The AI revolution is already reshaping Canada's agriculture sector

CALGARY — As new technologies are transforming the agriculture sector in Canada at a pace never before seen, agricultural technology entrepreneur and futurist Robert Saik has said that artificial intelligence (AI) “will be the new operating system for the world.”Speaking recently at the Convergence agricultural conference in Regina, Saik told attendees that AI is already shaping how crops are grown, how inputs and equipment are managed and how decisions are made.The Western Producer reports that Saik believes sensors, robotics, biological science and data systems are no longer advancing individually in isolation but are converging altogether at once.“The convergence of technology — sensors, AI, robotics, biology — slamming together, this is where we’re at today,” Saik said.“This is going to change all of our lives. It’s going to impact agriculture in many ways.”Saik — who has spent four decades working across farming, agronomy, precision agriculture, robotics and data systems — added that one of the most rapid areas of change he sees is in biology and genetics, where AI is accelerating crop breeding, trait discovery, and the development of biological crop protection products.“This is going to absolutely explode,” Saik said..Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada cuts multiple major research centres and 665 employees.Autonomous equipment is another major shift he says farmers should expect.While fully autonomous farms may still be years away, Saik said automation is already arriving through retrofits, robotics, drones and AI-guided machinery.“It’s not ‘if,’ it’s just ‘when’ autonomy hits your farm,” he said.Despite concerns that AI could replace human labour, Saik said that scenario is unlikely to happen on farms anytime soon.While AI excels at prediction and processing massive volumes of information, he stressed that judgment remains a human responsibility.“There’s two parts to a decision,” he said.“The first one is prediction — the assimilation of information and data — and the second part is judgment, and that’s the human factor.”Saik also warned against blindly trusting “black box” algorithms and emphasized the importance of human oversight.“If you’re going to get a lot of information assimilated and put together by AI, you better cross-check that to make sure it’s accurate,” he said.“AI will not function if the data is crap. It’s amazing, but it will not perform and do what you want it to do if the data stinks.”He cited inconsistent equipment data — including naming errors and formatting problems — as an example of how poor data can undermine advanced systems.Saik also questioned why proven technologies such as precision agriculture remain under-utilized across Western Canada..Survey finds Canadian agriculture sector sees opportunity despite U.S. challenges .Tools like real-time crop sensing, targeted spraying and AI-guided scouting are already delivering significant reductions in chemical use and input costs.“This technology is not expensive. We should be doing more,” he said.Agriculture accounts for roughly 7% of Canada’s GDP, and as global food demand continues to rise, pressure is growing to expand production efficiently and sustainably.That shift is already underway at Farm Credit Canada (FCC), the federal Crown corporation best known for providing financial support in the agricultural industry.ITBrief reports Mohamad Yaghi, FCC’s vice president of Innovation Hub and agExpert and his team are currently helping Canadian producers use software to improve yields and manage finances.Through FCC’s agExpert platform, used by more than 27,000 farmers nationwide, machine learning and decision-optimization tools already support accounting, field planning and financial modelling.Modern farms can generate massive datasets from tractors, soil sensors, weather systems and barn equipment.A single pass across a field can produce megabytes of data, while an entire growing season can collectively generate petabytes.While public attention is often focused on autonomous machinery, Yaghi believes the real transformation is happening through dashboards, forecasts and digital assistants which are tools that will play a critical role in helping producers navigate a more complex marketplace in the years to come.

The AI revolution is already reshaping Canada's agriculture sector

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