Weston Family Foundation Grants $20M To Support Domestic Food Production

TORONTO — The Weston Family Foundation has announced four Canadian teams selected for the Scaling Phase of the Homegrown Innovation Challenge, a $33 million initiative launched in 2022 to develop sustainable, domestic food production systems. This phase supports the development of year-round, cost-competitive berry production systems in Canada.

Each team will receive up to $5 million over three years to scale their solutions from concept to farm-level implementation. The goal is to demonstrate systems that can sustainably produce berries such as strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries year-round in Canada.

“Over the next three years, Scaling Phase teams will need to demonstrate large-scale implementation of their systems and prove market readiness. And most importantly, the berries need to be tasty and nutritious,” said Garfield Mitchell, chair of the Weston Family Foundation. “This is an exciting time for academia, industry, and government to come together to accelerate innovative, homegrown solutions to hyper-local food production in Canada.”

The following four teams were selected for the third phase:

• Simon Fraser University (Jim Mattsson): In partnership with BeriTech, the team is developing a greenhouse-based system for off-season production of multiple berry types using intercropping techniques and physiological crop manipulation.
• Toronto Metropolitan University (Habiba Bougherara & Lesley G. Campbell): This team is creating “MoFarm,” a modular vertical farming system focused on continuous raspberry production, featuring an autonomous pollination and air circulation system to address challenges in greenhouse pollination.
• Université Laval (Martine Dorais): The “VertBerry” system combines aeroponics and bioponics to produce strawberries and seedlings for various growing environments. It incorporates rootzone control, energy-efficient HVAC and lighting, and waste-heat recovery to improve efficiency and sustainability.
• University of Guelph (Youbin Zheng): Alongside Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, this team is developing a net-zero hybrid greenhouse-vertical farming system. It uses sunlight, smart lighting, recycled heat, and an AI-driven Rootzone Management System to reduce energy use and emissions while increasing yield.

The Scaling Phase will test the systems under real farm conditions to evaluate technical feasibility and commercial viability.