May 2, 2025 • 52 mins
We don't know what the end state for the tariffs are going to be, but inevitably there will be some shifts in the way that goods and dollars flow around the world economy. Of course, some parts of the economy are always subject to changing rules around subsidies and tariffs, and that's particularly true in agriculture. On this episode of the podcast we speak with Murad Al-Katib, the President and CEO of AGT Foods and Ingredients, who is sometimes known as The Lentil King of Saskatchewan. He is credited as being a driving force in turning the Canadian Province into a powerhouse of chickpea and lentil exports all around the world. He explains to us why he saw an opportunity in this space, why it's boomed, how the global trade and supply chain of these plants work, and how his company navigates perpetual shifts in agriculture policy around the world.
Read more: Trump’s Canada Tariffs Draw Lawsuit by Blackfeet Nation Members
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Locks podcast.
I'm Jill Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway. Tracy. Canadian elections
last night.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Yes, big event. I think a lot of people are
talking about it in the context of US politics. Right,
So we just saw Mark Karney and the Liberals win,
and in a lot of ways, I think people would
agree that Mark Carney's sort of the antithesis of Trump, right,
He's the sort of globalization Davos, former central banker guy.
(00:51):
And the funny thing is, or the slightly ironic thing
is it seems like Trump might have swung the election
in the direction of the girls.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Well, yeah, you go back like three months ago or
four months ago or something, and it just seemed guaranteed
that the Conservatives Pierre Pluliev was going to win. And
then Trump started talking about making Canada the fifty first state,
and suddenly fortunes turned very quickly. But that was just
a news hook. We're not really doing a Canadian politics
(01:20):
episode today, per se.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
We're doing something better.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
We're doing something better. The real reason that we're doing
this episode, this just happened to be good timing for
the hook. The real reason we're doing this episode is
that several weeks ago, I was reading an article and
I saw a title about a man named the lentil
King of Saskatchewan, or not named but titled as such,
and I thought to myself, the lentil King of Saskatchewan
(01:45):
sounds like a great odd lots character, someone that we
should talk to to learn about a very specific business
and how it works.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
The lentil King of Saskatchewan, the Sultan of split Peas,
the Grand Poopa of pulses, the Baron of beans, Monarch
of multi grains. I can keep going.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
You did your prep. That's really good. Anyway, do we
have the lentil King of Saskatchewan on the podcast today
and we are going to really learn about how the
international pulses and grains trade actually work. What does it mean,
How does trading work with us, how does it work
with the rest of the world. How do you build
that supply chain.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
I'm also just incredibly surprised that Canada is such a
big player in this market. I think it exports like
a third of the world's lentil crop something like that.
That's kind of crazy.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
That is a lot of lentils. But they have a
lot of land in Canada for this type of thing.
Not a ton of people, a lot of land. Anyway,
let's learn all about the lentil trade, the pulse trade,
the grain trade and so forth.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Are we going to take the pulse of the pulse trade.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
We're going to take the pulse of the pulse trade.
We are speaking with Marad al Katib. He is the
president and CEO of AGT Food and Ingredients, credited with
turn Saskatchewan into such a powerhouse of trade from a
lentil So, Marian, thank you so much for coming on odlot.
Speaker 4 (03:06):
Well, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
What did you start with? What does the lentil King
of Saskatchewan do tell us about the business of an
AGT Food and ingredient.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Is it good to be the lentil King.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
It's definitely been an interesting career for me to kind
of contribute to the transformation of agriculture out in Western Canada. So,
you know, coming up on twenty five years since I
made a decision to quit my job in government at
the Governor of Saskatchewan and move to the basement of
my house and drive the transformation of a cropping system that.
(03:41):
You know, when I was a kid growing up in
a little town called Davidson, Saskatchewan, we grew wheat and
we grew canola, and then the farmers had to leave
their soil to summer follow because the nitrogen fertilizer that
they used in canola and the oil seed was so
heavy that the soil needed to replenish naturally. The alternative
to that to plant and nitrogen fixing legume, so lentils, chickpeas,
(04:04):
peas beans. These crops actually fix nitrogen. They don't require
nitrogen fertilizer. And so, you know, that was my bet.
I mean, I was a twenty seven year old young
entrepreneur who kind of looked at this situation and said,
look agronomically, if we can grow these things, the world
demands them. They're protein crops. If we could intersect, you know,
(04:25):
taking our summer follow into protein and reaching global markets,
I could create a business. And that was kind of
the premise. So it's been quite exciting to build a
multi billion dollar company based round the Regina, Saskatchewan, you know,
to kind of reach the world, drive the Canadian trade,
and participate in growing and consolidating a global supply chain
(04:47):
in this business.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
So how big a player is Canada nowadays in pulses
and grains and lentils and all those things I mentioned
earlier that I think it produces like a third of
the world's life until crop I did see an estimate
that said sixty percent of the world's lentil crops. I
went with the third trying to be conservative here, but
like give us some context around where Canada sits in
(05:11):
this space.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Yeah, we would be more depend on the crop year,
but somewhere around fifty percent or more of the world trades.
So wow. You know, you have to recognize that the
traditional growth of these crops were in areas where they
consumed them, right Turkey, Middle East, India. India is the
biggest giant in this business, you know, with all of
the vegetarians. You know, you look at one point three
(05:34):
billion people, four hundred and fifty million vegetarians. Vegetable protein
is essential for the diet of countries, you know, in
the emerging market. So you know, they grow them and
they consume them. Well, what was missing was global supply
in nations that could grow them but not consume them,
but export them. And so that's where you know Canada
(05:54):
came into the play, Australia, the United States. Now we
have emerging origins like Extan, Russia, Ukraine. You know, the
the global consumption of these crops are over one hundred
million tons. Now, you know, because you know you're talking
about the traditional crops that we consume. Let's let's talk
about the traditional diet of the world. Let's do it rice.
(06:14):
You know, rice is six percent protein, corn eight percent protein,
lentils twenty two percent protein, faba beans thirty four percent protein,
chickbas twenty six percent protein. I mean, these crops are
not in the same class when it comes to protein availability,
and the world is in a global protein deficit. So
(06:35):
you know, we can we always forget one thing. We
talk a lot about energy and energy security. We talk
about you know, oil and gas, but we have to
recognize that protein and you know, diets are human energy.
And so when we look at that there's a protein
deficit in the world, it's causing major socioeconomic problems. You know,
let's look at a country like India. Eighteen percent of
(06:56):
children in India are stunted due to protein deficiency. Right,
the world has you know, eight hundred billion people who
are malnourished on a daily basis, over two billion people
who are food insecure on a daily basis. So this
has become one of society's global challenges. Ten billion people
by twenty fifty quantifies it to a statistic where in
(07:20):
the next forty years we have to produce the same
amount of food that the world produced in the last
ten thousand years of civilization. Just wrap your head around that,
go back ten thousand years, go head forty years. You've
got to equal food production. And that's only if we
curb food waste and we actually can store the crops
that we harvest. So you know, when you look at it,
(07:40):
it's a global challenge. And land and water are not
being created, so those are the scarcest resources in the world.
And Canada is blessed with a northern hemisphere. You know
that ultimately is more resilient on climate change. We have
arable land and water, and we have the best farmers
in the world with technology and innovation driving sector. Those
(08:01):
are all recipes for what I would call a generational
economic driver for this country.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Joe, could you say that Canada has been blessed in
growing grains? Do you get it?
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (08:14):
I get it.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
I'm I'm sure you've heard of.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
All over over theres. I'm glad you brought that up. Actually,
though about the calorie as the original unit of energy,
that was important. You know, we've never had him on
the podcast, but vaklov Smil talks about that when he
talks about the history of energy and just these calculations
in the beginning, Okay, how many calories did a firmer
have to expend to produce this much land, and then
(08:42):
so forth, and how many calories were produced and so forth.
So just even thinking about it from that equation is
a very like sort of important, I think, Lens, why
don't you just describe the actual role of AGT foods.
Where do you sit in the supply chain and dist
Do you have farms yourself, do you work with farmers?
(09:03):
Do you contract with them? Like talk about where you
sit and how a lentil grown in Saskatchewan gets to
a consumer in say, India.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
Well, the entire business plan was set up modern state
of the art processing infrastructure in the areas where we
grow these crops. So we contract directly with farmers. We
are the ones who transform their products into saleable you know,
human consumption products. So we own factories in Canada, the US, Australia,
(09:32):
South Africa, Turkey. So I started with one small, little
factory in Regina. We now have forty six manufacturing and
processing facilities and five continents around the world. I started
in the basement of my house. There's now thirty six
hundred employees. Wow. So you know what we do is
we take those crops, we clean them, we size them,
we peel them, we split them, we can them, we
(09:54):
package them, we put them out and we fraction them
into protein starts, f flowers. I mean, we put them
into food products. We do the full range of value adding.
And in the scale of our business now you know,
let's say around three point two billion in revenue this year,
we become a major global supply chain in this particular
(10:16):
segment of the business. In fact, if I look at
you know, containerized agricultural Shipments AGT would be among the
two or three largest containerized shippers of agriproducts in the
entire world. So you know, we shipped to one hundred
and ten countries actively.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
And how does it get there? Like what is the okay,
So from a farmer in Saskatchewan, how many links are
there on that chain.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
So we'll take it into let's say a farmer in Eston, Saskatchewan,
We'll deliver to our location at Aston, Okay. We will
then take that grain. We'll put it into a railcar
that we own. So those owned railcars then go into
the CN rail system. They get transported to a port facility.
Let's say I just did one as an example, and
(10:58):
on May the sixth, we're going to ship a vessel
of lentils to Turkey. So those Eston farmers would have
filled the railcars. We're shipping it to thunder Bay. At
thunder Bay, we have an ocean terminal where we'll load
a vessel. That vessel will transport twenty one thousand tons
of lentils that will go to Turkey. They will be
(11:18):
offloaded in the port of Meerson, Turkey, which is in
the southern Mediterranean. We have factory seven kilometers for the port.
Will peel them, split them, polish them, package them, and
then they'll be shipped to Iraq. They'll be shipped into
the Gaza refugees. They'll be shipped into the Middle East
region and they'll be consumed locally in the entire region
(11:41):
on the food side. So you know where we play
is in the entire supply chain, taking it right from
the farmer right through to the distribution directly onto the
consumer shelf. And you know, that was the strategy that
we wanted to to build out. It gives us resiliency.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
I was going to ask, is it normal for agricultural
company is to actually own their own transportation capital. You
mentioned train cars just then. That seems extremely vertically integrated.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
Well, yeah, actually I was definitely not, you know, the
normal thought and that In twenty fifteen, I decided to
build a transportation business, and so we bought six hundred
and fifty kilometers of short line railway. We bought the
Saskatchewan government grain car fleet. So when the Canadian Wheatboard
was dismantled, the Saskatchewan flagged grain cars, I bought them.
(12:33):
We bought thirteen locomotives. We set up our own transportation infrastructure,
linked it in a long term agreement to Cnrail, and
you know we're able to access it through ocean port infrastructure.
We actually took that business in twenty twenty five in January,
and we sold it for one hundred and ninety two
million dollars to an infrastructure fund in the United States,
(12:55):
and then we contracted them back to provide US service
for the next twenty year. So you are correct. We
actually built out a transportation infrastructure that didn't exist to
handle these kinds of commodities, and then we found a
partner to run it for the long term and it
gives us a competitive advantage to get our products to market.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
I have a question. You know, you mentioned that the
only scarce resources are land and water. Can you talk
about yields on an acre or yields on a given
farm today versus when you got started in the industry,
and how what you've seen in terms of technology and
productivity growth at the land level.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
Massive massive transformation, So precision agriculture, digital infrastructure has transformed
the productivity of Canada. And you know, when I was
a kid growing up in that little village of Davidson,
twelve hundred people in the middle of Saskatchewan. You know,
as an immigrant Turkish family, the farmer would go out
and kick the dirt. He would put his hand into
(14:10):
the soil. He'd have his wife with him and say
what do you think should we go? And she'd say, yeah,
let's go, and they would go and start seeding. Today,
we're soil sampling. We're analyzing the soil and the nitrogen
in the soil. There's precision weather stations that are measuring moisture.
We have zero minimum tillage where GPS systems are giving
(14:31):
the farmer the exact placement of seed fertilizer in a
single pass without breaking the soil using air channels. We're
putting the seed in a precision basis to maximize the yield,
to lower the amount of nitrogen fertilizer being used in
all crop rotations, which ultimately saves inputs and lowers the
(14:53):
carbon intensity of our agriculture. Our yield curves have been
massively increasing, you know, to where if I look at
the next decade ahead in Saskatchewan, I'm forecasting seven to
ten million additional tons of grain from the same amount
of acres that are being seated. You know, that is
a massive.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Wait, what's the baseline, what's the base? Seven to ten million?
On top of how many.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
We're growing about thirty million tons, so we're gonna have
another seven to ten million. I mean, you're talking about
twenty to thirty percent yield increase over the next seven years.
I mean, when I chaired the National Strategy Table for
Agriculture and Food for the Government of Canada. We set
a target in twenty nineteen that the agriculture sector in
our country would grow from forty five billion to eighty
(15:37):
five billion of exports in a five year cycle, and
domestic agricultural output would grow from one hundred and twenty
billion to one hundred and forty five billion. And we
reached that target in three years. I mean, what sector
of our economy can deliver sixty five billion of growth
in three years. Agriculture did that in this country. So
(16:00):
the tangibility of that opportunity of global food insecurity, the
productivity of precision agriculture in our country, and you know,
the ability to get our products to market. You know,
this is the recipe that I believe is going to
be a big part of the government economic agenda going forward. So,
you know, we talk a lot about natural resources that
(16:21):
are in conflict in certain mindsets, whether it be oil
and gas or mining. There's very little controversy on the
growth of the natural resource sector in agriculture. So from
that perspective, I see that as being a key opportunity
for this country, you know, and one that I'm very
excited about for the next twenty years of my career.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
So I take the point about yields having been improved.
But at the same time, there's a lot of talk
about soil exhaustion, right And one of the reasons this
is on my mind is because I was gardening over
the weekend on an old farm property and the soil
is just terrible. It's basically dust like, there's no tilth
(17:02):
I think I found one earthworm in like six hours
of digging. How big a problem is soil depletion? And
you touched on this earlier, But what role can lentils
and beans play in that?
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Well? And then that's actually the key. The key is
is that farmers in Western Canada are now practicing a
sustainable three crop rotation. So one year they'll grow that
wheat like when I was a kid, the next year
they'll grow an oil seed like canola, and then the
year after that they'll plant the lagoome that will fix
the nitrogen. By using zero minimum tillage, we're conserving soil moisture,
(17:40):
we're managing pests and the health of the soil, and
we're actually using farming practices where without tilling we're returning
biomass into the soil. So from that perspective, when I
look at the sustainability of soil health, the farmers in
Western Canada have gotten And you know, that is something
that bothers me is people talk about how regenerative agriculture
(18:02):
is such a key part. Well, in Western Canada, we've
been doing regenerative agriculture for the last forty years. This
is something that is actually foundational to the success of
the Western Canadian and I mean the Canadian agriculture sector
in general. So you know, I think that when I
look at soil depletion and soil health, it's about farmers
(18:23):
pushing the wrong rotations, growing crops on top of crops,
the same crops. You know, ultimately, if you don't rotate,
you have pests that multiply, you have diseases that ultimately
get resistant to any type of management. So, you know,
this kind of diversity of our agricultural system is one
that not only has to be celebrated, but it's actually
(18:45):
yielding that yield gain. So you know, not only is
our soil health at a peak, but it's also something
I want to be clear, we can't take for granted.
We have to be continuously innovating to make sure that
we maintain that. I mean, I say, the canola fields
of Saskatchewan are the same as the oil fields of
Saudi Arabia, only every year it replenishes naturally. So we
(19:06):
can take crops, we can produce renewable fuels, we can
take crops, extract protein and feed the world. But we
have to make sure foundationally that soil health is at
the forefront. And I think it is in our farmer's
minds and then the practices that they do.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
So you know, you've described this global supply chain that
exists in the fact that you can get the lentil
product from a farmer in Saskatchewan all the way to
a consumer in India or Iraq or Turkey, et cetera. Obviously,
we're having this conversation, at least on the US side,
with this turn against globalized supply chains, globalized trade and
(19:46):
so forth. Talk to us a little bit about how
you see the state of US Canada agg trade, or
give us the sort of the short history of the
various turns of the dial there and how some of
these conversations are affecting your business.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
Look, I think We've got to recognize one thing. We
have a president in the United States today who's just
very loud and using tariffs as the mechanism to not
only provoke conversation but to drive policy protectionists. Agricultural policies
in the United States are not something new, you know.
I always have to remind people that country of origin
labeling was a Barack Obama policy that you know, continued
(20:24):
through the Trump administration and into the Biden administration. So
you know, every government in the world, agriculture is the
most political business in the entire globe because farmers have
to be protected by governments that are elected. Yet, food
inflation and food security are paramount considerations in the health, wealth,
(20:46):
and security of every nation in the world. So when
we look at it, let's not forget one thing. When
a baby is hungry, they cry, When an eighteen year
old man is unemployed in hungry, they protest. So you know,
ultimately a big part of civil obedience in the world
is available food, and that growing food insecurity is one
(21:07):
that I think, you know, is going to be paramount.
So when I look at even US policy, look, food
security is a foundational part of US intelligence and foreign policy.
And so from that perspective, you know, I believe that
agricultural trade will have to be preserved as a part
of the overall policy framework. So you know, we're going
(21:30):
to see tariffs, We're going to see protectionist measures being
more prevalent in the world. But I do think that
ultimately food are going to be concessionary items. Governments are
going to allow them to flow. Governments will use tariffs
to protect their farmers when they need to at times
when they harvest their crops, but they need food available.
(21:52):
And you know the COVID post supply chain disruptions and
food lines and food inflation, and you know, food being
a big driver of that inflationary environment in the world
world is something that everybody recognizes can't continue. On the
US policy side, domestic agriculture in the US and Canada
are very integrated. So if I look at you know,
the pasta on the shelves of the US consumer come
(22:13):
largely from Durham wheat in Western Canada. The overall integration
of our livestock sectors, cropping sectors are there, and ultimately
I think we're going to see further integration. We're going
to see you know, getting over this current protectionist conflict.
Leyden dialogue to recognizing that the Americas integration and more
(22:38):
reliance on each other as nations in the Americas is
going to be part of economic prosperity. And you know,
I think that, you know, if I look at the
Trump administration, you know, kind of policy on Canada. We
have to just remind everybody very clearly to have comm heads.
Thirty one US states have Canada as their largest trading partner.
The ultimate availability of food in the United States is
(23:01):
you know, not completely reliant, but we certainly have a
big influence on food prices. And so you know, I'm
a very strong optimist that agriculture will continue its integration
and that you know, ultimately food and I believe energy
are going to be the two sectors. And the third
one from a Saskatchewan perspective is potash. I mean, eighty
(23:22):
percent of the potash in the United States, which is
a necessary nitrogen element you know, comes from Canadian minds.
So you know, from that perspective, you know, there's certain
sectors that I think are mutually beneficial that are going
to enjoy heightened access in some sort of resolution.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Okay, so agriculture might be special in one way or another.
But just to drill down a little bit into specifics,
if the US slaps tariffs on Canadian lentils, what is
the first thing that happens in your supply chain? And
I guess maybe we could go back in history and
(23:57):
talk a little bit about thee from India on lontals
because you have experience with this, right like you have
gone through this process, So what exactly happens.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
Agriculture is no different than any other sector, except that
our markets are already a lot more diversified than you know,
other sectors. So you know, when I look at the
crop sectors in particular wheat, canola, and pulses, we do
have shipments into the US on a regular basis, but
it's still making up a relatively small percentage when you
(24:30):
look at it compared to other sectors' reliance on the US.
So you know, one of the key things to having
strength in a tariff or a trade protectionist environment is
to have alternative markets. Now, for US, I worry more
about the reciprocal tariffs in places like China, India and
other large markets than I do only the US market.
(24:51):
I mean, it's one of the considerations. We want that resolution,
but you know what we do is we pivot. You know,
when we were facing the tariffs on the March deadline
than the April deadline, you know, as a company, we
already prepared for this. We have a North Dakota manufacturing
facility that was going to manufacture more for the US market.
