Perspectives podcast: How drones, AI and other tech are making farming more green

Stephen Meurice: About a mile from the Saskatchewan-Manitoba border is the home base of Aberhart farms.   

Terry Aberhart: So we farm canola, wheat, malted barley, a few other crops like pulses… [fades under] 

SM: Giving us the tour today is Terry Aberhart. 

TA: This last year, we farmed 18,873 acres. 

SM: And it looks how you’d expect a grain farm to look in the off season. There’s large storage bins, a farm dog running through the snow and parked behind the workshop is some heavy machinery.

TA: So, these are the combines. It’ll harvest you know, a couple thousands of bushels of wheat in an hour. We utilize tools and real time sensors. And I can see on my phone, you know, where the combines are and how much they're harvesting… [fades under]  

SM: Terry is the Chief Officer of Future Growth at Aberhart farms and as you can maybe tell, he's a bit of a nerd.  

TA: Yeah, for sure. I think most farmers are nerds in some ways. And there is an incredible amount of science and technology involved in agriculture, that's what makes it so much fun. And unfortunately, I think many people don't realize that.  

SM: Because even though Aberhart farms may at first seem like any other farm, they are at the cutting edge of using technology to run a more sustainable operation.  Terry also runs an agriculture consulting firm, a fertilizer distribution company and even co-hosts a podcast called Growing the Future. All focused on sustainability in agriculture. He’s our guest today to talk about just that. He’ll tell us more about the advanced tools he uses and is helping to develop to make farming less resource intensive. As well as the hurdles he sees in implementing these practices on a wider scale. And he’ll talk about the public perceptions of sustainability in agriculture vs the reality.  

TA: We grow some of the safest, lowest carbon impact, climate impact commodities in the entire world here in Canada. But we’re not telling a very good story about that.  

SM: I’m Stephen Meurice and this is Perspectives. 

All right, Terry, thanks a lot for taking the time to join us. Really appreciate it.

TA: Really glad to be here.

SM: So, we heard you give a little tour in the intro there, but maybe you can start by telling us a bit more about your farm.

TA: Yeah, Aberhart Farms is kind of the core, the hub of all the businesses that we work with. And we try to be quite progressive in how we utilize technology, precision farming, our business mindset and planning. Like many farms, it is a family farm started in 1967 with my grandpa and grandma moving here. I live in the house that I grew up in. I kicked my mom and dad off the farm. They moved to Russell. 

SM: [laughs]

TA: And that's where we are now. And it sounds like, you know, my son might be kicking us out at some point in the future. So, he thinks he might be taking over this ship in the future. We'll see what happens. But yeah, it's a family-owned farm. We became partners with my mom and dad in 2000 and now they've kind of been transitioned, so they're still part of the leadership in the overall direction of the farm but we are incorporated. We run the business as a corporation, but it's family based and that's one of the core values of our business is family-first. And our kind of ‘why,’ our purpose of the farm is growing our future. So, what that means for us is just making things better. Looking how to utilize technology and science to continually improve and there's no other industry, I believe, more than agriculture that's more concerned about the next generations and passing that on and doing things in the best way to preserve that for future generations. So that's a lot of our focus as well.

SM: Right. So let's get into that a little bit. I mean, the word sustainability is tossed around all over the place in agriculture and everywhere else. So how do you define sustainability? What does it mean for you from a family farm perspective or an agriculture perspective more broadly?

TA: Yeah, I mean, sustainability is a very well used word and term and I think there's a lot of definitions around it. But in my opinion, you know, sustainability is about that continual improvement, ensuring that something is sustainable for the long term and not only sustainable, but continually improving. And that should encompass a lot of factors. So, when we think about the farm and the family, it's got to be about the soil. The soil is the basis of everything that we do. And so, if we destroy our soils, it takes 10,000 years to build the soil. I hope to have a lot of time in life, but not that much time. 

SM: [laughs]

TA: A business also can't be sustainable if it's not profitable. And I think that's something that gets lost. It doesn't matter whether it's a farm or you're making Pepsi, you need to also have profits in order to sustain and to grow and to invest back in the business. So for us, it's really about looking at what do we need to do today in order to be successful and profitable and reinvest? What can we learn to continually improve? And how can we find ways as agriculture specifically to help solve some of those world problems and issues? And recently I was reading a report about how the opportunity for agriculture through practices and how they implement what we grow, we can be about 34% of the solution of some of the things that need to be solved with climate change and carbon and stuff like that. So, I think that we have a great opportunity in agriculture to help. 

SM: Right. So what has that been sort of in practice on your own farm? How have your processes changed or evolved as you made a decision, I guess, to try and be more sustainable?

