New Partnership Will Advance Automation for Greenhouse Vegetable Growers

Posted by Brian Sparks|April 21, 2021

A new collaboration between the Vineland Research and Innovation Centre in Canada and INO, the nation’s largest technology center in optics and photonics, will make innovative automation technology available for Canadian greenhouse cucumber growers.

The collaboration is bringing together the two organizations to develop new robotic harvesting solutions to help Canadian growers be more efficient and productive while offering relief from labor shortages.

“Addressing labor challenges in horticulture through automation is a key priority for Vineland, and this new collaborative relationship with INO will play a significant role in helping us advance automation technologies for the sector,” says Phillip Stephan, Vice President of Business & Client Development at Vineland. “We are looking forward to harnessing INO’s expertise in vision technology for the benefit of Canadian growers.”

“Food autonomy and the buy-local movement are the future way of living, and producers need innovative solutions to meet demand,” says Louis Martel, Vice President Business Development and Partnership at INO. “Our collaboration with Vineland is targeted to our mission: to help businesses be more productive and competitive. With vision and detection technologies, we hope to offer new solutions for labor shortages and farming process automatization to Canadian growers in a near future.”

INO has the most extensive optics and photonics expertise in Canada and the experience to develop vision systems dedicated for harvesting robots. Vineland focuses on a coordinated approach to innovation by bringing together expertise and technologies from various sectors to create commercial-ready solutions for horticulture.