Winter Farm raises $46M to scale up its production and position itself amongst the leaders of the global vertical farming industry

Dec 13, 2022

Winter Farm, the Quebec-based company whose aim is to replace 10% of Canada's strawberry imports, announces today that it has raised $46 million. This major milestone was achieved thanks to the renewed commitment from the Quebec Government and Investissement Québec, and the addition of new investors (Desjardins, Farm Credit Canada, Financière Agricole du Québec and Capital Financière Agricole Inc., as well as two private partners). Winter Farm will use this funding to build one of the world's most important vertical farm dedicated to strawberry production. The Vaudreuil site will ensure that nearly one million kilograms of succulent Fraise d'hiver strawberries will reach the market each year.

In the coming months, six 600 m2 vertical farms will be added to two existing farms already in operation. These installations will allow Winter Farm to produce high quality strawberries year long, right here in Quebec, while using 20 to 25 times less space compared to open field production, recovering 90% of irrigation water used and generating minimal greenhouse gases. In order to realize this project in Vaudreuil, Winter Farm announces the acquisition of Les Serres Vaudreuil, formely owned by the St-Denis family, who will now manage operations and production of Fraise d'hiver strawberries. The family will continue to lend their expertise to local agriculture.

"The arrival of new partners is a vote of confidence in favour of Winter Farm's industrial potential and our ability to deliver superior quality fruit. Innovation is key to develop a more sustainable and competitive local agriculture that can challenge import markets. Our thanks to the St-Denis family for teaming up with us on this adventure. Their involvement will directly contribute to making Vaudreuil a world-class technology showcase for the vertical farming industry!", said Alain Brisebois, President and Chief Executive Officer, Winter Farm.

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Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators