As part of its ongoing commitment to promote technological innovation and develop new technology for agriculture, McCain Foods has announced the official launch of Presia Ag Insights. A new company that is owned entirely by McCain, Presia is the product of more than a decade of partnership to build new technologies that assist farmers in building resilience into their business.
Through Presia the farmers and their Crop-sourcing partners will be able to evaluate the yield of their crops as well as optimize timing of harvest and increase sustainability of the farm. Focusing on satellite-based data-driven technology that could change the way we think about growing crops. Presia can accelerate the development of agriculture and encourage the observation and implementation of sustainable agricultural practices from all stakeholders in the agricultural sector.
“Launching Presia advances McCain’s innovative agricultural agenda and provides the chance to expand our expertise in potato farming to deliver top-of-the-line abilities to food business and farmers.” adds Peter Dawe, Chief Growth and Strategy Officer of McCain Foods. “It has been driving the data analysis that has helped us transform the way we cultivate potatoes.”
Presia is the result from the acquisition by McCain of the predictive crop portfolio acquired from Resson from 2022. That portfolio includes vision-intelligence-based technologies that better leverage field data and satellite imagery to assess more accurately the status of a potato crop. The Resson team who managed this portfolio of predictive intelligence for crops moved to McCain in June 2022. in the last year, the teamas well as the product continues to grow and now is ready to go live under the Presia brand.
“Presia assists our farmers and our crop-sourcing partners to build resilience within their operations as well as improving decision-making capability using machines learning and satellite imagery,” says Tyler Hennick the Managing Director at Presia. “We are delighted to be able to offer our customers, both new and existing ones, the most frequent and reliable information of their crop’s performance across all fields as well as regions.”
Based in Ontario situated in Ontario Eastern Canada, the Presia team is made up of software and data scientist developers with over 10 years of working using crop monitoring technologies for potatoes.
The knowledge gained from Presia’s information and models can help clients better manage their crop as well as help earlier estimates of yield that are more accurate and increase monitoring as well as the efficiency of sampling. Although the current focus is focused on potatoes, the Presia model and data may expand to different crops later on.
“We focus on assessing the health of plants and quality of the crop, as well as tracking practices for regenerative agriculture. The knowledge gained from this has been accumulated in potato, and we are planning to provide similar insight across other crops that are considered specialty,” says Mr. Hennick. “We have more information regarding the region’s specific nuances and varieties to help us develop our models and we can collaborate with our partners in measuring the factors that affect their most.”
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Ashley Agueci
McCain Foods
Email: Ashley.AGUECI@mccain.ca
mccain.ca