Montel and Toronto Metropolitan University open MoFarm to validate pollinator‑free berry pollination

Montel Inc. is building a purpose-built pilot farm, MoFarm, to evaluate a Toronto Metropolitan University airflow-driven pollination system intended to eliminate the need for insect pollinators in indoor raspberry production. The effort is backed by up to $5 million from the Weston Family Foundation, awarded in June 2025 to support scaling and real-world validation.

The research combines directed airflows, tightly controlled microclimates, and plant architecture adjustments to move pollen between flowers autonomously, addressing a key bottleneck in controlled-environment agriculture. Testing at MoFarm will occur adjacent to Montel’s manufacturing campus in Montmagny, Québec, using continuous growth cycles to assess robustness across seasonal and phenological variation.

Lead investigators Prof. Habiba Bougherara and Prof. Lesley Campbell will measure system performance against agronomic benchmarks such as fruit set stability, uniformity across vertical tiers, and operational integration with existing mobile grow systems. Montel supplies engineering, mechanical infrastructure, and an operational testbed to accelerate the transition from lab prototype to scalable farm module.

If validated, the approach could decouple indoor berry yields from pollinator availability and reduce operational dependence on managed bee deployments or manual pollination labor. That has implications for supply-chain continuity, fallbacks during pollinator population stress, and densification strategies where maximizing production per square meter is essential.

The collaboration intentionally situates research in a production-like environment to capture system interactions that are invisible in benchtop trials, including airflow dynamics in multilayer racks and microclimate gradients. Results will inform control algorithms, airflow hardware specifications, and crop management protocols needed for commercial adoption.

Commercialization hurdles remain: the team must demonstrate pollination parity or superior predictability compared with biological pollinators, quantify energy and capital cost trade-offs, and validate performance across other soft-fruit species. Success would create a transferable module for vertical farms and greenhouse integrators seeking predictable, year-round berry output.

Strategically, the project strengthens Canada’s domestic agtech pipeline by pairing academic IP with a manufacturing partner that can iterate hardware and deploy pilots rapidly. The investment signals philanthropic support for scaling resilient food systems and could attract downstream private capital if early trials show commercial promise.

Operational metrics from MoFarm will determine next steps: optimization pathways include tuning airflow pulsation, sensor-driven timing of pollen release, and adapting canopy morphology to multi-tier production. Broader sector actors—vertical-farming integrators, ag-robotics firms, and pollination technology startups—will monitor outcomes for competitive or collaborative opportunities.

This initiative prioritizes measurable outcomes over demonstration alone; validation under real farm loads is the explicit milestone that unlocks scale. For growers, the proposition is clear: replace intermittent biological pollination risk with engineered consistency, provided the tech meets yield, cost, and energy thresholds.

MoFarm’s findings will shape protocols for indoor berry systems and could become a reference case for regulatory, certification, and procurement decisions in controlled-environment agriculture. The immediate next phase centers on iterative trials, data collection, and refinement of both hardware and crop management to support broader deployment.