TA: Yeah, there's a few different areas. Really, it starts by measuring, right. You can’t manage what you don't measure. And so, we soil test our fields every year. We break our fields into different management zones through precision farming, and we try to apply only what is needed in those areas. And so, things like implementing precision agriculture programs, we reduce many times the overall amount of input that we need and we increase output because we're putting those things where they're going to get the most value or most returns. So, fertilizer, we create improvements there and we track that year over year, we can track are we improving organic matter or are we mining it? Are we improving phosphorus levels or are we mining it? Other things like chemical and fungicide use – we look at other ways where we can take images of the field and identify the best parts of the field we know will have a good response to a fungicide application. There's also other areas of the field that are poor or won't get a benefit from that. We've proved that through research, so why would we apply something that we're not getting a benefit of? And I think at times, you know, agriculture can be painted as a bad guy in some of these situations. But the reality is no farm wants to spend any more money on inputs than they need to. And fertilizer for a farm is like food for your family. So, we're looking at how do we use better food to feed our crops. One of the examples of that is all crops need sulfur. And so, we use an elemental sulfur fertilizer that we distribute through our Aberhart Ag Solutions Company called bio-sul, which is compost mixed with base pad elemental sulfur. And so, the manufacturer is taking what used to be a waste stream that would go into a landfill and combining them together into a circular economy, sustainable product that we can put back under the crop to grow that food again. So, there's things like that we're looking at what inputs can we use that have a more positive impact for the environment? And then the other pillar of that is how do we utilize technology to do things in a better way? So, one of the more recent things that we've been involved in was a project with Precision AI out of Regina and the Protein Canada Supercluster, where we were developing their green-on-green sense and spray drone technology. So you fly the drone over the field, it can measure what is a weed and what is your crop. Very, very high level data AI analysis and then come up with a map of application where you would only turn that nozzle on and the sprayer to spray the weed and not the bare dirt or the crop and potentially save anywhere from, you know, 60, 70, 80% chemical reduction, right. So, if we can utilize technology in that – we know nobody wants chemical on their food, right, wrong or otherwise, farmers don't want to spend any more money on chemical than we need to. So, technologies like that are coming down the pipe and being accelerated rapidly, implementing those type of things is to do the right thing and to have a more positive impact on the environment.

SM: When you talk about precision farming, is that bringing together all of those things that you just talked about, the science, the technology, with a view to making yourself both more efficient and more sustainable? Is that what precision farming refers to? Or is there a more specific definition of it than that? 

TA: Well, I think there's probably a few definitions for precision farming, but for me it's about putting the right thing in the right place to get that maximum return. And precision farming is one large area of focus, but there's other things like cover crops and other tools that can be used to preserve the soil and increase carbon sequestration. But on the precision farming side, really, it's kind of identifying where do we get the most return, where is the most efficiency out of either inputs applied and or outputs because it makes a difference to our bottom line. And so, the combines that we're using today are more efficient. They burn less fuel per acre because of the technology that's being used. So, one of the things that we've also done through that analysis is getting all the yield data and understanding what areas of the field are producing profitably and what areas aren't. And some of those areas that aren't in our part of the world are saline. They're poor areas of the field that sometimes don't produce any crop. And so, when we look at that analysis, we found that we were actually losing money by farming some of those marginal acres, and we were able to identify if we remove them from crop production and put them into something like hay or a salt tolerant crop. We could make a small amount of money, we actually remove that poor area from the good part of the land and produce more there, which is more profitable and more efficient. And then we're not continuing to apply inputs in these areas that are saline, that are higher in salt, and the crop doesn't grow. And so, if we continue to put more fertilizer on there, we actually compound the problem and make it worse over time. So really simple things like that, we farm that area in a different way and in a way that actually improves that soil over time. Sometimes things are really, really, really simple concepts to implement. We just need to have the data to understand what that looks like.

SM: Yeah, maybe sort of a simple concept, but all of the things that you've mentioned over the last few minutes, whether it's the use of AI, the use of drones, the science behind the analysis of soil or all the other things that you talk about, it sounds like a farmer today has to be a scientist, technologist, computer specialist all at same time.

TA: Absolutely. I mean, the level of science and technology that operates within agriculture today is, and has always been that way, but is truly astounding. And I think a lot of people don't understand that. I think there's a lot of that vision of I should have showed up with my coveralls and a straw sticking out of the side of my mouth.