We were going to switch our supply chain to reliance
(25:12):
on North Dakota and Montana, and we were going to
take the Western Canadian product and we were going to
go out to the Middle East into other markets in Asia.
We're going to put a height and focused on South America,
and we're going to ship into Europe. So you know,
that's where you have to be. And I think that
this is ultimately you know, my dialogues with Prime Minister
Carney prior to the election, of my dialogues after with
(25:32):
Prime Minister Carney are going to be trade diversification agenda
is not something that we can blink at, no matter
how quickly or how comprehensively. The resolution is with the US,
we need to finally execute trade diversification in this country.
We need to recognize that our industries have become overly reliant.
(25:53):
We've been complacent. You know what, this has to be
a wake up call to my colleagues in every industry
in this country. Wake up over reliance. Eggs in one
basket is a dangerous remedy for long term sustainable health
of your business. And you know, ultimately that's where we
have to go. We need bilateral trade agreements. We need
to resolve India and China as powerhouses that balance our
(26:17):
reliance on the US, and we need to monetize the
European Union trade agreement that we've already signed. We need
to ensure that we get relevance with these countries. And
agri food, energy and potash and uranium are four things
that get us relevance with these nations. We need to
parlay that into free trade agreements, bilateral exchange agreements, and
(26:41):
we need to get ourselves market access.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Obviously, shiating free trade or bilateral trade agreements with different
counterparts is an important element. There's also a physical element, right,
the quality of rail infrastructure, the quality of export terminal
and I guess on the other side, import terminal infrastructure.
In the context of energy, we hear a lot about
this and are we building export terminals fast enough? And
(27:20):
is it cheap enough, is it economical? Talk to us
about the sort of like the physical things that need
to get built, as you put it, monetize these relationships,
and like I don't know in the US, I know
that building everything is crazy expensive these days. What does
the state of this physical trade infrastructure look like in
Canada right now?
Speaker 4 (27:39):
We have we have to acknowledge that we've got, you know,
major challenges. I mean, we've got large geographic land base,
we have mountains between production regions in Western Canada and
the coast in Vancouver, and we have minus forty degree temperatures.
So you know, these are all constraints that we have
to live with. And you know, one of the things
(28:00):
you know, I've become a little bit known for in
this country is my adage that if I was Prime
Minister for one day, I would invest one hundred billion
dollars in trade infrastructure because that ultimately would pay dividends
for generations to come. So, you know, we need to
revive the gateway strategies. If I look back at the
two thousand and five twenty eleven period, the Asia Pacific
(28:23):
Gateway initiative is one of the most successful in recent times.
In Canada where you had you know, municipal governments, provincial governments,
private sector players, Class one railways, port authorities, poort infrastructure,
private sector players working on first mile and last mile,
and we made major progress on developing the Asia Pacific Gateway.
We need to acknowledge that we need to build a
(28:45):
trade infrastructure for thirty and forty and fifty years from now,
not just for thirty and forty and fifty weeks from now.
We need to relocate rail lines out of the center
of communities across our nation, to plan for development of
industrial and redissidential developments and allow for the trade infrastructure
to have room to scale. You know, as we continue
(29:06):
to build out. I mean Saskatchewan is a perfect example.
As I said, seven to ten million more tons of agri.
With the BHP investment of twelve billion dollars in potash
k Pluss mine expansion and the expansions that are on
for nutrient and mosaic, you have roughly about twelve million
additional tons of potash that will come online over the
(29:29):
next decade. And you know, if we get oil and
pipelines and we get the dry bull commodities on rail,
we have some capacity, but We've got to think about
what we're going to be thirty years from now. If
we continue on these yield trends, we're going to reach
one hundred million tons of production one day. Today our
average is fifty five million tons in this country in Agrie.
So from that perspective, the economic benefit is there as well,
(29:53):
which ultimately, you know, funds the Canadian way of life,
social programs like healthcare, education, you know, the things that
we as Canadians value, you know, in terms of being
Canadian versus being living in another nation around the world.
So that's the opportunity. And trade infrastructure. I have a
level of optimism that, you know, our newly elected Liberal
(30:16):
government and frankly, it would have been the same if
the Conservatives were elected. Trade infrastructure is recognized as an
essential element of that trade diversification strategy. We focused a
lot on north south infrastructure and not that we should
diminish that because I think people got to recognize we're
not saying trade less with the US. We're saying trade
(30:38):
our growth with new countries. Over time, we will diversify.
Trade diversification couldnot happen in one day, one year, or
even in ten years, you know, we have created an
economy that's reliant over decades. We need to diversify over
the next decades.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
So I know it's early days, but just on this point,
farming is clearly a very capital intensive business and you
want to be investing in trade, infrastructure and things like that.
Have you noticed any changes in capital availability post Trump's win?
So are people maybe they feel more cautious because there's
(31:18):
all this policy uncertainty, or maybe people are directing capital
away from the US and towards Canada. Now, I don't know,
have you noticed any shifts in the pattern?
Speaker 4 (31:29):
I think that you know, certainly short term disruptions like this,
you know, cause capital to be nervous. You know, there's
no doubt about it. But you know, if I look
at you know my partners in agt are you Fairfax
Financial is a sixty percent owner of my company. So
prem Watts believed in the long term growth of an
agri food champion from Canada. Along with Omer's pension program.
(31:51):
You know, those two companies own seventy two percent of
my shares along with myself. And you know that kind
of capital source is recognizing canada role to build billions
of growth. You know, in this sector. In the trade
infrastructure side, I think that there's a recognition that, you know,
we're not building this only you know, to talk about, oh,
(32:12):
we got great infrastructure. There's a large economic benefit that
will come along with it that can allow the tax
base to be directed into the things that need to
be done in this country. So, you know, when I
look at that recognition again not looking with rose colored glasses,
I believe capital will flow. We need to do a
better job of figuring out how to monetize trade infrastructure
(32:35):
into projects that could be funded in more traditional project finance.
So you know, it's easy on a toll road, you
have an income stream and someone will finance that. How
do you finance the growth of Class one railway infrastructure
or bridges that go to the ports, or you know,
port infrastructure. You need to come up with economic models
(32:56):
that create cash. And I remind people that extra revenue
is ca U and cost savings in the supply chain
are also cash. So from that perspective, you know, I
think that we're going to see a capital attraction because
Canada has such a fundamental competitive advantage in the natural
resources sector that capital will come here get our products
(33:19):
to the places that demand them.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
So speaking of cost savings in the supply chain, one
of the things we've seen since the tariff's announcement is
a slow down in global shipping, or a slow down
at least in shipping between China and the US. Does
that affect you at all, because I imagine, on the one hand,
maybe container rates start coming down, which would be good
(33:43):
for you. But on the other hand, my understanding is
that a lot of your produce is shipped via back hall.
So the ships come over carrying I don't know, toys
or whatever, and then they're loaded with all the agricultural
products and they're sent out into the world where ever
those are going to be processed or sold. So are
you experiencing any changes in terms of the actual flow
(34:07):
of ships here.
Speaker 4 (34:08):
That's a great question, and you are absolutely correct. The
trade flow in the world is dependent on balance. We
can only fill what comes in full, we send it
back full. So you know, ultimately it has been an
Asia trade into North America and a North American trade
(34:28):
back out to Asia. So far, you know, the disruption
time period has been small enough that we haven't felt
it yet, but it's something we're watching very very closely. Now,
what I think we have to recognize is that although
President Trump would like to have manufacturing at the snap
of a finger in the US, it's going to take time.
(34:49):
If they do succeed in building out domestic capacity for
a number of these consumer goods that they want to produce,
and then we have to also be realistic that the
cost of manufacturing and the cost of production in the
US is going to be a lot higher on a
number of these items. So, you know, I still have
a view that you know, there will be some sort
of a balanced resolution where there will be some tariffs,
(35:13):
but there ultimately will still be production around the world
coming into North America. So you know, I think that
you know, no matter what, if it doesn't come from China,
it may have to come from Korea, or it might
come from you know, Indonesia, or it may come from
you know, another nation that is set up to manufacture.
You know, if you look at you know, Apple as
(35:33):
an example as saying, now, well, we're going to stop
shipping out of China, We're going to start shipping out
of India, you know, there's ultimately going to be trade
flows that are going to come in. So we're watching
it carefully. We are definitely concerned, but we ultimately know
the consumption's not going away, so that consumption has to
be filled somehow, and ultimately it will ultimately be through
(35:56):
a combination long term of more domestic manufacturing. But you know,
at the end of the day, that's not going to
happen in the near term. Next five to seven years
are going to be transition years. And you know, again
our supply chains will have to also transition. If we
don't have container availability, what you'll see is bulk supply
chains getting bigger, like we're shipping those lentils in a
(36:19):
vassel to Turkey, and we'll have to be manufacturing elsewhere
as well, So we'll have to be a part of
global value chains as they settle in this new geopolitical
and trade regime in the world.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
I just want to get back to the politics of
farming for a second, and you mentioned, you know, this
is one of the most politically sensitive topics because every
government feels some impulse to take care of their local farmers,
and also every citizen in the world of every country
eats and is sensitive to food inflation. And Tracy asked
(36:52):
about India earlier and they've had an on again, off
again lentil important tariff. Can you talk a little bit
more about what you saw there specifically, like both I
guess the domestic politics of lental tariffs and then again
like how it affected your business specifically as they've toggled
that on and off.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
Look, you know, I've been a very vocal advocate over
the last couple of years to have the Canadian industry
recognize that the domestic agricultural policy of India is actually
a sensible policy that the Modi government has no choice
but to do it. You know, Ultimately, nations in the
world have to build local production to insulate themselves from
(37:37):
food security issues. So you know, the view that twenty
two million tons of production of pulses in India should
become thirty five million one day will still not even
keep pace with their domestic consumption. So there's still going
to be a net importer at that. So how can
we as a nation, you know, fault another nation from
(37:58):
trying to encourage local production. We've shifted our dialogue with
India to say, look, we are the reliable partner to
fill your gaps. We're going to see in countries like
India Turkey. Turkey has been doing this for decades from
May until September of every year when they harvest their crop.
In June, Turkey has a lentil tariff on. So if
(38:21):
you're bringing in lentils from Canada, they put a tariff
on to protect their domestic price of lentils for their farmers,
and September they take it off to protect against food inflation.
