April 24, 2025 • 41 mins
What if Canada could become a global food superpower—from farm to fork, from field to plate? In this live-recorded episode taped at Farm Credit Canada's Future of Food Conference, I sat down with two titens transforming Canada's agricultural landscape: Curt Vossen, the visionary CEO of Richardson International, and Kristjan Hebert, a farmer who manages his tens of thousands of acress of land with intelligence, passion, and pursuit.
Together, they tackle the future of food—from battling inefficiencies in our supply chains to seizing untapped global markets. They speak with brutal honesty about what’s holding Canada back: our mindset, our infrastructure, and our humility. Their solution? A call to action that blends bold vision with incremental, achievable steps.
In the final segment, Lisa Ashton of RBC Thought Leadership shares powerful insights into Canada’s strengths, risks, and unrealized potential in agriculture, backed by data, policy, and her personal story, which began on a farm.
My take: Canada does not need to be reliant on one trading partner, we have what it takes to create an economy powered by purposeful jobs and those who both dream and do. Let's all work together to make Canada a Food Superpower.
To find out more about Farm Credit Canada: https://www.fcc-fac.ca
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
The first and only time I ever milked a cow, I felt like
a champion. I was a kid visiting the Maps Farm,
family friends and my grandfather. Three generations of farmers
worked that land, and I swear half of them were in the barn
smiling as I stuck my hand under that cow and wasn't sure what I was
holding onto. When I saw that stream and heard the
(00:25):
milk hit the silver pail, and the look of my dad's
eye, I just felt just magical. Everything was so
different on that farm, because I was a city boy. But what
stayed with me wasn't just the smell of the barn or the sting of the
early morning air. It was pride. Pride in
purpose, pride in growing something that matters.
(00:47):
Earlier this year, I had the honor of delivering a keynote and moderating a panel
at Farm Credit Canada's annual food conference. If you haven't heard of Farm Credit
Canada, I encourage you to look them up. I'll even put their link in the
podcast notes and feel very proud that they're a %
invested in Canadian agriculture. The theme of their conference was the
future of food and 700 people filled their room. Farmers,
(01:09):
producers, processors, innovators, manufacturers,
leaders, every link in the chain from seed to plate, from
farm to fork was there. What I shared with them
is what I'm gonna share with you today. Food is everything.
It fuels our bodies, gives us energy,
creates conversation, connects cultures, anchors our
(01:32):
economy. But it's also governed by forces far beyond what most
of us see. Mother Nature's moods, global commodity
pricing, supply chain issues, tight margins at retail,
even the high cost is simply getting your product on the grocery shelf.
I've spent a career working with food brands, packaged goods, quick service
restaurants. I even judged hopeful recipes on a national
(01:55):
television show called Recipe to Riches. But it was that first splash of
milk that taught me something we too often forget. Food
is work, food is worth, and food is wonder.
And here's an insight that matters now more than ever. At a time when
our country's facing such headwinds, when we're too reliant on one
economy as our trading partner, Canada can become a food
(02:18):
superpower, not just by growing it, but by adding value every
step of the way. From branding to innovation to
processing to sustainability, transportation affordability,
nutrition, there's so many i's to dot and so many t's to cross.
Who wouldn't want Canadian food grown under our fresh
air, our with our fresh water, and our young soil? But I
(02:40):
wanna go beyond just commodities. I want us to become thought
leaders. What food should we be eating as we age
to improve our cognitive abilities? What should we be feeding our kids so
that their minds firing at all cylinders where they're being taught? How
about inflammation or joints? How about our mobility? How about the
ability to prevent diseases so we take immediate
(03:03):
and immense pressure off our healthcare system? For the
world, dealing with food scarcity and food insecurity
and food efficacy, why can't we be the partner they rely
on? But get this right, we don't just feed ourselves, we feed the
world. We don't just create jobs, we create purpose. We don't just grow crops, we
grow hope. So this week, we talk about Canadian
(03:25):
food, its future, its fragility, and its power to
unite us around something we all share, a plate, a planet, and
a promise.
And now it's time to join up with Farm Credit
Canada's Future Food Conference, where I introduce my
(03:46):
esteemed panel.
