Digging deeper: CANZA’s latest $4M ag tech project is a case study in collaboration

We are combining academic rigour with market and producer needs in this unique public-private partnership.

By implementing climate-smart farming practices, like storing carbon in their soil, farmers and producers across Canada have the ability to play a significant role in tackling climate change.

Many are already implementing these practices on their farms, but the challenges of measuring soil carbon can be costly and time-consuming for farmers, creating barriers to adopting and maintaining these climate-smart practices. In collaboration with a range of partners, our CANZA Solution Space is eager to tackle these barriers and develop solutions that work for farmers, producers, and climate too.

Last month, CANZA announced a $4M innovative ag tech project that will develop tools and processes to help farmers measure the impact of their climate-smart farming practices. This four-year project will unlock economic opportunities for farmers and create the kinds of positive climate outcomes we’re looking to scale across all of our work. 

This groundbreaking (pun intended) project is not only a powerful step toward the transformation of our agri-food system, it’s a meaningful example of the kind of work we do across all of our Solution Spaces at Generate Canada. By bringing the right people together, we’re able to fill critical gaps in the solutions ecosystem-–gaps that only collaboration across multiple sectors and value chains can address. 

“We see this project as a building block in our strategy to transition more acres in Canada to climate-smart agriculture,” says Barb Swartzentruber, Senior Advisor at CANZA. “It’s projects like this that can scale opportunities for farmers and support the kinds of supply-chain transitions that need to happen to accelerate change.”

So, how does a project like this take shape? What does it look like to take an idea like this from the research phase to the field? And who needs to be involved to make it happen? 

What’s the problem?

In 2023, CANZA was founded to help Canada feed a growing population while reducing emissions, becoming more sustainable, and creating new economic opportunities for Canada’s agri-food system. 

Among several priorities upon launching, one of CANZA’s areas of focus was working with farmers to help them implement climate-smart farming practices. These are practices that not only result in better climate outcomes, but can put money in the pockets of farmers too. 

The CANZA team worked with our partners at the Smart Prosperity Institute (SPI) who conducted research on existing technologies and barriers that farmers experienced when looking at adopting these practices, and a challenge emerged. The current methods of tracking the impact of climate-smart farming practices, like measuring carbon in the soil, were not always accurate, some were very expensive, and others were too complex or time-consuming to be practical.

“Our research enabled us to get to the bottom of questions like, what tools already exist that we can test and scale? What barrier could new technologies mitigate if we have more streamlined and better technology? And how would this make participation easier and more cost-effective for farmers?” says Ryan Tougas-Cooke, a Senior Research Associate at SPI whose research contributed to CANZA’s initial projects. 

With this knowledge in hand, CANZA decided to focus its efforts on creating a simple and cost-effective measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) framework that will increase the ability of farmers to be rewarded for the carbon sequestered by their practices. 

CANZA and SPI worked with the University of Guelph and the University of Saskatchewan to launch two pilot projects to test MRV technology in Manitoba and Saskatchewan throughout 2023-24. 

The results of the pilots? Insights into the technology’s effectiveness, accuracy, and scalability that allowed the team to think even bigger. 

For example, technologies introduced in the pilots reduced the number of soil samples needed without compromising the quality of data, resulting in lowering the average sampling costs per acre. It’s anticipated that this project will reduce the overall cost of soil sampling by at least 50%, with the cost expected to go down as the technology continues to develop and scale.

It’s not easy, but we can grow it together

With the success of the pilot projects, it was clear the MRV framework could be expanded upon and implemented in more locations. But, in order to scale the work, CANZA knew it needed to engage multiple stakeholders who could bring different perspectives, connections, knowledge, and funds to the table to fuel the next phase of this work. 

“This project is unique in that it’s a collaboration between researchers, technology experts, a number of corporate partners, non-profits, and farmers,” says Swartzentruber. “This project pulls all of these folks together to push the leading edge of what’s possible around measuring soil carbon and finding a way to reward farmers for the ecosystem services they provide.”

