordination Centre to Aid Data-Driven Decision-Making for Canada’s Crop Farmers, we have the perfect mix of testing brilliant emerging technology and the ability of farmers to evaluate the application for themselves.”
Farmers will be invited to access SOIL-HUB, Dr. Wishart’s AI-generated decision-making tool. In doing so, they will be using artificial intelligence to guide some of their farming activities. They will effectively be accessing a massive, complex database through a remarkably simple user interface. Even more remarkable is that Metabolomics Innovations Inc., the project lead, is delivering its extraordinary results for a modest CAAIN investment of $86,667.”
For more information, check out the full project story online.
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The Canadian Agri-Food Automation and Intelligence Network (CAAIN) 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.
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| 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 |