So these are the ways that tariffs are used to
build local prices farm receipts and yet not sacrifice the
domestic prices for affordability. India is going to do the
(38:44):
same thing, and I think ultimately it's a sensible policy.
We've got to recognize that trade relationships are no longer
going to be how do we drive by and sell.
Nations in the world are looking for two way trade
investment and innovate and technology development and transfer. So you know,
we as a company AGT are taking that view. We're
(39:07):
building a new processing plant near Mumbai where we're going
to be you know, taking Canadian materials. We're going to
be processing them in India and we're going to be
playing in the local market, and we're also going to
be exporting out of India to nations in Asia where
they have a competitive advantage. So you know, that's the
way that you build the long term trade relationship. You know,
(39:29):
recognizing that we can't sit here and say we want
terror free access to all markets around the world. We
have supply management in our country. We're restricting the access
to our agricultural sector for nations around the world. So
you know, what you want to be free traders, Let's
concentrate on the things that we need to do in
this country. Inner provincial trade barriers have to come down,
(39:51):
we have to open up our domestic agricultural markets, and
we have to recognize that we're going to have more
to gain from free trade than we are to lose
from free trade. You know, I see this as a
transitional time where you know, ultimately, you know, deals are
going to get done and trade is going to happen.
It has to because economies can't transition quick enough to
(40:14):
fill the gaps. That's what's ultimately going to drive it.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
So everything you've outlined sounds very sensible. Boosting production in
North Dakota, setting up more bilateral trade relationships, maybe moving
some processing capacity elsewhere in the world. But it also
sounds very expensive and very difficult to do if you
are a smaller scale farmer. And I guess one of
(40:42):
the concerns with the rise in trade protectionism in general
is that you are going to get even more consolidation
in agriculture. And we know that small scale farmers have
been suffering for a while. It's difficult to compete against
giants in the agricultural business. Is that going to become
even more of a trend in the current circumstances? Like
(41:05):
is scale going to be essential basically to surviving?
Speaker 4 (41:10):
Scale today is essential to surviving. But that doesn't mean
that small and medium enterprises don't have a role to
play in scale. You know, I always counsel entrepreneurs. There
are you know, different ways in which to achieve scale.
You can build scale, you can buy scale, or you
can partner scale. Right, that's it. That's the key. And
(41:34):
you know what we have not had enough of in
our economy in Canada. It's a recognition, you know. I
call it the dinner diner phenomenon. Do you want to
be dinner or do you want to be a diner?
I want to be a diner. I want to eat
other businesses and grow my scale. I don't want to
build myself to be eaten by somebody else. So ultimately,
(41:56):
you know, what we encourage is companies have to build
their ourselves into a link in the global value chain.
They have to recognize what role they do play and
they have to link themselves into a supply chain. That
makes a lot of sense. You know, I was in
Turkey three days ago. In fact, I was there on
the earthquake day in Istanbul, so scary day that day,
(42:18):
but you know, ultimately I was in Turkey meeting with
you know, customers from Japan. You know, we've linked with
the major Japanese trading houses on the development of our
pasta manufacturing business because the large Japanese trading houses have
strong linkages into the Japanese retail and the Asian distribution
(42:40):
side of things. So you know, we've recognized, even as
a relatively large company that we don't have the scale,
and we're partnering with companies that have one hundred billion
dollars in revenue because we can't solve that distribution. Or
in India, we're in discussions with the large majors like
Tata or Reliance or you know, those types willmar a
(43:02):
Danny group. I mean, these are the type of companies
that dominate, you know, the distribution in those nations. So consolidation,
you know at the farm gate is already happening. I mean,
can you can you imagine when I was a kid
growing up again, you know, we as a family had
four thousand acres of farmland. That was a big farm
(43:22):
in nineteen seventy eight. Today, at four thousand acres, a
family can't farm full time. You know, they ultimately will
need to have a second job. You know. You basically
say today a mother, father, and a daughter who are
farming would have to be twelve thousand acres in order
to sustain a family. So from that perspective, you know, again,
(43:46):
scale is actually part of our advantage in our agricultural system.
And we're a low cost, high quality producer. We're competing
against nations that have one acre and two acre and
five acre farms that are very manual and not mechanized.
So ultimately, you know, we have to recognize. I don't
think it's a bad word. I think it's transition. But
I do think that SMEs are key. Small and medium
(44:08):
enterprises are key because they're nimble, they can innovate, they
can deliver a product that is fitting. You know, sometimes
bigger companies aren't good at doing things like that. We're
not nimble enough to do it. We need SMEs to
make us competitive. We've got to build the ecosystem and
the linkages. We haven't done that in this country.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
I just have one last question, and it sort of
relates to the productivity gains that you've seen over the
years in farming from all kinds of like sensors and
maybe there's drones involved and stuff like that, or lower
cost of tractors or whatever. There's obviously a lot of
anxiety about how much technological products come from China. When
you look at the farming business in Canada, how much
(44:50):
of that tech stack that drives productivity gains these days
comes from a Chinese tech basically, or Chinese manufacturing in
the form of farm equipment.
Speaker 4 (45:00):
I would say, you know, from my experience, there'd be
a lot more reliance on the overall Asian manufacturing, not
just China, and I think that's an advantage for us.
You know, again, a lot of the sensors and things
that we use are now manufactured in so many nations
around the world that we can kind of dodge that.
They think the key is you know, on the manufacturing side.
(45:21):
You know, a lot of the farm equipment is you know,
still very much dominated by US manufacturers, but a lot
of the core technologies, like zero minimum tillage. You know,
the center of manufacturing for that technology is Western Canada.
We're the ones who developed it, you know, companies like
you know Borgo Industries and you know Flexico Oil and
Morris Industries. These are industries that were here for the
(45:42):
last four decades, you know, developing out these zero minimum
tillage seating systems. All we've done is add on the
technology to that, GPS, sensors, you know, decision support systems,
the big guys, the John Deere's the case ih. I mean,
these are again large global companies who are ultimately driving it.
(46:04):
Data is something that is going to be a key
advantage for us. I don't see, you know, vulnerability. Maybe
I'm overstating. Yes, there's always vulnerability when you have a
tech stack, but you know, ultimately we're using so many
different technologies and we're stacking them together that I think
that ultimately we have something that is not only unique,
(46:26):
but it's something that you can only implement a scale.
You can't digitize one acre farms. It's not cost viable.
You know, we have single farm families, you know in
west central Saskatchewan, who's seating three hundred thousand acres of
farmland this year? Three hundred thousand acres. You know, these
(46:47):
farm families have you know, two generations, there are four
generations on the farm and they have full time IT
departments on their farm. So these are not you know,
corporate farms in the in the mind. Don't forget. We
still have foreign ownership guidelines that prevent foreign ownership of
farmland and Saskatchewan as an example. So these are still
(47:07):
family farms. They've just scaled to be something that is
very large and very competitive.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
Rad Al Katib the Lentil King of Saskatchewan.
Speaker 3 (47:15):
The leg you Mary Lentil King Legumary of Saskatchewan with
his pulse on the pulses.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
That was a fantastic I learned a lot in that conversation.
Thank you so much for coming on hotlines.
Speaker 4 (47:28):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
That was a lot of fun. There are a lot
of very interesting strands to pull out from that conversation.
I do think like the politics of food is definitely
one of them. And this idea that every government basically
around the world is trying to balance the distinct demands
of their local constituency. Food security would which can kind
of only be ensured by having some sort of local production,
(48:03):
and then the fact that everyone has to eat.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
Are there any countries or governments out there that don't
sort of idealize agriculture.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
Yeah, it's a great question. I don't know, Like in Singapore,
did they I don't know. Yes, there's got to be.
Speaker 3 (48:16):
Something Singapore, I guess some Middle East countries, but even there,
I know they're doing stuff with like hydroponics. Anyway, a
couple things that stood out to me. So Murrad's comment
about trade being a balance, especially in global shipping, I
think is really important. So even if Canada wasn't directly
(48:36):
affected by something like US tariffs, there would still be
that knock on effect from ships being re routed around
the world. And this is something that we saw in
the pandemic of course, you know, like ships coming over
full and then returning empty and that being a pretty
big problem for a bunch of companies and American consumers.
So that's one thing, and then the other thing is
(49:00):
the consolidation aspect. It just seems to me like the
only I mean, we said it right, the only way
to survive, especially in a world where trade restrictions are
becoming more popular, really is scale, and it's going to
be near impossible, I think for the smaller guys to compete.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
I'm glad you asked that question about the back hal
because this is one of the things that it's been
wearring me. It's like, you know, people talk about the
sort of tariffs and from a sort of strictly fiscal standpoint,
like this is going to raise the cost of X,
and so there's going to be less but as we
recently saw it, like there's another knock on effect. And
I'm glad you brought that up about the fact that
(49:39):
the ships just might not be there. Yeah, in place,
there are certain goods that are intermediate goods in some way,
and so that's how you get these like ripple out
disruptions beyond just oh this is lost product for me
or this is lost income for you. I also liked
how Amurad like sort of you know, talked about the
calorie is the original form of energy, which I just
(50:00):
fine to be really important in this idea that the
productivity in the ag space is pretty extraordinary, and the
fact that they're still more yield expected. And then the
question is do you have the rail capacity, do you
have the export terminal capacity to actually monetize these agreements
and increased yield.
Speaker 3 (50:18):
I'm just gonna say, lentils are amazing. They're great, and
I am really really hungry, and I'm crazy like a
bunch of.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
Doll Yes, I know, I haven't eaten today, and so
I've had the exact say thought during the entire conversation.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
So good and good for the soil, good for the soil.
All right, shall we leave it there?
Speaker 2 (50:36):
Let's leave it there.
Speaker 3 (50:37):
This has been another episode of the Odd Thoughts podcast.
I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway.
Speaker 2 (50:43):
And I'm Joe isn't Thal. You can follow me at
the Stalwart. Follow our guest He's at marad agt Foods.
Follow our producers Kerman Rodriguez at Kerman armand dash Ol
Bennett at Dashbot and Kilbrooks at kle Brooks. For more
Oddlogs content, go to bloomberg dot com slash Oddlogs. We
have all of our episodes and a daily newsletter, and
you can chat about all of these topics, including supply
(51:05):
chains twenty four to seven in our discord Discord dot
gg slash.
