Imagine a farm, with a barn sitting atop a lush, green pasture filled with chickens plucking away at the grass. Then, the barn starts to move on its own. The barn, it turns out, is a robot.
That’s Lentelus Farms, which has land in both Courtenay and Kelowna, BC, run by farmer Dave Semmelink. He has a robotic barn thanks to Innovate BC’s On-Farm Technology Adoption Program (BCOFTAP). The government agency announced this week that the program has awarded just over $4.5 million in grants to 80 farm projects across the province in the past year to help farmers acquire new tech.
BCOFTAP covers up to $100,000 for farmers to adopt novel technologies that save on labour, from autonomous crop propagation to monitoring cows’ locations with GPS.
BCOFTAP covers up to 65 percent of a farmer’s eligible project costs, up to $100,000, to adopt novel technologies that save on labour, from autonomous crop propagation to monitoring cows’ locations with GPS. A farmer identifies a piece of tech that could save them time and money, and applies for a grant to help with the upfront cost. The program is administered by Innovate BC, with funding from the governments of Canada and British Columbia, through the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership.
Before his self-sustaining robotic poultry pasture barn, manufactured by UKKÖ Robotics in Manitoba, Semmelink had to take an hour or so out of his day to fire up the tractor and move the grass-fed chicken enclosure himself. He told BetaKit over the phone on Wednesday that moving the barn allows the birds to enjoy fresher grass and disperse their manure more evenly across the field.
“They’re really excited every time the barn moves, because they want to run onto fresh grass and look for bugs and look for new [grass] to chow down on,” Semmelink said, adding the exercise is leading to happier chickens and better quality meat.
That freed-up time doesn’t mean less work; it just means more time for his butchery, slaughterhouse, farm market, and “beef operations.” Semmelink couldn’t take BetaKit’s first call because he was too busy “unloading cows.”
The UKKÖ Robotics’ ROVA|BARN 400. Images courtesy UKKÖ Robotics.
Like many farmers, Michel Van Eeklen also wears many hats. He’s experienced the BCOFTAP program as both a farmer and as a distributor through his company, M-Automation. He told BetaKit over the phone on Wednesday that he was first introduced to the program when his family was looking to purchase a “robotic laser weeder” for their vegetable farm near Abbotsford, BC.
They applied and received support for their purchase of a Robot One from the Dutch company Pixel Farming. The machine roams farmers’ fields and scans the budding crops. After the farmer identifies which of the scanned plants are weeds, the machine tracks down and vaporizes the weeds with its laser.
Van Eeklen estimated that the machine is saving him up to $60,000 per year on manual weed removal. He said it’s been a nice addition to the farm, especially since he finds BC is usually behind in adopting new farming tech. As a distributor, he’s also sold tech to BC farmers supported by the program.
BCOFTAP “helps balance it a little bit, in terms of getting technology onto farms in BC, it’s always been challenging to get that out here,” Van Eeklen said.
Van Eeklen said he found the application process for the program to be relatively straightforward compared to some other grant programs he’s applied for, while Semmelink said it was “a little bit more involved” than some of the others that he does. They both agreed, however, that those administering the program were very helpful in providing feedback on their applications.
“They’re just really easy to deal with, but very thorough, which I appreciated as a taxpayer,” Semmelink said with a chuckle. “[That’s] not always the case with government funding.”
Feature image courtesy Pixel Farming.