Between strategic visits, international missions, major announcements, and large-scale events, March confirmed one thing: the Agtech Zone continues to gain momentum, reach, and impact.
Driven by sustained grassroots engagement, active support for businesses, and several key announcements for the ecosystem, the past month has powerfully demonstrated the central role that the Agtech Zone plays in accelerating, shaping, and promoting agricultural innovation in Quebec.
The month began on a strategic note with a visit from Mathieu Lemay, Member of the National Assembly for Masson and Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of International Relations and La Francophonie (International Relations). This meeting, held at our offices with Thrive | SVG Venture, provided an opportunity to discuss several development strategies aimed at strengthening the positioning of the Agtech Zone and its ecosystem on a national and international scale.
March was also marked by a strong on-the-ground presence from our team, both here and abroad. In particular, the Agtech Zone participated in the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit in San Francisco, the Environmental Technology Fair in Quebec City, and the Healthy Eating and Green Living Expo in Montreal. These three strategic events helped us strengthen our ties with innovation ecosystems, identify market trends, and showcase local companies.
Throughout the month, the Agtech Zone teams continued to provide active and targeted support to growing companies.
As part of the AgXis program, several companies—including Aisprid, Harvest Genomics, ADSOL, and BHF Robotics—received personalized coaching sessions, targeted market analyses, and concrete strategic recommendations designed to support their business growth and guide their business decisions.
At the same time, several personalized support cases made progress over the course of the month, including:
All of these initiatives reflect the Agtech Zone’s practical role: reducing blind spots, speeding up decision-making, and bringing innovations closer to their market.
March also saw the arrival of new talent to the team.
While Marie-Pier Haineault has joined Zone Agtech as a strategic, digital, and marketing communications consultant, Soulaf Slaoui has joined as director of acceleration programs. Her arrival strengthens our ability to support innovative companies with even greater depth, structure, and ambition.
On March 23, teams from the Agtech Zone, SVG Ventures | THRIVE, and the Horticultural Innovation Expertise Network (REIH) also gathered for a friendly Mexican BBQ to welcome new members, strengthen ties between the teams, and reinforce what makes the ecosystem so strong on a daily basis: close collaboration, complementary expertise, and a shared commitment to a common goal.
March 11 marked a significant milestone for the Horticultural Innovation Expertise Network (REIH) with the launch of its first two protocols aimed at standardizing the evaluation of horticultural technologies.
This breakthrough represents a major milestone for the sector. By establishing a framework for evaluating innovations under real-world conditions, the REIH lays the groundwork for a more rigorous, comparable, and effective approach to supporting technology adoption in horticulture. It is a concrete step toward innovations that are better validated, better understood, and more quickly implemented in the field.
March 31 marked one of the highlights of the month with the Quebec Agtech 2026 Symposium, which brought together nearly 200 participants in Repentigny for a day of discussion, insights, and reflection on the future of the sector.
This flagship event also served as a springboard for several major announcements for the ecosystem, including the launch of the second cohort of the THRIVE Go Global | Québec program (Link to the article) as well as the announcement of funding from the Desjardins-Agtech Fund (in partnership with the City of L’Assomption and Caisse Desjardins Pierre-Le Gardeur) to establish two new companies in the Agtech Zone: Ferme Ô Menu and Les Fermes Boréa (Link to the article).
These two announcements clearly demonstrate the Agtech Zone’s ability to attract, support, and foster the growth of innovative companies within a single ecosystem.
March was a reflection of the Agtech Zone’s trajectory: steady, transformative, and resolutely forward-looking.
Every project, every mentorship, every new company, and every announcement helps strengthen a rapidly expanding ecosystem where companies find more than just a place to grow: they find an environment designed to help them grow faster, more sustainably, and with greater impact.
