12 THE CAAR COMMUNICATOR TECHNOLOGIES TO WATCH There are some companies in Canada offering digital twin solutions for field trials in agriculture, including BASF Digital Farming, which has collaborated with Richardson International to deploy the Xarvio Field Manager in western Canada. Using Xarvio, agronomists from Richardson can provide more precise, field-specific crop management advice to growers during the season, such as early risk alert notifications for diseases like sclerotinia in canola, which they did in field trials during 2022–2023. The program allows agronomists to tailor variable application maps for specific customers based on field-specific data such as yield maps, soil maps, and historic biomass imagery from satellite data. Kepstrum Inc. is another Canadian company offering Digital Twin software that allows advanced engineering teams to generate physics-based stress-life models for new product developments. These models are verified through testing and validated by field data. By allowing farmers to create virtual replicas of their fields, Digital Twins tecnology plays an important role in precision agriculture. It will allow farmers to look at multiple factors and then make the best-informed decision(s). Digital Twin technology will enhance crop management, optimize resource utilization, and improve overall farm productivity. Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) Systems This writer often wonders just why there is such a reluctance to invest in a big machine that acts as a vacuum cleaner to suck all the bad stuff out of our atmosphere. CCUS (carbon capture, utilization, and storage) is a technology that has been around for a while—especially in Nordic Europe—but has yet to find many private entities willing to stick their neck out in Canada. Simply put, CCUS technologies help reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture and pretty much every type of industry emitting into the atmosphere. CCUS companies capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it. Some are in the business of converting the carbon dioxide gas into something useful that could aid in sustainability. In Iceland, Climeworks is well underway on completing its second commercial direct air capture and storage facility in the country, this one known as Mammoth. Its first, but smaller, plant is known as Orca. Along with storage partner Carbfix, Climeworks is set to increase its current carbon removal capacity from thousands of tons to tens of thousands of tons per year, eventually hitting one megaton capacity by 2030 and one gigaton capacity by 2050. And, in case you are wondering, a single gigaton is equal to one billion metric tons. The Mammoth facility should be online by May 2024, boasting a singular annual capacity of up to 36,000 tons of carbon dioxide. Okay, along with a lack of very deep Canadian pockets willing to invest in the technology, there are also regulatory compliance hoops to jump through and possibly public acceptance as there’s usually a “not-in-mybackyard” bleating. Still, note that the Canadian government has proposed an investment tax credit for capital that is invested in CCUS projects. Regardless of the method, the stated federal goal is to reduce emissions by at least 15 megatonnes of carbon dioxide annually. Cellular Agriculture and the Reality of Lab-Grown Meat “Hello, and welcome to The Professor’s Lab. Would you care for a Petrie dish of shank lamb or a beaker of Wagyu beef?” Sure, when it’s put that way, labgrown meat sounds unappetizing or appetizing, depending on how hungry you are now. But is it appetizing? Should we be so uptight about it? Until the 1980s, the average suburbanite only knew that beef came from a grocery store and that there was no such thing as lean or extra lean. It was juicy, fat-filled meat available. And the option of well-done—like during a trip to Ponderosa or The Red Barn—was very much acceptable. But consumer tastes changed. Meat needs to be pink or red when cooked. But can consumer tastes change again? Lab-grown meat is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a form of cellular agriculture where meat is produced by culturing animal cells in vitro (outside the body and in a Petrie dish or some other type of lab glassware). It’s produced using tissue engineering techniques that were pioneered in regenerative medicine. As for the term cellular agriculture, lest one think it’s about growing fruits or veggies in a lab, it’s not. It’s still about meat. It’s just a scientific method of producing proteins, fats, An example of See Less - stock.adobe.com
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