Speaker 3 (51:09):
Hot lots and if you enjoy all lots, If you
like it when we speak to the Lentil King of Saskatchewan,
then please leave us a positive review on your favorite
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All you need to do is find the Bloomberg channel
on Apple Podcasts and follow the instructions there. Thanks for listening.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Locks podcast.
I'm Jill Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway. Tracy. Canadian elections
last night.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Yes, big event. I think a lot of people are
talking about it in the context of US politics. Right,
So we just saw Mark Karney and the Liberals win,
and in a lot of ways, I think people would
agree that Mark Carney's sort of the antithesis of Trump, right,
He's the sort of globalization Davos, former central banker guy.
(00:51):
And the funny thing is, or the slightly ironic thing
is it seems like Trump might have swung the election
in the direction of the girls.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Well, yeah, you go back like three months ago or
four months ago or something, and it just seemed guaranteed
that the Conservatives Pierre Pluliev was going to win. And
then Trump started talking about making Canada the fifty first state,
and suddenly fortunes turned very quickly. But that was just
a news hook. We're not really doing a Canadian politics
(01:20):
episode today, per se.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
We're doing something better.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
We're doing something better. The real reason that we're doing
this episode, this just happened to be good timing for
the hook. The real reason we're doing this episode is
that several weeks ago, I was reading an article and
I saw a title about a man named the lentil
King of Saskatchewan, or not named but titled as such,
and I thought to myself, the lentil King of Saskatchewan
(01:45):
sounds like a great odd lots character, someone that we
should talk to to learn about a very specific business
and how it works.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
The lentil King of Saskatchewan, the Sultan of split Peas,
the Grand Poopa of pulses, the Baron of beans, Monarch
of multi grains. I can keep going.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
You did your prep. That's really good. Anyway, do we
have the lentil King of Saskatchewan on the podcast today
and we are going to really learn about how the
international pulses and grains trade actually work. What does it mean,
How does trading work with us, how does it work
with the rest of the world. How do you build
that supply chain.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
I'm also just incredibly surprised that Canada is such a
big player in this market. I think it exports like
a third of the world's lentil crop something like that.
That's kind of crazy.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
That is a lot of lentils. But they have a
lot of land in Canada for this type of thing.
Not a ton of people, a lot of land. Anyway,
let's learn all about the lentil trade, the pulse trade,
the grain trade and so forth.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Are we going to take the pulse of the pulse trade.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
We're going to take the pulse of the pulse trade.
We are speaking with Marad al Katib. He is the
president and CEO of AGT Food and Ingredients, credited with
turn Saskatchewan into such a powerhouse of trade from a
lentil So, Marian, thank you so much for coming on odlot.
Speaker 4 (03:06):
Well, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
What did you start with? What does the lentil King
of Saskatchewan do tell us about the business of an
AGT Food and ingredient.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Is it good to be the lentil King.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
It's definitely been an interesting career for me to kind
of contribute to the transformation of agriculture out in Western Canada. So,
you know, coming up on twenty five years since I
made a decision to quit my job in government at
the Governor of Saskatchewan and move to the basement of
my house and drive the transformation of a cropping system that.
(03:41):
You know, when I was a kid growing up in
a little town called Davidson, Saskatchewan, we grew wheat and
we grew canola, and then the farmers had to leave
their soil to summer follow because the nitrogen fertilizer that
they used in canola and the oil seed was so
heavy that the soil needed to replenish naturally. The alternative
to that to plant and nitrogen fixing legume, so lentils, chickpeas,
(04:04):
peas beans. These crops actually fix nitrogen. They don't require
nitrogen fertilizer. And so, you know, that was my bet.
I mean, I was a twenty seven year old young
entrepreneur who kind of looked at this situation and said,
look agronomically, if we can grow these things, the world
demands them. They're protein crops. If we could intersect, you know,
(04:25):
taking our summer follow into protein and reaching global markets,
I could create a business. And that was kind of
the premise. So it's been quite exciting to build a
multi billion dollar company based round the Regina, Saskatchewan, you know,
to kind of reach the world, drive the Canadian trade,
and participate in growing and consolidating a global supply chain
(04:47):
in this business.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
So how big a player is Canada nowadays in pulses
and grains and lentils and all those things I mentioned
earlier that I think it produces like a third of
the world's life until crop I did see an estimate
that said sixty percent of the world's lentil crops. I
went with the third trying to be conservative here, but
like give us some context around where Canada sits in
(05:11):
this space.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Yeah, we would be more depend on the crop year,
but somewhere around fifty percent or more of the world trades.
So wow. You know, you have to recognize that the
traditional growth of these crops were in areas where they
consumed them, right Turkey, Middle East, India. India is the
biggest giant in this business, you know, with all of
the vegetarians. You know, you look at one point three
(05:34):
billion people, four hundred and fifty million vegetarians. Vegetable protein
is essential for the diet of countries, you know, in
the emerging market. So you know, they grow them and
they consume them. Well, what was missing was global supply
in nations that could grow them but not consume them,
but export them. And so that's where you know Canada
(05:54):
came into the play, Australia, the United States. Now we
have emerging origins like Extan, Russia, Ukraine. You know, the
the global consumption of these crops are over one hundred
million tons. Now, you know, because you know you're talking
about the traditional crops that we consume. Let's let's talk
about the traditional diet of the world. Let's do it rice.
(06:14):
You know, rice is six percent protein, corn eight percent protein,
lentils twenty two percent protein, faba beans thirty four percent protein,
chickbas twenty six percent protein. I mean, these crops are
not in the same class when it comes to protein availability,
and the world is in a global protein deficit. So
(06:35):
you know, we can we always forget one thing. We
talk a lot about energy and energy security. We talk
about you know, oil and gas, but we have to
recognize that protein and you know, diets are human energy.
And so when we look at that there's a protein
deficit in the world, it's causing major socioeconomic problems. You know,
let's look at a country like India. Eighteen percent of
(06:56):
children in India are stunted due to protein deficiency. Right,
the world has you know, eight hundred billion people who
are malnourished on a daily basis, over two billion people
who are food insecure on a daily basis. So this
has become one of society's global challenges. Ten billion people
by twenty fifty quantifies it to a statistic where in
(07:20):
the next forty years we have to produce the same
amount of food that the world produced in the last
ten thousand years of civilization. Just wrap your head around that,
go back ten thousand years, go head forty years. You've
got to equal food production. And that's only if we
curb food waste and we actually can store the crops
that we harvest. So you know, when you look at it,
(07:40):
it's a global challenge. And land and water are not
being created, so those are the scarcest resources in the world.
And Canada is blessed with a northern hemisphere. You know
that ultimately is more resilient on climate change. We have
arable land and water, and we have the best farmers
in the world with technology and innovation driving sector. Those
(08:01):
are all recipes for what I would call a generational
economic driver for this country.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Joe, could you say that Canada has been blessed in
growing grains? Do you get it?
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (08:14):
I get it.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
I'm I'm sure you've heard of.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
All over over theres. I'm glad you brought that up. Actually,
though about the calorie as the original unit of energy,
that was important. You know, we've never had him on
the podcast, but vaklov Smil talks about that when he
talks about the history of energy and just these calculations
in the beginning, Okay, how many calories did a firmer
have to expend to produce this much land, and then
(08:42):
so forth, and how many calories were produced and so forth.
So just even thinking about it from that equation is
a very like sort of important, I think, Lens, why
don't you just describe the actual role of AGT foods.
Where do you sit in the supply chain and dist
Do you have farms yourself, do you work with farmers?
(09:03):
Do you contract with them? Like talk about where you
sit and how a lentil grown in Saskatchewan gets to
a consumer in say, India.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
Well, the entire business plan was set up modern state
of the art processing infrastructure in the areas where we
grow these crops. So we contract directly with farmers. We
are the ones who transform their products into saleable you know,
human consumption products. So we own factories in Canada, the US, Australia,
(09:32):
South Africa, Turkey. So I started with one small, little
factory in Regina. We now have forty six manufacturing and
processing facilities and five continents around the world. I started
in the basement of my house. There's now thirty six
hundred employees. Wow. So you know what we do is
we take those crops, we clean them, we size them,
we peel them, we split them, we can them, we
(09:54):
package them, we put them out and we fraction them
into protein starts, f flowers. I mean, we put them
into food products. We do the full range of value adding.
And in the scale of our business now you know,
let's say around three point two billion in revenue this year,
we become a major global supply chain in this particular
(10:16):
segment of the business. In fact, if I look at
you know, containerized agricultural Shipments AGT would be among the
two or three largest containerized shippers of agriproducts in the
entire world. So you know, we shipped to one hundred
and ten countries actively.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
And how does it get there? Like what is the okay,
So from a farmer in Saskatchewan, how many links are
there on that chain.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
So we'll take it into let's say a farmer in Eston, Saskatchewan,
We'll deliver to our location at Aston, Okay. We will
then take that grain. We'll put it into a railcar
that we own. So those owned railcars then go into
the CN rail system. They get transported to a port facility.
Let's say I just did one as an example, and
(10:58):
on May the sixth, we're going to ship a vessel
of lentils to Turkey. So those Eston farmers would have
filled the railcars. We're shipping it to thunder Bay. At
thunder Bay, we have an ocean terminal where we'll load
a vessel. That vessel will transport twenty one thousand tons
of lentils that will go to Turkey. They will be
(11:18):
offloaded in the port of Meerson, Turkey, which is in
the southern Mediterranean. We have factory seven kilometers for the port.
Will peel them, split them, polish them, package them, and
then they'll be shipped to Iraq. They'll be shipped into
the Gaza refugees. They'll be shipped into the Middle East
region and they'll be consumed locally in the entire region
(11:41):
on the food side. So you know where we play
is in the entire supply chain, taking it right from
the farmer right through to the distribution directly onto the
consumer shelf. And you know, that was the strategy that
we wanted to to build out. It gives us resiliency.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
I was going to ask, is it normal for agricultural
company is to actually own their own transportation capital. You
mentioned train cars just then. That seems extremely vertically integrated.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
Well, yeah, actually I was definitely not, you know, the
normal thought and that In twenty fifteen, I decided to
build a transportation business, and so we bought six hundred
and fifty kilometers of short line railway. We bought the
Saskatchewan government grain car fleet. So when the Canadian Wheatboard
was dismantled, the Saskatchewan flagged grain cars, I bought them.