I'd like to now call on Kristjan Herbert to come up, the Herbert Group,
Curt Vossen to come up from former CEO of Richardson's. And I'm gonna just
start by having a couple one on one conversations, then we'll do it more with
group. And Kurt, I'll start with you. As you retire, I mean, twenty five years
(04:06):
quarterbacking the Richardsons Group, the largest independent ag sporting
to 60 countries and stuff. Do you take time this early on to
reflect on what's on your highlight wheel and
things that you wish you had accomplished but for some reason couldn't? I don't
think I've been wallowing in retrospection since I
retired. I think all the way through has been, has been
(04:28):
a process of reevaluation. How do you wanna be
remembered in the sense of what you accomplished, not only on
your watch for your company, but potentially being one of the
trailblazers that said, hey. We can get to 60 markets as a country. We
don't always have to be dependent on one. There's a legacy issue. Right? And the
legacy issue is we were gifted. If you're not aware of it, the the Richardson
(04:50):
Corporation, began in agriculture in 1857 in Kingston,
Ontario, doing basically what we're still doing today, which is trading
grains and and Canadian produced agricultural products
into a domestic and an international market. I came in at,
year January. So there was a certain element of
understanding that I had a responsibility to a multigenerational
(05:13):
Canadian iconic company that had had various
challenges and opportunities over the years, but had survived for a hundred and
thirty eight years. So that's a big big responsibility for myself and
my team. And so at that point in time, the company
had a watershed moment, and that was we had assets that
were older assets. We had a 72 of the
(05:36):
iconic but not efficient elevators that used to grace the the
Canadian Prairies. We we had a small, boutique
inputs business selling, producers retail,
products. And other than that, a few small, distracted
businesses that that had no materiality. We had to
decide where were we gonna be over the course of the next generation. How could
(05:57):
we pass this multi generation company onto the next generation?
So there was an imperative on the horizon, and the imperative
was one of logistical efficiency pushed by
the railways saying, you're gonna have to do a lot better than you've done in
the past in terms of being able to move our rolling stock through your
facilities efficiently and effectively. We don't wanna spot two,
(06:19):
three, four, five cars. We wanna spot 50 cars, eventually, a
hundred cars, and you can't do it with the facilities that you've got. So are
you prepared to make the investment? Are you prepared to take the risk of
recapitalizing a business that had not seen this
magnitude of capitalization in in decades? And that was a a
necessity. Right? So how how do you do that? I have an emotional attachment to
(06:41):
the old way of doing business. You got a family history. You're gonna
knock on doors looking for capital when there with the richest group, there's gotta be
many different places where that capital could flow. How do you convince people
that to go after the future in a big way versus
dance around the present? Arguing clearly
and repeatedly about the necessity, about the reality, about the
(07:04):
facts. We can talk in high minded objectives, but
you've got to start with how do you get the first step? How do you
get the first foot in front of the other and then the next and the
next? And what are the implications of that? And is it doable? Is it
sustainable? Is it worthwhile? Is it material? Where do
we really wanna be? So you lay out the the, a blank piece of paper
(07:25):
and you say, is it good enough to compete with the existing
competitive environment that we're in? In those days, 1995, '19
'90 '6, the market in Western Canada in terms of grain
handling and transportation was dominated by producer owned cooperatives,
Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, Alberta Wheat Pool, Man Pool Elevators,
United Grain Growers. And that changed, and we had to see that that
(07:47):
was going to change. The Wheat Board, very material element in the
economy of Western Canadian agriculture. Is it going to
be there forever? We've got a lot of sacred cows in this country. You're
the CEO. It's a private enterprise. You're talking about, at times, it
felt like moving the Titanic. What advice can you give to this
audience? How do you get people that you saying take your first step forward, but
(08:09):
three people are trying to hold on to that leg and not move it? You
try and apply critical thinking to what seems to
be a logical way forward. Am I gonna be competing in a
world twenty five years from now that will feature me as
a service provider to an entity called the Canadian Wheat Board? Am
I gonna be competing against the people that I'm competing with it today?
(08:32):
What are the other possibilities in terms of who I will compete against,
and what do they have as assets, as opportunities,
as strengths, as capabilities that maybe I should
consider applying to my own business? So we were
a fob seller in large part. Why? I think the Canadian
grain industry got lazy. We were a a hewer of wood and
(08:55):
a hauler of water because most of the export business was being
done through the Canadian Wheat Board. We would buy the grain, we would bin the
grain, we would ship the grain, we would we would load the vessels at port
position and someone else would market the grain. But that's not what our
competitors globally were doing. They were marketing the grain. They weren't
necessarily transactional salespeople. They were relationship
(09:16):
salespeople. They knew their markets. They understood the complexities. They understood
the risk profiles, all of which carry an
inherent risk profile. We're doing business today,
Richardson, in a sixty, seventy different jurisdictions in the world. Many
of those would be reasonably called second and third world economies,
emerging economies, and one of the features that pops
(09:39):
up on more than one occasion is rule of law
is notional. So you've gotta have certain
characteristics, certain capabilities, certain disciplines to be able to
operate effectively in those markets. And if you don't understand that, don't get into
it. Kristen, I wanna go to you, and I was watching an interview where you
talk about you had to go off to become a CPA because that farm
(10:01):
wasn't big enough for you. And then you came back and I think you got
40,000 acres. So you've certainly made a farm big enough for you, but your your
horizons are much bigger than farming. Tell me a little bit about your
journey and how that all unfolded that you felt the cars you
were dealt, you needed to change the game that was gonna be played.
