Mound Farm<\/a> is that familiar bump in Cloverdale \u2013 a drumlin with old-growth trees, just south of Highway 10. The Mound itself is about 30 acres and in 1996 was preserved in perpetuity, through a public referendum. The long-term master plan for the site will see the lowlands reserved for agriculture.<\/p>\nTwo wood-frame houses atop the drumlin can be found on the Canadian Registry of Historic Places. Early Surrey farming pioneers William and Anne Smith settled on the Mound in 1884.<\/p>\n
Nearly six months ago, the City of Surrey and Simon Fraser University signed an agreement (memorandum of understanding) on November 21 to create a \u201cfrontier hub,\u201d which was described at the time as a \u201cnew centre\u201d for agritech research and technology development.<\/p>\n
The City of Surrey issued a press release in November indicating the initiative \u201cwill help farmers explore and adopt new technologies and develop more efficient, sustainable, and resilient farming practices\u201d as well as support \u201ceconomic diversification, food security, and long-term industry competitiveness\u201d and provide \u201ca space where agritech innovations can be tested, demonstrated, and scaled.\u201d<\/p>\n
Surrey provided, through a long-term, low-cost lease, the roughly 10 acres of land inside the Agricultural Land Reserve and will support the project through zoning, permitting, and regulatory processes while SFU will be in charge of the designing and develop the hub and will also oversee applied research programs, and secure grant funding and external investment to support its growth.<\/p>\n
Bains provided the Now-Leader with an update this past week.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe process currently is that Simon Fraser is going through its internal processes to raise funds to deal with the part it needs to deal with and the City of Surrey is working alongside them to get them there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe site is available for them to use today but we anticipate that by the time they get their funding and they push forward it will probably be some time in the beginning to mid of next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut that\u2019s not a timeline set in stone,\u201d Bains added. \u201cIt all depends on the internal processes at Simon Fraser University.\u201d<\/p>\n
What actually will be done with the site depends on funding SFU is able to secure.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe City\u2019s portion of this was to make the land available to them and to work with them on the things that they need,\u201d Bains explained. \u201cThe actual investment, the work that\u2019s happening there, that\u2019s what you\u2019re having through Simon Fraser University.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe City of Surrey will work alongside Simon Fraser University throughout this as it is a part of our agritech strategy,\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s not just that we\u2019re giving the land and we\u2019re walking away; we are working with Simon Fraser University through this entire process. It\u2019s a great partnership between the two.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about developing technologies that will be used in our agriculture sector,\u201d Bains said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of it is just around innovation and using technologies to build efficiencies into the farming practice. It\u2019s exciting to see this happening up close and personal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Surrey\u2019s agritech research \u2018frontier hub\u2019 still a go Published 3:00 pm Thursday, May 7, 2026 Simon Fraser University…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,163792,87674],"class_list":["post-654745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-lower-mainland","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}