(12:33):
We bought thirteen locomotives. We set up our own transportation infrastructure,
linked it in a long term agreement to Cnrail, and
you know we're able to access it through ocean port infrastructure.
We actually took that business in twenty twenty five in January,
and we sold it for one hundred and ninety two
million dollars to an infrastructure fund in the United States,
(12:55):
and then we contracted them back to provide US service
for the next twenty year. So you are correct. We
actually built out a transportation infrastructure that didn't exist to
handle these kinds of commodities, and then we found a
partner to run it for the long term and it
gives us a competitive advantage to get our products to market.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
I have a question. You know, you mentioned that the
only scarce resources are land and water. Can you talk
about yields on an acre or yields on a given
farm today versus when you got started in the industry,
and how what you've seen in terms of technology and
productivity growth at the land level.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
Massive massive transformation, So precision agriculture, digital infrastructure has transformed
the productivity of Canada. And you know, when I was
a kid growing up in that little village of Davidson,
twelve hundred people in the middle of Saskatchewan. You know,
as an immigrant Turkish family, the farmer would go out
and kick the dirt. He would put his hand into
(14:10):
the soil. He'd have his wife with him and say
what do you think should we go? And she'd say, yeah,
let's go, and they would go and start seeding. Today,
we're soil sampling. We're analyzing the soil and the nitrogen
in the soil. There's precision weather stations that are measuring moisture.
We have zero minimum tillage where GPS systems are giving
(14:31):
the farmer the exact placement of seed fertilizer in a
single pass without breaking the soil using air channels. We're
putting the seed in a precision basis to maximize the yield,
to lower the amount of nitrogen fertilizer being used in
all crop rotations, which ultimately saves inputs and lowers the
(14:53):
carbon intensity of our agriculture. Our yield curves have been
massively increasing, you know, to where if I look at
the next decade ahead in Saskatchewan, I'm forecasting seven to
ten million additional tons of grain from the same amount
of acres that are being seated. You know, that is
a massive.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Wait, what's the baseline, what's the base? Seven to ten million?
On top of how many.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
We're growing about thirty million tons, so we're gonna have
another seven to ten million. I mean, you're talking about
twenty to thirty percent yield increase over the next seven years.
I mean, when I chaired the National Strategy Table for
Agriculture and Food for the Government of Canada. We set
a target in twenty nineteen that the agriculture sector in
our country would grow from forty five billion to eighty
(15:37):
five billion of exports in a five year cycle, and
domestic agricultural output would grow from one hundred and twenty
billion to one hundred and forty five billion. And we
reached that target in three years. I mean, what sector
of our economy can deliver sixty five billion of growth
in three years. Agriculture did that in this country. So
(16:00):
the tangibility of that opportunity of global food insecurity, the
productivity of precision agriculture in our country, and you know,
the ability to get our products to market. You know,
this is the recipe that I believe is going to
be a big part of the government economic agenda going forward. So,
you know, we talk a lot about natural resources that
(16:21):
are in conflict in certain mindsets, whether it be oil
and gas or mining. There's very little controversy on the
growth of the natural resource sector in agriculture. So from
that perspective, I see that as being a key opportunity
for this country, you know, and one that I'm very
excited about for the next twenty years of my career.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
So I take the point about yields having been improved.
But at the same time, there's a lot of talk
about soil exhaustion, right And one of the reasons this
is on my mind is because I was gardening over
the weekend on an old farm property and the soil
is just terrible. It's basically dust like, there's no tilth
(17:02):
I think I found one earthworm in like six hours
of digging. How big a problem is soil depletion? And
you touched on this earlier, But what role can lentils
and beans play in that?
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Well? And then that's actually the key. The key is
is that farmers in Western Canada are now practicing a
sustainable three crop rotation. So one year they'll grow that
wheat like when I was a kid, the next year
they'll grow an oil seed like canola, and then the
year after that they'll plant the lagoome that will fix
the nitrogen. By using zero minimum tillage, we're conserving soil moisture,
(17:40):
we're managing pests and the health of the soil, and
we're actually using farming practices where without tilling we're returning
biomass into the soil. So from that perspective, when I
look at the sustainability of soil health, the farmers in
Western Canada have gotten And you know, that is something
that bothers me is people talk about how regenerative agriculture
(18:02):
is such a key part. Well, in Western Canada, we've
been doing regenerative agriculture for the last forty years. This
is something that is actually foundational to the success of
the Western Canadian and I mean the Canadian agriculture sector
in general. So you know, I think that when I
look at soil depletion and soil health, it's about farmers
(18:23):
pushing the wrong rotations, growing crops on top of crops,
the same crops. You know, ultimately, if you don't rotate,
you have pests that multiply, you have diseases that ultimately
get resistant to any type of management. So, you know,
this kind of diversity of our agricultural system is one
that not only has to be celebrated, but it's actually
(18:45):
yielding that yield gain. So you know, not only is
our soil health at a peak, but it's also something
I want to be clear, we can't take for granted.
We have to be continuously innovating to make sure that
we maintain that. I mean, I say, the canola fields
of Saskatchewan are the same as the oil fields of
Saudi Arabia, only every year it replenishes naturally. So we
(19:06):
can take crops, we can produce renewable fuels, we can
take crops, extract protein and feed the world. But we
have to make sure foundationally that soil health is at
the forefront. And I think it is in our farmer's
minds and then the practices that they do.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
So you know, you've described this global supply chain that
exists in the fact that you can get the lentil
product from a farmer in Saskatchewan all the way to
a consumer in India or Iraq or Turkey, et cetera. Obviously,
we're having this conversation, at least on the US side,
with this turn against globalized supply chains, globalized trade and
(19:46):
so forth. Talk to us a little bit about how
you see the state of US Canada agg trade, or
give us the sort of the short history of the
various turns of the dial there and how some of
these conversations are affecting your business.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
Look, I think We've got to recognize one thing. We
have a president in the United States today who's just
very loud and using tariffs as the mechanism to not
only provoke conversation but to drive policy protectionists. Agricultural policies
in the United States are not something new, you know.
I always have to remind people that country of origin
labeling was a Barack Obama policy that you know, continued
(20:24):
through the Trump administration and into the Biden administration. So
you know, every government in the world, agriculture is the
most political business in the entire globe because farmers have
to be protected by governments that are elected. Yet, food
inflation and food security are paramount considerations in the health, wealth,
(20:46):
and security of every nation in the world. So when
we look at it, let's not forget one thing. When
a baby is hungry, they cry, When an eighteen year
old man is unemployed in hungry, they protest. So you know,
ultimately a big part of civil obedience in the world
is available food, and that growing food insecurity is one
(21:07):
that I think, you know, is going to be paramount.
So when I look at even US policy, look, food
security is a foundational part of US intelligence and foreign policy.
And so from that perspective, you know, I believe that
agricultural trade will have to be preserved as a part
of the overall policy framework. So you know, we're going
(21:30):
to see tariffs, We're going to see protectionist measures being
more prevalent in the world. But I do think that
ultimately food are going to be concessionary items. Governments are
going to allow them to flow. Governments will use tariffs
to protect their farmers when they need to at times
when they harvest their crops, but they need food available.
(21:52):
And you know the COVID post supply chain disruptions and
food lines and food inflation, and you know, food being
a big driver of that inflationary environment in the world
world is something that everybody recognizes can't continue. On the
US policy side, domestic agriculture in the US and Canada
are very integrated. So if I look at you know,
the pasta on the shelves of the US consumer come
(22:13):
largely from Durham wheat in Western Canada. The overall integration
of our livestock sectors, cropping sectors are there, and ultimately
I think we're going to see further integration. We're going
to see you know, getting over this current protectionist conflict.
Leyden dialogue to recognizing that the Americas integration and more
(22:38):
reliance on each other as nations in the Americas is
going to be part of economic prosperity. And you know,
I think that, you know, if I look at the
Trump administration, you know, kind of policy on Canada. We
have to just remind everybody very clearly to have comm heads.
Thirty one US states have Canada as their largest trading partner.
The ultimate availability of food in the United States is
(23:01):
you know, not completely reliant, but we certainly have a
big influence on food prices. And so you know, I'm
a very strong optimist that agriculture will continue its integration
and that you know, ultimately food and I believe energy
are going to be the two sectors. And the third
one from a Saskatchewan perspective is potash. I mean, eighty
(23:22):
percent of the potash in the United States, which is
a necessary nitrogen element you know, comes from Canadian minds.
So you know, from that perspective, you know, there's certain
sectors that I think are mutually beneficial that are going
to enjoy heightened access in some sort of resolution.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Okay, so agriculture might be special in one way or another.
But just to drill down a little bit into specifics,
if the US slaps tariffs on Canadian lentils, what is
the first thing that happens in your supply chain? And
I guess maybe we could go back in history and
(23:57):
talk a little bit about thee from India on lontals
because you have experience with this, right like you have
gone through this process, So what exactly happens.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
Agriculture is no different than any other sector, except that
our markets are already a lot more diversified than you know,
other sectors. So you know, when I look at the
crop sectors in particular wheat, canola, and pulses, we do
have shipments into the US on a regular basis, but
it's still making up a relatively small percentage when you
(24:30):
look at it compared to other sectors' reliance on the US.
So you know, one of the key things to having
strength in a tariff or a trade protectionist environment is
to have alternative markets. Now, for US, I worry more
about the reciprocal tariffs in places like China, India and
other large markets than I do only the US market.
(24:51):
I mean, it's one of the considerations. We want that resolution,
but you know what we do is we pivot. You know,
when we were facing the tariffs on the March deadline
than the April deadline, you know, as a company, we
already prepared for this. We have a North Dakota manufacturing
facility that was going to manufacture more for the US market.
We were going to switch our supply chain to reliance
(25:12):
on North Dakota and Montana, and we were going to
take the Western Canadian product and we were going to
go out to the Middle East into other markets in Asia.
We're going to put a height and focused on South America,
and we're going to ship into Europe. So you know,
that's where you have to be. And I think that
this is ultimately you know, my dialogues with Prime Minister
Carney prior to the election, of my dialogues after with
(25:32):
Prime Minister Carney are going to be trade diversification agenda
is not something that we can blink at, no matter
how quickly or how comprehensively. The resolution is with the US,
we need to finally execute trade diversification in this country.
