Wade Barnes founds Ronin Agronomy

Aug 17, 2023

Barnes previously co-founded Farmers Edge and was its CEO until 2021

By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com

A familiar name in the precision ag community has founded another company.

Wade Barnes, who co-founded Manitoba-based Farmers Edge in 2005 and served as its CEO until his resignation in March 2022 following poor financial performance, is the founder of Ronin Agronomy.

The company gets its name from a type of Japanese samurai that had no master, but travelled the land offering his service to anyone who needed it.

“Just as the Ronin warriors embraced new techniques and strategies to achieve victory, we continuously seek out innovative solutions and stay at the forefront of precision agronomic advancements to deliver results to our farm partners,” the company’s website says.

Wade Barnes

Multiple kinds of services are listed on Ronin’s site for farmers in Western Canada.

Farmers can receive support for variable rate applications, nutrient management, crop scouting, and sustainability solutions, with textural soil mapping coming soon.

“In my view there will be (an) immense amount of pressure on farmers to do nutrient management,” Barnes told the Winnipeg Free Press. “That means they are going to have to be highly efficient with fertilizer application.”

And the company is already in crop fields.

Ronin completed its first day of soil sampling on Aug. 15.

“Very appreciative of the folks at Pitura Seeds for putting their trust in us!” Barnes said in a tweet. “Very excited about the start of a new chapter and looking forward to fall sampling and getting composite VR Rxmaps out for fall Fert season!”

Video: Why Invest in Canada’s Seed Future? | On The Brink: Episode 3

Darcy Unger just invested millions to build a brand-new seed plant on his farm in Stonewall, Manitoba so when it’s time for his sons to take over, they have the tools they need to succeed.

Right now, 95% of the genetics they’ll be growing come from Canadian plant breeders.

That number matters.

When fusarium hit Western Canada in the late 90s, it was Canadian breeders who responded, because they understood Canadian conditions. That ability to react quickly to what’s happening on Canadian farms is exactly what’s at risk when breeding programs lose funding.

For farmers like Darcy, who have made generational investments based on the assumption that better genetics will keep coming, the stakes are direct and personal.

We’re on the brink of decisions that will shape our agricultural future for not only our generation, but also the ones to come.

What direction will we choose?

On The Brink is a year-long video series traveling across Canada to meet the researchers, breeders, farmers, seed companies, and policymakers shaping the future of Canadian plant breeding. Each week, a new story. Each story, a piece of the bigger picture.

Episode 3 is above. Follow Seed World Canada to catch every episode, and tell us: Do you think the next generation will have the tools they need to success when they takeover? How is the future going to look?