SM: [laughs]

TA: And riding on an open cap tractor or something. But when we have people even from town, come and look at the level of technology that the tractors steer themselves down the field and turn themselves around at the end of the field. And there's different maps and rates of products changing and turning on and off and even individual nozzles on a sprayer. I mean, we could spray your Scotia logo into our field and take a picture of it from a drone if we wanted. The level of technology and accuracy within agriculture today is astounding. And I think that's a wonderful thing. But most of the world doesn't realize how advanced farming is.

SM: How well entrenched or well adopted is precision farming or is there an opportunity for growth there really both within Canada and globally?

TA: Yeah, there's huge opportunity for growth. I mean, I wouldn't know exactly the stats on the adoption of precision ag, but it's probably somewhere between 10 and 20 or 25% of farms. A lot of the more progressive farms are implementing that at a higher rate. And a lot of those farms do make up probably a little bit larger part of the production. But even something as simple as soil testing every year, I think is only done by 15 or 20% of farms, which is really hard to believe.

SM: Oh, really?

TA: You know, from my agronomic background in a sense. But there's much more work and opportunity to do. What's required to make that happen more is probably more education, more reward. Like a lot of times, I think as farmers, we feel like, well, we're expected to do all these things or change all these things, but it takes time, resources, money, energy, all those things that maybe there's not an abundance of on the farm. And then if we feel like, ‘Well, we just have to do more and more to get the same thing.’ That's not necessarily fair. So that's a little bit of the feeling. But the reality is there's a lot more that we can do. Most farms are very, very intelligent, savvy, we're smart people. And if you show a farmer a business case around implementing this and why it's better and what the result will be, they'll do it if they can see that. So, part of it is us as farmers sharing that with each other, sharing our knowledge to lift all boats.

SM: Right. In terms of that difference between the perception that non-farming people or urban people might have versus the reality of what you do, what are people missing? What are they getting wrong about what the agriculture sector is doing in the sustainability space?

TA: I think some of what's missing is just that understanding. I mean, the reality is 2% of the population or something like that is directly involved in agricultural production, right? So, there's a large disconnect there. I think one of the challenges is in all honesty, as farmers in agriculture, we've done a poor job of telling that story. And conversations like this is something that we need to do more often. And I used to be in the mindset a little bit, and I think a lot of farmers are in this mindset is this, ‘I don't care about politics and policy and I'm never going to change what the consumer thinks anyway. So I just want to go and do my job and feed my family and make sure my farm is sustainable in the future.’ But, the reality is we've realized in doing that we're not telling our story. When you're not telling your story, somebody else is. And maybe it's not the right story. And we've become largely disconnected. And so, I think that somehow we need to figure out ways to connect back to the consumer. One of the things that we've been working on is a food ingredient label called Pristine Ingredients. And this was developed through our project with Precision AI. And so, if we can prove that we reduced chemical use in a significant way and we've reduced the amount that may be in that food that's produced, we produce a more pristine ingredient, farmers should be recognized for that. And this is what the consumers are looking for. And so, I’ve become really passionate about that over time because through our agronomy business and how we do things, I know that we grow crops more efficiently with less water, with less nitrogen applied and those kind of things. And these are the things that I believe the consumer is looking for and the consumer cares about and wants to know. And everyone's trying to solve this problem. But, there hasn't been a clear conduit to connect to that consumer and show them that this was done in a better way or in a way that's moving things forward. And so, we're looking at how do we create climate-smart commodity tracking? How do we baseline where a farm is at today and drive continual improvements over time? And so, we did some analysis on a couple of crops that we grew on our own farm, and they were both canola crops seeded at the same time. One was on land that we've been managing for a long time in the way that we do things with all the technology and the science. Another was on new land that we took on that hadn't been farmed with those methods and of course the land that had been farmed with these methods produce more grain. When we boil it down to the amount of nitrogen applied, it was 40% less nitrogen applied per unit of output. It had half the chemical load per unit of output because it only needed to be sprayed once because the crop was healthier and cleaner and was growing better and things like that. And it used 20% less water. Those things should matter. And that's just from the difference in management practices. And so, we need to do a better job of sharing that there are other practices that are very beneficial and are more efficient and are helping achieve the things that we need to achieve to curb climate change and be sustainable and meet those consumer demands and ensure that the food that they feed their families has been grown in the best way possible. We grow some of the safest, lowest carbon impact, climate impact commodities in the entire world here in Canada. But we're not telling a very good story about that.

SM: And what about within the industry? When you talk about sustainability, is that met with enthusiasm or people rolling their eyes or? 

