When Kaitlyn Kitzan walked into an ag-focused session at a major technology conference in 2022, she noticed something unsettling.
Scanning the crowd, she didn’t recognize many familiar faces. Tech developers were talking about what farmers needed, yet it seemed very few people in the room had actual farming experience. The disconnect nagged at her until she finally stood up and asked, “Is anyone else here a farmer?”
Not a hand was raised, and it told her everything she needed to know.
For Kitzan, a Saskatchewan farmer, business owner, and member of the Canadian Farmer Innovation Alliance (CFIA), that moment reinforced a belief that has shaped much of her work since: if innovation is meant to solve problems on farms, farmers need to be part of the conversation from the very beginning.
“How are we developing something for an end customer if they’re not in the room?” she recalls thinking.
It’s a simple question, but one with major implications for Canada’s agri-food sector.
As the world celebrates International Year of the Woman Farmer, Kitzan’s story offers a timely reminder that the future of agriculture depends not only on new technologies, but on all the people who understand how those technologies must work in real life, in real seasons, on real farms.
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