We need to recognize that our industries have become overly reliant.
(25:53):
We've been complacent. You know what, this has to be
a wake up call to my colleagues in every industry
in this country. Wake up over reliance. Eggs in one
basket is a dangerous remedy for long term sustainable health
of your business. And you know, ultimately that's where we
have to go. We need bilateral trade agreements. We need
to resolve India and China as powerhouses that balance our
(26:17):
reliance on the US, and we need to monetize the
European Union trade agreement that we've already signed. We need
to ensure that we get relevance with these countries. And
agri food, energy and potash and uranium are four things
that get us relevance with these nations. We need to
parlay that into free trade agreements, bilateral exchange agreements, and
(26:41):
we need to get ourselves market access.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Obviously, shiating free trade or bilateral trade agreements with different
counterparts is an important element. There's also a physical element, right,
the quality of rail infrastructure, the quality of export terminal
and I guess on the other side, import terminal infrastructure.
In the context of energy, we hear a lot about
this and are we building export terminals fast enough? And
(27:20):
is it cheap enough, is it economical? Talk to us
about the sort of like the physical things that need
to get built, as you put it, monetize these relationships,
and like I don't know in the US, I know
that building everything is crazy expensive these days. What does
the state of this physical trade infrastructure look like in
Canada right now?
Speaker 4 (27:39):
We have we have to acknowledge that we've got, you know,
major challenges. I mean, we've got large geographic land base,
we have mountains between production regions in Western Canada and
the coast in Vancouver, and we have minus forty degree temperatures.
So you know, these are all constraints that we have
to live with. And you know, one of the things
(28:00):
you know, I've become a little bit known for in
this country is my adage that if I was Prime
Minister for one day, I would invest one hundred billion
dollars in trade infrastructure because that ultimately would pay dividends
for generations to come. So, you know, we need to
revive the gateway strategies. If I look back at the
two thousand and five twenty eleven period, the Asia Pacific
(28:23):
Gateway initiative is one of the most successful in recent times.
In Canada where you had you know, municipal governments, provincial governments,
private sector players, Class one railways, port authorities, poort infrastructure,
private sector players working on first mile and last mile,
and we made major progress on developing the Asia Pacific Gateway.
We need to acknowledge that we need to build a
(28:45):
trade infrastructure for thirty and forty and fifty years from now,
not just for thirty and forty and fifty weeks from now.
We need to relocate rail lines out of the center
of communities across our nation, to plan for development of
industrial and redissidential developments and allow for the trade infrastructure
to have room to scale. You know, as we continue
(29:06):
to build out. I mean Saskatchewan is a perfect example.
As I said, seven to ten million more tons of agri.
With the BHP investment of twelve billion dollars in potash
k Pluss mine expansion and the expansions that are on
for nutrient and mosaic, you have roughly about twelve million
additional tons of potash that will come online over the
(29:29):
next decade. And you know, if we get oil and
pipelines and we get the dry bull commodities on rail,
we have some capacity, but We've got to think about
what we're going to be thirty years from now. If
we continue on these yield trends, we're going to reach
one hundred million tons of production one day. Today our
average is fifty five million tons in this country in Agrie.
So from that perspective, the economic benefit is there as well,
(29:53):
which ultimately, you know, funds the Canadian way of life,
social programs like healthcare, education, you know, the things that
we as Canadians value, you know, in terms of being
Canadian versus being living in another nation around the world.
So that's the opportunity. And trade infrastructure. I have a
level of optimism that, you know, our newly elected Liberal
(30:16):
government and frankly, it would have been the same if
the Conservatives were elected. Trade infrastructure is recognized as an
essential element of that trade diversification strategy. We focused a
lot on north south infrastructure and not that we should
diminish that because I think people got to recognize we're
not saying trade less with the US. We're saying trade
(30:38):
our growth with new countries. Over time, we will diversify.
Trade diversification couldnot happen in one day, one year, or
even in ten years, you know, we have created an
economy that's reliant over decades. We need to diversify over
the next decades.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
So I know it's early days, but just on this point,
farming is clearly a very capital intensive business and you
want to be investing in trade, infrastructure and things like that.
Have you noticed any changes in capital availability post Trump's win?
So are people maybe they feel more cautious because there's
(31:18):
all this policy uncertainty, or maybe people are directing capital
away from the US and towards Canada. Now, I don't know,
have you noticed any shifts in the pattern?
Speaker 4 (31:29):
I think that you know, certainly short term disruptions like this,
you know, cause capital to be nervous. You know, there's
no doubt about it. But you know, if I look
at you know my partners in agt are you Fairfax
Financial is a sixty percent owner of my company. So
prem Watts believed in the long term growth of an
agri food champion from Canada. Along with Omer's pension program.
(31:51):
You know, those two companies own seventy two percent of
my shares along with myself. And you know that kind
of capital source is recognizing canada role to build billions
of growth. You know, in this sector. In the trade
infrastructure side, I think that there's a recognition that, you know,
we're not building this only you know, to talk about, oh,
(32:12):
we got great infrastructure. There's a large economic benefit that
will come along with it that can allow the tax
base to be directed into the things that need to
be done in this country. So, you know, when I
look at that recognition again not looking with rose colored glasses,
I believe capital will flow. We need to do a
better job of figuring out how to monetize trade infrastructure
(32:35):
into projects that could be funded in more traditional project finance.
So you know, it's easy on a toll road, you
have an income stream and someone will finance that. How
do you finance the growth of Class one railway infrastructure
or bridges that go to the ports, or you know,
port infrastructure. You need to come up with economic models
(32:56):
that create cash. And I remind people that extra revenue
is ca U and cost savings in the supply chain
are also cash. So from that perspective, you know, I
think that we're going to see a capital attraction because
Canada has such a fundamental competitive advantage in the natural
resources sector that capital will come here get our products
(33:19):
to the places that demand them.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
So speaking of cost savings in the supply chain, one
of the things we've seen since the tariff's announcement is
a slow down in global shipping, or a slow down
at least in shipping between China and the US. Does
that affect you at all, because I imagine, on the one hand,
maybe container rates start coming down, which would be good
(33:43):
for you. But on the other hand, my understanding is
that a lot of your produce is shipped via back hall.
So the ships come over carrying I don't know, toys
or whatever, and then they're loaded with all the agricultural
products and they're sent out into the world where ever
those are going to be processed or sold. So are
you experiencing any changes in terms of the actual flow
(34:07):
of ships here.
Speaker 4 (34:08):
That's a great question, and you are absolutely correct. The
trade flow in the world is dependent on balance. We
can only fill what comes in full, we send it
back full. So you know, ultimately it has been an
Asia trade into North America and a North American trade
(34:28):
back out to Asia. So far, you know, the disruption
time period has been small enough that we haven't felt
it yet, but it's something we're watching very very closely. Now,
what I think we have to recognize is that although
President Trump would like to have manufacturing at the snap
of a finger in the US, it's going to take time.
(34:49):
If they do succeed in building out domestic capacity for
a number of these consumer goods that they want to produce,
and then we have to also be realistic that the
cost of manufacturing and the cost of production in the
US is going to be a lot higher on a
number of these items. So, you know, I still have
a view that you know, there will be some sort
of a balanced resolution where there will be some tariffs,
(35:13):
but there ultimately will still be production around the world
coming into North America. So you know, I think that
you know, no matter what, if it doesn't come from China,
it may have to come from Korea, or it might
come from you know, Indonesia, or it may come from
you know, another nation that is set up to manufacture.
You know, if you look at you know, Apple as
(35:33):
an example as saying, now, well, we're going to stop
shipping out of China, We're going to start shipping out
of India, you know, there's ultimately going to be trade
flows that are going to come in. So we're watching
it carefully. We are definitely concerned, but we ultimately know
the consumption's not going away, so that consumption has to
be filled somehow, and ultimately it will ultimately be through
(35:56):
a combination long term of more domestic manufacturing. But you know,
at the end of the day, that's not going to
happen in the near term. Next five to seven years
are going to be transition years. And you know, again
our supply chains will have to also transition. If we
don't have container availability, what you'll see is bulk supply
chains getting bigger, like we're shipping those lentils in a
(36:19):
vassel to Turkey, and we'll have to be manufacturing elsewhere
as well, So we'll have to be a part of
global value chains as they settle in this new geopolitical
and trade regime in the world.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
I just want to get back to the politics of
farming for a second, and you mentioned, you know, this
is one of the most politically sensitive topics because every
government feels some impulse to take care of their local farmers,
and also every citizen in the world of every country
eats and is sensitive to food inflation. And Tracy asked
(36:52):
about India earlier and they've had an on again, off
again lentil important tariff. Can you talk a little bit
more about what you saw there specifically, like both I
guess the domestic politics of lental tariffs and then again
like how it affected your business specifically as they've toggled
that on and off.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
Look, you know, I've been a very vocal advocate over
the last couple of years to have the Canadian industry
recognize that the domestic agricultural policy of India is actually
a sensible policy that the Modi government has no choice
but to do it. You know, Ultimately, nations in the
world have to build local production to insulate themselves from
(37:37):
food security issues. So you know, the view that twenty
two million tons of production of pulses in India should
become thirty five million one day will still not even
keep pace with their domestic consumption. So there's still going
to be a net importer at that. So how can
we as a nation, you know, fault another nation from
(37:58):
trying to encourage local production. We've shifted our dialogue with
India to say, look, we are the reliable partner to
fill your gaps. We're going to see in countries like
India Turkey. Turkey has been doing this for decades from
May until September of every year when they harvest their crop.
In June, Turkey has a lentil tariff on. So if
(38:21):
you're bringing in lentils from Canada, they put a tariff
on to protect their domestic price of lentils for their farmers,
and September they take it off to protect against food inflation.
So these are the ways that tariffs are used to
build local prices farm receipts and yet not sacrifice the
domestic prices for affordability. India is going to do the
(38:44):
same thing, and I think ultimately it's a sensible policy.
We've got to recognize that trade relationships are no longer
going to be how do we drive by and sell.
