It has never been more important for Canada to have a secure and sustainable supply of food. Building on its longstanding commitment to improving the well-being of Canadians, the Weston Family Foundation is investing in the people and ideas redefining how we grow our food—supporting agricultural solutions that will strengthen our national food system for generations to come.
Launched in 2022, the $33 million Homegrown Innovation Challenge has become a catalyst for Canadian ingenuity, championing sustainable agricultural innovations that reduce our reliance on imports and strengthen sustainable domestic production.
This Challenge is driven by a bold vision: to develop a market-ready system that enables the year-round, sustainable, and cost-competitive production of berries at scale in Canada. Now entering its third and most ambitious phase—the Scaling Phase—that vision is closer than ever to becoming a reality.
Four teams (Scaling Phase grantees) from across Canada, chosen from an exceptional cohort of eleven teams from the previous round (Shepherd Phase grantees), will each receive up to $5 million in total over three years to bring their ideas to life. These teams are taking their solutions from concept to implementation by using the Scaling Phase as an opportunity to demonstrate and refine their growing systems under real-world conditions at farm scale.
"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," says 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."
Some of the standout teams are as follows:
Toronto Metropolitan University, Habiba Bougherara & Lesley G. Campbell - Controlled environment agriculture, elevated, with autonomous pollination technology. Toronto Metropolitan University is developing the "MoFarm": a modular, vertical farming system for continuous, year-round raspberry production. Its multi-layered design can support multiple types of crops at various stages, maximizing yield and efficiency. One of the key features of this farm will be a patented pollination and air circulation system to achieve consistent autonomous pollination. This will surpass the challenges of incomplete bee pollination under short day lengths in greenhouses and artificial lighting in vertical farms.
Université Laval, Martine Dorais - VertBerry: a vertical, modular indoor bioponic system for cultivating transplants and berries. Université Laval is scaling a modular aeroponic platform for year-round berry production and to provide resilient, high-performance strawberry seedlings for indoor, greenhouse, and open-field growers. By integrating phenotyping and microbiome expertise, the team aims to increase their yield and significantly improve energy efficiency—plus grow healthier plants and tasty fruit—with no pesticide residues. VertBerry will combine precise rootzone control, energy-efficient HVAC and lighting, and waste-heat recovery. Scalable and adaptable, VertBerry offers a flexible, sustainable solution to strengthen Canada's food system from seedling to harvest.
For more information:
Homegrown Innovation Challenge
https://homegrownchallenge.ca/