Job one for this high-tech farmer: Squeezing out the Americans

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Of course the U.S. looks tempting — the exchange rate, the size. But entering it properly would require a full product suite and either massive expansion or pulling supply from loyal Canadian customers. “We never felt good about doing that.” Instead, the primary goal is clear: displace imported product from prairie shelves.

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All this talk of humble farmers, dirty hands and a 60-year-old co-op might suggest an outfit stuck in the past. Nothing could be further from the truth. The technological pace at Big Marble is gobsmacking.

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Supplementary lighting is essential for year-round supply — grocers demand it. Robotics and smarter systems slash labour by, for example, moving produce without forklifts or pallet jacks. The farm employs about 400 people: 30 per cent local, 70 per cent temporary foreign workers, mostly from the Philippines and Thailand. AI projects are next. A camera system travels the rows, snapping thousands of images daily. The more data, the smarter the system becomes at tracking growth, spotting insect or disease outbreaks early, and forecasting yields.

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Medicine Hat sits atop legendary natural gas reserves — Rudyard Kipling once quipped the place had “all hell for a basement.” Generators run on natural gas and capture waste heat to help warm the greenhouse. “Our burners produce almost no byproduct other than CO2, which the plants eat,” Ryan explains. By capturing and re-using that CO2, the operation runs close to carbon neutral for much of the year. A combined heat and power system generates up to 13 megawatts; excess electricity (when grow lights are off) feeds the city grid.

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An aerial view of Big Marble Farms. “It’s me and my dad. That’s it. It’s a family operation,” says CEO Ryan Cramer. Photo by Ryan Cramer

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It’s hard to imagine anything slowing this ambitious, self-reliant operation. So what does Ryan need from governments or others to do even better?

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“The industry is misunderstood,” he says. “We’re still ‘agriculture.’” Yet some in Ottawa don’t see high-tech greenhouses that way anymore. That misunderstanding is a problem, for example, if it threatens access to temporary foreign worker programs.

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“We love our temporary foreign workers,” he says, emphatically, “but it’s actually far cheaper and easier to hire locals who handle their own housing and live in the local community.” People assume employing migrants costs us less, he reports; that’s untrue — it costs more.

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Utilities are another pain point. Despite the dramatic carbon reductions from CO2 capture and efficient systems, the farm pays standard commercial rates for gas and power. We’re growing fresh food, he laments, with a cool sustainability story, yet we get no recognition for it. A rebate on gas or electricity would help. And every province is different, he adds, so we’re not even on a level playing field.

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The biggest pressure, though, is price. “We’re being told to lower our prices in an environment where everything else is going up,” he says with a sigh. “Are you kidding me?”

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Big trade deals are complicated. But after talking with Ryan, it’s clear the real work of feeding Canadians affordably and reliably is just as tricky—and far more grounded. It happens every day in places like Medicine Hat, where family operators harness technology, local energy and old-fashioned grit to keep fresh vegetables on prairie tables — without chasing the grass that looks greener south of the border. These are the quiet successes worth championing. Canada needs more of them.

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