Canadian farmers slow to warm to AI, automation

Standing onstage in an ornate conference room at the Delta Bessborough Hotel in downtown Saskatoon, former Saskatchewan premier Dr. Grant Devine pitched the agri-food industry on a new idea: a wheat tube. More specifically, a hypothetical hyperloop Devine says could fire shipments of wheat from Moose Jaw to Langley, B.C. at hundreds of kilometres an hour. He says students at the University of Saskatchewan, where he is a professor, had priced the idea at around $18 billion. "You'd load it like you would any other hopper car, load it in the capsule and -- zoom! -- it's out there in a matter of hours," Devine said. Dr. Grant Devine speaks at the AIC2019 conference in Saskatoon, SK on Wednesday, November 6, 2019.