As the name of his Rocky Mountain House business suggests, Sheldon Rice hunts for water, and most of the time he locates it. WaterFind uses electroseismology, which employs electromagnetic and seismic signals to pinpoint underground water sources for wells on acreages, ranches, dryland and irrigated farms and feedlots. It’s a modified version of the same technology used to locate oil and gas deposits.

Leonard Retzlaff of Saddleridge Farming bets sunlight will help stabilize the family farm’s income. Located near Rosemary, the farm is operated by Retzlaff, his father Ralph and brothers Philip and Luke. The family raises purebred Charolais cattle, custom backgrounds beef cattle, produces pedigreed alfalfa seed supported by leafcutter bees and grows canola, corn, wheat and winter rye. All their cropland is irrigated with pivots, which require a significant supply of electricity, one of the main reasons the family pursued solar power generation.

Launched in 2001 by three ambitious New Zealand scientists, AbacusBio is an agricultural science and tech consultancy whose sole purpose is to help ag businesses and farmer organizations maximize their research investments. The company creates custom strategies, systems and platforms built on genomic and genetic data to optimize crop and livestock breeding, business operations and value chain performance. It helps clients make sense of massive, complex data sets across multiple interconnected facets of agricultural business and production. “There is often a gap between the academic and the business sides of agriculture,” said John Crowley, managing director of AbacusBio Canada. “We can walk between the two.

Just as you test drive a car before you buy, a new program is focused on the testing and adoption of emerging ag technology. Launched in May 2026, the Agriculture Innovation, Validation and Adoption Network (AIVA) was founded by Farm Credit Canada (FCC), the Enterprise Machine Intelligence & Learning Initiative (EMILI) and the Wabash Heartland Innovation Network. The network is a standardized testing system that supports both innovators and farmers by validating new farm technology products.

Byproducts of the beer making process such as malting barley rootlets are increasingly being used as food ingredients. A team of students from the University of Manitoba have made these sprouts the star ingredient of a chocolate bar.

In markets, no plan can control time. There is a marketing adage that in the long run, we’re all dead. Broadly speaking, the longer the time frame, the greater the market uncertainty. By its nature, farming is challenged by both liquidity and time concerns.

Farmland is sacred, just ask a farmer. Historically, when land changed hands, it was a simple process: Farmer A sold land to Farmer B. However, in the last 20 or so years, a curious trend has emerged. As the farm economy has risen, so has the financial potential of the land as an investment vehicle. The ownership details of Canadian farmland are hard to quantify and lately have generated anger, speculation and plenty of conversation across the Prairies.

Most farms evolve on their own, but the five farm families in the Bow Island area that make up Quattro Ventures chose to grow together to take advantage of collaborative opportunities, economies of scale and shared vision. They chose a unique business model that has merged their farm operations.

For years the North American beer industry has contended with a gradual downturn. Since 2019, beer sales have dropped 11 per cent. According to Beer Canada, 2025 domestic beer sales were down 2.4 per cent compared to 2024. For imported beer, the decline was noticeably steeper, as Canadians drank 8.6 per cent less such beers in 2025 versus a year prior.

Initiated in July 2025, the V6 Odyssey port terminal project is billed as “Canada’s first low-carbon, enhanced efficiency fertilizers and commercial phosphate fertilizer terminal.” Situated on the Saint Lawrence River south of Ottawa, it’s a joint venture between V6 Agronomy and the Port of Johnstown. As it receives Prairie commodities such as durum wheat, lentils, potash and sulphur via CN Rail, it will send matchback railcars of phosphate and specialty fertilizers to the West.