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Canada Farms Reap Precision Data to Cut Lending, Insurance Costs

  • Farmers Edge joins with banks, insurers to evaluate crop data
  • Ag tech helps counter flagging crop incomes, assess risk

Canola is harvested on a farm near Grosse Isle, Manitoba.

Photographer: Shannon VanRaes/Bloomberg
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Canadian farmers -- grappling with with lower crop income, adverse weather and a trade dispute with China -- are using precision-agriculture technology aimed at reducing lending and insurance costs.

Collecting intricate crop data allows individual farmers to outline potentially limited risk to banks and insurers, Tristan Skolrud, an assistant professor in the agricultural and resource economics department at the University of Saskatchewan, said in a telephone interview.