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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.

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“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.

Photo by Matt Smith / Saskatoon StarPhoenix

It’s an odd example of how artificial intelligence, robotics and automation transforming agriculture.

This week’s conference organization by the Agri-Food Innovation Council aimed to highlight how tech could address problems like labour shortages on Canadian farms – and address a dissonance between what’s already available and what farmers are using.