I mean, I think a lot everyone in your life has kinda critical moments or
(10:23):
stories that that allow you to pivot. I mean, I can remember 10 years old,
my dad telling me you had to quit coaching hockey because he created a monster.
We're a couple thousand acres, but he he didn't enjoy people. He enjoyed farming.
So for me, the farm was a place that I could work lots of hours.
My dad paid me good. I could, I could take my girlfriend to the keg
instead of McDonald's, and I wasn't sure I wanted to go back. You know, I
(10:43):
I was gonna take a a med degree, wrote the MCAT, said, what am I
doing? It's gonna go into agronomy. And my dad said, you know what? I I
can teach you how to farm if you wanna farm. But take business, because if
you do decide to come back, that's the part that's tough, and it's moving
fast. It was actually my time with Myers North Penny looking at
statements of hundreds of thousands of farms and large
(11:04):
companies and audits that I learned that I I really love
business. That drove me back to agriculture because of the opportunities
in it. I came home thinking growth is good because the only way I can
have more people is to grow. And I don't think most people's job description
should be you're gonna do what I tell you to do when you get here
in the morning. They wanna do what they're good at most of the time. You're
(11:25):
a business person. You're talking about growth. You're talking about
positions. You're looking at balance sheets all the time. You're coaching other farmers in
terms of how their business is doing business. Do you think that part of the
mindset that's hurting us is when you reach for that rung,
you're considered, a little above yourself? In a business like
agriculture on a global basis, scale is everything.
(11:47):
Efficiency, predictability, profitability,
continuity. It it's all about being able to be
material to your customer, your customer on either side of
the equation, either the buy side or the sell side. You you've gotta be,
willing to help them do better than they're doing today. If you're
not, you're not providing a service. I get that you both of you get it
(12:09):
in terms of just by your portfolio and what you've accomplished, but the narrative in
the country at times is that's not how we want
you to swim. Now is that not a mindset that's causing us holding us back?
I believe in the opportunity agriculture. You ask me if I'm gonna grow?
%. I believe in it. But one thing we have to change as Canadians
is we're too goddamn humble. You wanna talk about Americans? They won't even throw out
(12:32):
their college t shirt. They believe in what they believe in to the point
that sometimes they're arrogant. But you have to be crazy to be an
entrepreneur. I'm sorry. You do. Our our biggest success
story of our of humbleness is that we built Tim Horton so that we could
go for coffee to make bets on who we hope to see fail next. Not
to go visit about success and that we're proud of it and
(12:53):
that, you know, companies like Richardson's or P and H or
there's hundreds of them, success stories in Canada that we should be proud
of. Scale is good. We wanna win. One issue with our
industry right now is that we're like our world junior hockey program. We
used to be good. We have all the right assets, but we're losing. And
if you lose, you're not that good. Don't get me wrong. Being humble is
(13:16):
great, but Kurt and I are no different. We love to win.
So when we leave a place like this today, what are we gonna execute on?
What are we gonna do? When we come here next year, three hundred and sixty
five days, if these five things aren't done, we didn't just get the
silver medal, we're lost out of the tournament. Where do you think that has to
I talked about journeys, and to me, that narrative and mindset
(13:38):
has to travel like a water with no dead ends. Has to happen in the
public sector, it has to private sector, academia. Where do you
think it's getting blocked? That sense because as individuals, we love to
win. We love to see our kids win. Look what we have as an
asset. We should be dominating the world, not allowing us to slip by. Where does
it have to change? So three sixty five days from now, we're sitting on this
(14:00):
stage and we're going, you know what? We accomplished a lot in a very short
order. We've got to separate hubris from from
reality, and there's something fine to
be understood about incrementality. Never mind getting
a hundred billion. Let's start at 20 or 25 or 15 or
five or 10. Let's move ourselves ahead and ask ourselves the
(14:22):
question, what does it take to do that? What are the risks? What are the
opportunities? Who is going to stand in our way in terms of competitive
realities because they have the same objectives? And for us to say, let's be the
best in the world. Well, that's aspirational. That's great. But tell
me how. I'd rather be growing steadily. I would
like to be finding a place that is representative
(14:43):
of where our positioning should be, our market share should
be, our sustainability should be, and I sustainability,
I start with economic sustainability. If you're not economically
sustainable, if Richardson didn't make money doing what it did
and it made repeated mistakes in executing his
business, I wouldn't be up here, and we wouldn't be talking right now.
