Key Takeaways:
- Montel Inc. is partnering with Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) to support indoor berry production without bees.
- The project is backed by up to $5 million in funding through the Weston Family Foundation’s Homegrown Innovation Challenge.
- Montel will design and host a pilot facility, MoFarm, in Québec to test airflow-based pollination technology.
- The initiative aims to enable year-round, pollinator-independent raspberry production.
- The collaboration seeks to strengthen Canada’s domestic food production capacity.
Montel to Host Pilot Farm for Airflow-Based Pollination Technology
Montel Inc., a Canadian manufacturer of high-density mobile systems, has announced a strategic partnership with researchers from Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) to support the development of pollinator-independent indoor berry production.
The initiative is supported by the Weston Family Foundation through its Homegrown Innovation Challenge Scaling Phase, which invests in Canadian solutions to enable reliable, year-round berry production. In June 2025, TMU researchers Professor Habiba Bougherara and Professor Lesley Campbell were awarded a grant of up to $5 million to advance their research.
As part of the collaboration, Montel will build and host a dedicated pilot farm named MoFarm. The facility, located adjacent to Montel’s manufacturing site in Montmagny, Québec, will provide a controlled environment to test and evaluate TMU’s patented airflow-based pollination and microclimate system under real-world vertical farming conditions.