Nations in the world are looking for two way trade
investment and innovate and technology development and transfer. So you know,
we as a company AGT are taking that view. We're
(39:07):
building a new processing plant near Mumbai where we're going
to be you know, taking Canadian materials. We're going to
be processing them in India and we're going to be
playing in the local market, and we're also going to
be exporting out of India to nations in Asia where
they have a competitive advantage. So you know, that's the
way that you build the long term trade relationship. You know,
(39:29):
recognizing that we can't sit here and say we want
terror free access to all markets around the world. We
have supply management in our country. We're restricting the access
to our agricultural sector for nations around the world. So
you know, what you want to be free traders, Let's
concentrate on the things that we need to do in
this country. Inner provincial trade barriers have to come down,
(39:51):
we have to open up our domestic agricultural markets, and
we have to recognize that we're going to have more
to gain from free trade than we are to lose
from free trade. You know, I see this as a
transitional time where you know, ultimately, you know, deals are
going to get done and trade is going to happen.
It has to because economies can't transition quick enough to
(40:14):
fill the gaps. That's what's ultimately going to drive it.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
So everything you've outlined sounds very sensible. Boosting production in
North Dakota, setting up more bilateral trade relationships, maybe moving
some processing capacity elsewhere in the world. But it also
sounds very expensive and very difficult to do if you
are a smaller scale farmer. And I guess one of
(40:42):
the concerns with the rise in trade protectionism in general
is that you are going to get even more consolidation
in agriculture. And we know that small scale farmers have
been suffering for a while. It's difficult to compete against
giants in the agricultural business. Is that going to become
even more of a trend in the current circumstances? Like
(41:05):
is scale going to be essential basically to surviving?
Speaker 4 (41:10):
Scale today is essential to surviving. But that doesn't mean
that small and medium enterprises don't have a role to
play in scale. You know, I always counsel entrepreneurs. There
are you know, different ways in which to achieve scale.
You can build scale, you can buy scale, or you
can partner scale. Right, that's it. That's the key. And
(41:34):
you know what we have not had enough of in
our economy in Canada. It's a recognition, you know. I
call it the dinner diner phenomenon. Do you want to
be dinner or do you want to be a diner?
I want to be a diner. I want to eat
other businesses and grow my scale. I don't want to
build myself to be eaten by somebody else. So ultimately,
(41:56):
you know, what we encourage is companies have to build
their ourselves into a link in the global value chain.
They have to recognize what role they do play and
they have to link themselves into a supply chain. That
makes a lot of sense. You know, I was in
Turkey three days ago. In fact, I was there on
the earthquake day in Istanbul, so scary day that day,
(42:18):
but you know, ultimately I was in Turkey meeting with
you know, customers from Japan. You know, we've linked with
the major Japanese trading houses on the development of our
pasta manufacturing business because the large Japanese trading houses have
strong linkages into the Japanese retail and the Asian distribution
(42:40):
side of things. So you know, we've recognized, even as
a relatively large company that we don't have the scale,
and we're partnering with companies that have one hundred billion
dollars in revenue because we can't solve that distribution. Or
in India, we're in discussions with the large majors like
Tata or Reliance or you know, those types willmar a
(43:02):
Danny group. I mean, these are the type of companies
that dominate, you know, the distribution in those nations. So consolidation,
you know at the farm gate is already happening. I mean,
can you can you imagine when I was a kid
growing up again, you know, we as a family had
four thousand acres of farmland. That was a big farm
(43:22):
in nineteen seventy eight. Today, at four thousand acres, a
family can't farm full time. You know, they ultimately will
need to have a second job. You know. You basically
say today a mother, father, and a daughter who are
farming would have to be twelve thousand acres in order
to sustain a family. So from that perspective, you know, again,
(43:46):
scale is actually part of our advantage in our agricultural system.
And we're a low cost, high quality producer. We're competing
against nations that have one acre and two acre and
five acre farms that are very manual and not mechanized.
So ultimately, you know, we have to recognize. I don't
think it's a bad word. I think it's transition. But
I do think that SMEs are key. Small and medium
(44:08):
enterprises are key because they're nimble, they can innovate, they
can deliver a product that is fitting. You know, sometimes
bigger companies aren't good at doing things like that. We're
not nimble enough to do it. We need SMEs to
make us competitive. We've got to build the ecosystem and
the linkages. We haven't done that in this country.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
I just have one last question, and it sort of
relates to the productivity gains that you've seen over the
years in farming from all kinds of like sensors and
maybe there's drones involved and stuff like that, or lower
cost of tractors or whatever. There's obviously a lot of
anxiety about how much technological products come from China. When
you look at the farming business in Canada, how much
(44:50):
of that tech stack that drives productivity gains these days
comes from a Chinese tech basically, or Chinese manufacturing in
the form of farm equipment.
Speaker 4 (45:00):
I would say, you know, from my experience, there'd be
a lot more reliance on the overall Asian manufacturing, not
just China, and I think that's an advantage for us.
You know, again, a lot of the sensors and things
that we use are now manufactured in so many nations
around the world that we can kind of dodge that.
They think the key is you know, on the manufacturing side.
(45:21):
You know, a lot of the farm equipment is you know,
still very much dominated by US manufacturers, but a lot
of the core technologies, like zero minimum tillage. You know,
the center of manufacturing for that technology is Western Canada.
We're the ones who developed it, you know, companies like
you know Borgo Industries and you know Flexico Oil and
Morris Industries. These are industries that were here for the
(45:42):
last four decades, you know, developing out these zero minimum
tillage seating systems. All we've done is add on the
technology to that, GPS, sensors, you know, decision support systems,
the big guys, the John Deere's the case ih. I mean,
these are again large global companies who are ultimately driving it.
(46:04):
Data is something that is going to be a key
advantage for us. I don't see, you know, vulnerability. Maybe
I'm overstating. Yes, there's always vulnerability when you have a
tech stack, but you know, ultimately we're using so many
different technologies and we're stacking them together that I think
that ultimately we have something that is not only unique,
(46:26):
but it's something that you can only implement a scale.
You can't digitize one acre farms. It's not cost viable.
You know, we have single farm families, you know in
west central Saskatchewan, who's seating three hundred thousand acres of
farmland this year? Three hundred thousand acres. You know, these
(46:47):
farm families have you know, two generations, there are four
generations on the farm and they have full time IT
departments on their farm. So these are not you know,
corporate farms in the in the mind. Don't forget. We
still have foreign ownership guidelines that prevent foreign ownership of
farmland and Saskatchewan as an example. So these are still
(47:07):
family farms. They've just scaled to be something that is
very large and very competitive.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
Rad Al Katib the Lentil King of Saskatchewan.
Speaker 3 (47:15):
The leg you Mary Lentil King Legumary of Saskatchewan with
his pulse on the pulses.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
That was a fantastic I learned a lot in that conversation.
Thank you so much for coming on hotlines.
Speaker 4 (47:28):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
That was a lot of fun. There are a lot
of very interesting strands to pull out from that conversation.
I do think like the politics of food is definitely
one of them. And this idea that every government basically
around the world is trying to balance the distinct demands
of their local constituency. Food security would which can kind
of only be ensured by having some sort of local production,
(48:03):
and then the fact that everyone has to eat.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
Are there any countries or governments out there that don't
sort of idealize agriculture.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
Yeah, it's a great question. I don't know, Like in Singapore,
did they I don't know. Yes, there's got to be.
Speaker 3 (48:16):
Something Singapore, I guess some Middle East countries, but even there,
I know they're doing stuff with like hydroponics. Anyway, a
couple things that stood out to me. So Murrad's comment
about trade being a balance, especially in global shipping, I
think is really important. So even if Canada wasn't directly
(48:36):
affected by something like US tariffs, there would still be
that knock on effect from ships being re routed around
the world. And this is something that we saw in
the pandemic of course, you know, like ships coming over
full and then returning empty and that being a pretty
big problem for a bunch of companies and American consumers.
So that's one thing, and then the other thing is
(49:00):
the consolidation aspect. It just seems to me like the
only I mean, we said it right, the only way
to survive, especially in a world where trade restrictions are
becoming more popular, really is scale, and it's going to
be near impossible, I think for the smaller guys to compete.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
I'm glad you asked that question about the back hal
because this is one of the things that it's been
wearring me. It's like, you know, people talk about the
sort of tariffs and from a sort of strictly fiscal standpoint,
like this is going to raise the cost of X,
and so there's going to be less but as we
recently saw it, like there's another knock on effect. And
I'm glad you brought that up about the fact that
(49:39):
the ships just might not be there. Yeah, in place,
there are certain goods that are intermediate goods in some way,
and so that's how you get these like ripple out
disruptions beyond just oh this is lost product for me
or this is lost income for you. I also liked
how Amurad like sort of you know, talked about the
calorie is the original form of energy, which I just
(50:00):
fine to be really important in this idea that the
productivity in the ag space is pretty extraordinary, and the
fact that they're still more yield expected. And then the
question is do you have the rail capacity, do you
have the export terminal capacity to actually monetize these agreements
and increased yield.
Speaker 3 (50:18):
I'm just gonna say, lentils are amazing. They're great, and
I am really really hungry, and I'm crazy like a
bunch of.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
Doll Yes, I know, I haven't eaten today, and so
I've had the exact say thought during the entire conversation.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
So good and good for the soil, good for the soil.
All right, shall we leave it there?
Speaker 2 (50:36):
Let's leave it there.
Speaker 3 (50:37):
This has been another episode of the Odd Thoughts podcast.
I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway.
Speaker 2 (50:43):
And I'm Joe isn't Thal. You can follow me at
the Stalwart. Follow our guest He's at marad agt Foods.
Follow our producers Kerman Rodriguez at Kerman armand dash Ol
Bennett at Dashbot and Kilbrooks at kle Brooks. For more
Oddlogs content, go to bloomberg dot com slash Oddlogs. We
have all of our episodes and a daily newsletter, and
you can chat about all of these topics, including supply
(51:05):
chains twenty four to seven in our discord Discord dot
gg slash.
Speaker 3 (51:09):
Hot lots and if you enjoy all lots, If you
like it when we speak to the Lentil King of Saskatchewan,
then please leave us a positive review on your favorite
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All you need to do is find the Bloomberg channel
on Apple Podcasts and follow the instructions there. Thanks for listening.
Hosts And Creators
Joe Weisenthal
Tracy Alloway
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