30 It’s Farming. And It’s Better. Better Farming | December 2023 UNPu tCrLiOeSnEt L o s s tions of the family. What do you like about AALP? There’s so much that it has to offer and that includes professional development, leadership training and gaining a better understanding of the agriculture space as a whole. For professional development, you get a better understanding of board governance and how government relations and public relations work. For leadership training, there are opportunities to go through leadership style assessments and learn best practices to improve leadership on and off the farm. AALP will also broaden my perspectives of agriculture by providing opportunities to visit farms and organizations tangent to agriculture. The most valuable thing to me is the opportunity to network – the caliber of people you get to work with and the areas of ag they represent are unmatched. It’s really beneficial to build that network to find opportunities to work together and bounce ideas off each other. Who are your farming mentors? I have to point back to my dad and my uncle. They have been absolutely instrumental in transferring their knowledge of plants and the business side of the operation. And if you asked them, I’m sure they’d point to past generations as well. What advice would you give other young farmers? Do what you love, but also love what you do. If you’re going to succeed in agriculture, you have to have a passion for the work being done. There is a lot of stress, long days and things that go wrong, so you should have that passion before you jump in. But I also don’t think you should be afraid to jump in. There are a ton of things that are great about working in agriculture, but it can be easy to find yourself in a mire of negatives as well. It is important to make sure you don’t get stuck in that mire and remind yourself to love what you do; to take the time to remind yourself why you love farming, to find satisfaction in the work itself and remember the vital role farmers fill in society. How do you think the industry will change during your career? I think the ag industry as a whole will shift drastically. More specifically, in the greenhouse sector, you can see many of these shifts are already beginning. More and more you see adoption of advanced sensors – things like monitoring the temperature of leaves and stem diameter throughout the day. This not only improves conventional growing practices now, but also gives more data points that can be used by AI (artificial intelligence) to further boost growing practices. These AI technologies can compile the tremendous amount of data produced by the network of sensors. Adoption of these new technologies is already beginning, and as they get more advanced, the trend will continue. Given the struggle with labour, I think there will be more and more adoption of robotics as well. Robotic harvesting, advanced automation, and other labour-saving measures are being developed and the pressure to fill voids in labour supply will drive innovation. Finally, I think that while there will always be a role for human interaction, the industry will shift more to focusing on how to operate a business rather than the day-to-day tasks. BF The view down the walkway of one of the cucumber greenhouses. Jennelle Vander Hout photo
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