(15:05):
Get real. This is a tough market. Everybody's got the same objective. It's so it's
like those hockey teams in the NHL. They all wanna win the Stanley
Cup. They're not gonna let you walk through, so you've gotta figure out a
plan. It's gotta be a rational plan. It's gotta be a manageable plan. It's gotta
be a plan that's within your reach to move incrementally
ahead. So why do some countries figure it out and others
(15:27):
don't? Because you keep fooling yourself with
dialogue or platitudes that really don't ask the
question, what do we have to do to be successful?
What is that? Let's let's use let's keep your analogy junior hockey. What
do we need to do as a country to move forward
so that we can get back to becoming that kind of competitor? I
(15:50):
don't think as a country it's any different than a business model, and and I
got a pretty simple business model. If you want a good business, focus on time,
brains, and money. And and you can break that up. So hockey team country,
Time is somebody actually has to go to work and do it. Point number one,
I can't go green if I'm in the red. The definition of sustainability
is I need to leave my financial statements, my land, my
(16:11):
community, and my industry in a better state for my children, or
I failed. Brains, the whole focus is people. So if you
wanna run a country, you wanna run a business, you wanna run a hockey team,
pick the right people. And I would say in a whole bunch of
areas right now, we're picking people that drink the right Kool
Aid, not people that are really good at what they do. Whether that's the world
(16:33):
junior hockey team, they fit the politics, let's pick the best
people, pick the winners. We have a lot of great entrepreneurs in
Canada, and I would say right now, they feel
like there's a whole bunch of weights holding them down, and they just said, piss
on. I'm gonna do it myself. I'm not waiting. When in fact, if you wanna
encourage collaboration, that group got there by collaborating.
(16:54):
They they got there through their network and knowing other people and finding ways to
get money. They're they're the best collaborators in the world. But I don't
think we've lent all of our entrepreneurs and said, what can we do for
you? What can you do for us? What are the three things that piss you
off to fix? And then actually make a list and go do
it. Curtis, you look at your three-dimensional chess game. Is
(17:16):
it a game that's gonna be won by individual entrepreneurs
pushing forward regardless of the circumstances?
Or is it gonna have to be a much more collective effort that
says as a country, we need to be reducing pain points and friction
points to allow entrepreneurs to thrive? Well, I think you gotta
stay be cognizant of of your lane. What can you do? When can
(17:39):
you do it? How can you do it? Who's the most effective to do it?
Certain things like national infrastructure is certainly
a worthwhile collaboration with with government,
with industry, with the farm community, etcetera, etcetera, to figure out what
are the bottlenecks and what's preventing us from eliminating
those bottlenecks or certainly debottlenecking them. Those
(18:01):
conversations have to be had, but we still have to see
action on some of these things. And some of them are pretty fundamental, pretty basic.
You can see where the the the bottlenecks are in terms of reliability of supply
to our international marketplace. We talk about customers like they're inanimate
object. Consumers within those jurisdictions,
all of whom have opinions, needs, all of
(18:24):
whom have ways of doing things that we have to recognize
and be understanding of. And so what do you do? You go and listen. You
ask questions, take direction. Do we do that as a nation
as well that we're bringing back to the industry,
here's the unmet needs of Japan, here's what the consumers are looking for, here's
where the opportunities are, or is it done by a business?
(18:47):
I think we're too introspective. Right? I think we think the solutions
are homegrown. The solutions are not homegrown
because it leaves out the critical point of need
on the part of your counterparty, the counterparty to the transaction,
whatever that transaction may happen to be. When you're trading
agricultural products, food products, any kind of products in an international basis,
(19:11):
there's the first three critical items, price,
price, and price. And after that, you get into
what is the quality that is representative of that
price. And the third thing you get into is what is your ability
to be a valued supplier, which means
predictability, consistency. And that's the conversation.