By approaching the right partners whose interests aligned with the work, the CANZA team was able to secure the funds and expertise needed to take the work to the next level. 

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) is supporting the project by providing up to $2 million in funding through its Agriculture Clean Technology Program–Research and Innovation Stream. And in addition to this, Maple Leaf Foods and Nutrien, two of CANZA’s founding partners, are matching this funding for a total of $4 million. University of Guelph, University of Saskatchewan, SoilTeck, and TheoryMesh are also serving as partners on this project. 

“This is very much a made-in-Canada approach,” says Swartzentruber. “Currently, there isn’t a comprehensive yet cost-effective, and simple-to-use solution like this uniquely developed for Canada. We are combining academic rigour with market and producer needs in this unique public-private partnership.” 

Bringing these players together has not only contributed to the launch of this project, but it also supports CANZA’s ‘Climate-Smart Agriculture Accelerator’ workstream, which drives investment and solutions that de-risk, reward, and catalyze farmers’ climate-smart practices.

This includes developing an environmental outcomes marketplace in Canada that will enable farmers to lower the risk of taking part in climate-smart farming practices by accessing things like cost-share funding and opportunities to build and share knowledge. Companies can also benefit from the development of an environmental outcomes marketplace, as it will enable them to confidently invest in incentives that transition acres to climate-smart practices, strengthen the resiliency of their supply chains, and help achieve their emissions reductions goals

“A single company or organization can’t solve this problem on their own,” says Swartzentruber. “It’s a real chicken and egg situation. If MRV technology is too expensive for farmers, they won’t use it. And if they won’t use it, then there isn’t data to support a vibrant market where farmers can monetize their soil carbon storage and other ecosystem services.”

This paradox is the exact sort of wicked problem that Generate Canada and our Solution Spaces were built to tackle. By convening different players to build and transform markets at scale, we can overcome this paradox and move to a place where we can attract innovation, capital, and the wicked solutions we need to accelerate change.

This kind of project is exciting because it can benefit the farmers and producers in a way that will help them unlock possibilities for support

From seats in the boardroom to boots on the ground

While collaborating with academics, non-profits, and businesses is vital to scale this kind of work, there’s one partner who is at the core of this project—farmers. 

“This kind of project is exciting because it can benefit the farmers and producers in a way that will help them unlock possibilities for support,” says Tracey Ryan, Project Director, Innovation at CANZA. “Opportunities like this where we can work together to co-create solutions for farmers and producers is something we’re really happy to be a part of.”

Involving farmers—like pilot project participant Kristjan Hebert from Hebert Grain Ventures—in the development of solutions to the barriers they are facing is crucial. Even with strong research and corporate support in place, if farmers aren’t engaged and invited to provide honest feedback on the processes being introduced, it can all be for naught. 

For example, during the pilot projects, farmers provided feedback that while some of the new MRV processes were financially beneficial, they were too time-consuming or stressful for them to consider implementing. This was valuable information for the CANZA team to learn so they were able to make changes to processes in order to have a real impact. 

We’re leaving the gate wide open

By the end of this project, CANZA and its collaborators expect to have developed a regionally relevant, cost-effective, scalable MRV system that can be shared with farmers across the country. 

The key word here is ‘share.’ 

In the spirit of advancing technology and systems that can benefit farmers and increase the uptake of climate-smart farming practices, we aren’t in the habit of gatekeeping our successes. 

“We’re trying to advance the whole ecosystem,” says Ryan. “Our work with this project is not going to be proprietary. We’re going to share as much as we can in an open-source way so that other people can replicate it.”

And this is what it all comes down to. Our successes in this work are everyone’s successes, and these successes are for the benefit of farmers, communities, and Canada’s entire agri-food system.

“When you convene such a cross-sectoral partnership, which is what CANZA and Generate Canada are all about, it means that you have to bring people along by creating a very clear and shared vision,” says Swartzentruber. 

It’s this shared vision that has the potential to unlock solutions that simply cannot be developed alone. 

Stay tuned to CANZA’s website for updates on this exciting project as it moves forward.