TA: Yeah, there's probably a large range there. But I would say generally speaking, every farm, every ag producer is very passionate about the sustainability of their operations long term. I guess again, it comes back to the culture. I can guarantee you every farmer thinks about passing that down to the next generation. Anything that we can do to improve our crops, improve our soils, improve our production, there's nobody else that's more connected to the land either. I go out every day when I have time and I walk in our pasture and I scout fields in the summertime, like we have a clear direction and connection to the land and environment, more so probably than anybody. So, I think, yeah, the answer is people generally really care. I think we also at times get frustrated by what those definitions mean. We're all still trying to figure out carbon and how do we measure it and how do we make a difference. But there is other things like water use, nitrogen use, amount of chemical applied that are clear and measurable and we can benchmark and improve today to move forward. So yeah, I think it matters. I think we're still all figuring out how to clearly define that and move things forward for the greater good.

SM: Right. So earlier this year you took part in some roundtable discussions that Scotiabank hosted with agriculture clients across the country, trying to better understand the sustainability challenges that agriculture producers face. And I know you shared some insights of your own for a report that was published recently. Can you maybe talk a little bit about some of the hurdles that you've faced or that you think the sector faces when trying to implement sustainable practices on your farm? 

TA: Some of the challenges are just time and resources and support. I mean, farmers are busy people with lots on the go, right? And so sometimes there needs to be an incentive to move forward. A lot of these things, in the long run, are more profitable and better for the farm, but a farmer needs to see that and understand that before he's going to take the time and effort to implement something. So, there's always those people on the leading edge or bleeding edge that kind of take all the pain to figure it out. But a lot of times it's having the right resources, the coaching, the agronomists or the tools to implement some of these things. Some of the challenges are, does that make sense? I mean, there's been lots of talk around the fertilizer reduction targets. What I see as something, it gets back to the other things that we talked about, but we need to somehow start working all together for the greater good. When things feel like they’re, say, pushed down through regulation onto the farm, normally there's quite a bit of resistance to that. Maybe it's a great thing, but farms come from a very rugged individualism. Like we came over here and got a little chunk of land and built a sod house and started farming and surviving right where we come from, a culture that's not really in tune with being told what to do in a sense. But that being said, we need to get more involved and have more conversations and converge these different industries and objectives together so we can be part of developing those solutions. And then that's part of what we're trying to figure out is how do we help be part of building those things? I think those are some of the challenges that we got to figure out. There's a few things that all of us share in common. We all put food into our bodies. It doesn't matter where you live or what you do or where you're from. You all put food into your bodies. Otherwise we wouldn't survive. We all probably care about the quality and the safety of that food that's going into our bodies and we all care about the sustainability and the health of the planet. That's the reality. And I think there's some really passionate, smart people out there that are trying to find ways to connect, to tell the story and come up with solutions that can help move us all forward.

SM: All right. Just a couple more questions for you, Terry. It sounds like running a farm, it's always a challenging enterprise to be involved in lots of long hours and long days. When you add in the challenges of trying to do that sustainably, does it make it doubly hard or is it just different?

TA: Yeah, I don't feel that it makes it twice as hard, and I don't know if it adds that much additional challenge. The challenges on the farm today is to continue to keep up to the pace of change, to be able to learn as fast as you can and fail as fast as you can. And for us, we really focus on creating an environment where we have people that really care about the business that we're doing and we want to be able to support them and their families. I think that people are what makes the world go round and our most valuable resource. And so that's something that we really focus on. I've always believed the culture of agriculture is an amazing place to be, and even people that have had the opportunity to come from different areas of industry and start working on agriculture, they're always exuberant about the culture and how friendly people are and how much they care about what they're doing and each other. And so, I think that our biggest challenges are changing our mindset to you're not really competing against your neighbour. That’s not what I look at. Our challenges are how do we keep doing what we're doing and meet the consumer demands, how do we keep doing what we're doing and find ways to help solve the climate issues and environmental issues that are being brought to us? We have to remember as well that we're not only feeding our families here in Canada, we're feeding the world. We need to figure out this challenge of continuing to do these things in a better way, but also providing that food security for those that don't have that luxury of choice. Because they're not something I can solve on my own, they're not something you can solve or these different angles on their own are going to be able to fix without collaboration.

SM: One final question for you, do you think your kids will carry on with the farm? 

TA: That's a good question. I've got six kids, so I mean, I got quite a few chances to have one stick around.

SM: [laughs] Terry, thanks so much for taking the time to speak with us today and showing us around the farm. 

TA: Thanks so much, it’s been an honour and a pleasure being on the podcast with you today. 
 
SM: I’ve been speaking with Terry Aberhart, Chief Officer of Future Growth at Aberhart Farms.