As Canada’s fourth largest crop, barley is an important part of the national agricultural landscape. It’s a key component in beer production, which generates 5.8 billion in the economy, and much of it is exported to international markets. Nine out of 10 barley farmers rely on exports for a significant part of their income.

Sometimes the seeds of a great career in engineering lie in a project studying seeds themselves — or the technology that helps farmers plant them.

Mitacs intern Oldooz Pooyanfar, a graduate student from Simon Fraser University’s School of Mechatronic Systems Engineering, is working on a ‘smart’ system that monitors the health of honey bees and their hives.