A new collaboration between Canada’s leader in applied horticulture research and innovation Vineland and INO, the nation’s largest technology centre in optics and photonics will make innovative automation technology available for Canadian mushroom and greenhouse cucumber growers.
The collaboration is bringing together Vineland Research and Innovation Centre (Vineland) in Ontario and INO to develop new robotic harvesting solutions to help Canadian growers be more efficient and productive while offering relief from labour shortages.
“Addressing labour challenges in horticulture through automation is a key priority for Vineland, and this new collaborative relationship with INO will play a significant role in helping us advance automation technologies for the sector,” says Phillip Stephan, Vice President of Business & Client Development, Vineland. “We are looking forward to harnessing INO’s expertise in vision technology for the benefit of Canadian growers.”
“Food autonomy and the buy-local movement are the future way of living and producers need innovative solutions to meet demand. Our collaboration with Vineland is targeted to our mission: to help businesses to be more productive and competitive. With vision and detection technologies, we hope to offer new solutions for labour shortages and farming process automatization to Canadian growers in a near future,” says Louis Martel, Vice President Business Development and Partnership.
INO has the most extensive optics and photonics expertise in the country and the know-how to develop vision systems dedicated for harvesting robots and Vineland focuses on a coordinated approach to innovation by bringing together expertise and technologies from various sectors to create commercial-ready solutions for horticulture.
Vineland is home to Canada’s Automation Cluster under the Canadian Agricultural Partnership supported by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.