The agricultural sector may not be seen as a high-tech innovation hub, but a new generation of growers specializing in Canada鈥檚 new star crop are looking to overhaul the industry with digital record-keeping and analysis.
Like many traditional crops, cannabis requires careful monitoring of growing conditions like exposure and water intake. But, in order to be licensed cannabis producers, growers are required to follow stringent regulatory requirements that require careful data tracking.
Enter Elevated Signals鈥攁 Vancouver-area startup that has developed software to track cannabis crops at all levels, monitoring potency, yield, and growing conditions.
鈥淲e鈥檙e painting the picture of how each cannabis patch is grown from seed through to harvest,鈥� Elevated Signals CEO Amar Singh told CTV News.
The company is testing its system by manually capturing every ounce of cannabis cultivation and production at B.C.鈥檚 Tantalus Labs. By inputting each plant鈥檚 development into the digital platform, the software is able to make suggestions to adjust variables for better results.
"Digital transformation has barely hit traditional agriculture,鈥� said Singh. 鈥淲ith cannabis being a new industry, having been grown in an underground setting for many, many years, tech companies never really entered this space. We鈥檙e one of the first.鈥�
But this type of technology doesn鈥檛 just ensure quality cannabis. It helps ensure small and medium sized growers like Tantalus remain viable.
鈥淭here are some large companies that have benefitted substantial funding from public markets, but there are very few cannabis firms that are actually profitable today,鈥� said Dan Sutton, CEO of Tantalus Labs.
鈥淭his is a nascent business and we need to approach it with as tight of a degree of control and as tight of a degree of understanding as we can so that we can really make sure that there is a long sustainable business here.鈥�
Although Elevated Signals focuses on cannabis specifically, its creators say this type of technology would greatly impact that agricultural industry at large.
鈥淯sing the cannabis industry as a vehicle because it has such interest and capital behind it, that鈥檚 going to drive forward agricultural technology in other industries,鈥� said Singh.