(19:35):
They can like Canadians, but if Canadians can't
can't deliver for them to meet their objectives, you know,
they have objectives. They have ambitions. And many cases
where we're doing business, these customers have
less capability, less of those things than we
do. You you folks in, in Algeria, I mean,
(19:58):
surely, you're you're concerned about my carbon footprint. Well,
not at the cost of a price increase. Kristen, I'll put this to you. So
can we institutionalize this knowledge on behalf
of agriculture in Canada so that we are
all responding to what we think these need states
are, what the price point is, what's the efficiency,
(20:20):
reliability? These metrics, can they be collective
metrics that we drive change out of? Or is
it continuing to be just the entrepreneurs that are very successful
where we're gonna see this opportunity be realized? Number
one, if you're using hockey, the government's job is build the rink,
be the ref, get the hell out of the way. So when team Canada is
(20:42):
playing in Canada or in The US, is it a bunch of government employees that
have the Canadian jersey on? No. It's all our businesses. So when Kurt was in
whatever country selling wheat, he didn't talk about
Richardson wheat. Talked about Canadian wheat. He was playing under the same
rules that every other grain company was playing under, and he was selling my wheat.
But the rules were there. This is how you trade grain around the rules. Make
(21:03):
the rules the same everywhere. Let the players play. But
magically, when the players are playing the game, specifically if scale is good
and we have global players, they turn into automatic
ambassadors. Government isn't out doing the ambassador work. Him and his team
were in every cut 60 countries in the world talking about why Canadian wheat
was the best and why you should pay this. And at the same time,
(21:26):
what that allows to happen and and I think we don't always look at this
right in Canada. For the last decade, we've been fighting over everybody's little piece of
the pie. What about if we want 10 goddamn pies Instead of
one, let's use the ambassadors. Let's use these best companies
to drive the pie, to mentor the young ones to come up. But let's not
have the goal of just one pie. Given that we're going on a metaphor, so
(21:46):
I'll now talk about it. Instead of a hockey rink, you need an oven to
bake the pie. What is the rule of government? What would you like to
see change so that they're creating the conditions
that allow our Canadian ambassadors to
succeed? I I think having government as a partner,
particularly in foreign jurisdictions, is very helpful,
(22:08):
particularly to diffuse the implications
of geopolitics, trade barriers, phytosanitary,
food quality, non tariff barriers. We
need the government to understand that we are continuing. We have a supply
chain. How can you help us, whether it's infrastructure or
it's labor policy or whatever it may happen to be, how can you help us
(22:31):
make sure that that supply chain that is so critical to our
success, how do you help us make that efficient,
resilient, flexible when we have such
impediments? What do I mean by that? I mean geography and I mean
climate. We produce a lot of what we produce in agriculture a long
way away from where it's exported. You've got to deal with those things. How do
(22:53):
you deal with them effectively? A government's got a fixed budget.
What would you take away that they're doing now and where would you
invest that money? First of all, get to a point
that the government just does what they say they're going to do. Then
second points, I mean, I heard a good line this morning. I think we're all
ready for radical change, but we're not ready for
(23:16):
vindictive change. I mean, you think about that,
specifically what's going on in The US right now. But in lots of countries,
new government comes in or there's a change and they actually just make change
because the last party or the last whatever pissed them off. Everybody in this room
has to work with every party. I want Canada to be awesome forever. Just do
what you say you're gonna do, and let's quit talking about some of these problems.
(23:37):
So the long term infrastructure, it's a government problem. Can
democracy as it stands today, which is this fixation
of winning the next term, can it align with
twenty five year horizons? Can it align with, I don't care
whose constituencies out there, we need that railway, we need that infrastructure
fixed? If the initiative is well thought through, if it is well
(24:00):
explained, I think people are generally receptive
of of good ideas, a good ideas that have a vision
because a lot of those people have children or they have grandchildren. And they
say, oh, yeah. But for them, we want it even better. Right? We just need
leadership with the courage to do it. You know, what you're talking about is a
horizon of my children, my grandchildren
(24:22):
setting herself up for success long term. But it never really seems
to become policy. Is that kind of thinking
and storytelling and igniting Canadians, where should
that lie? The number one piece to leave with,
stories are stories. What are we gonna do about it? We didn't tell a
story for fifty years that Canada was good at hockey and people just believed
(24:44):
us, but we won. So how do we do that in business? Part of
it, Sherry, we need to have the moonshot. Right? So we produce fifty
fifty million tonne right now. We only get to 70 or a hundred or whatever
that number is. Set it out there, but I think we're gonna go from 50
to 70 just over the next ten years through scale. Who's
responsible for getting Canadians to go, I like the fact my
tax and borrowed dollars are gonna go for the infrastructure we need
(25:08):
to set ourselves up so we can sell 10 pies? There's no question, I don't
think, when you talk to the general public that food and agriculture is important.
The best way to be sustainable is to be able to ship more of our
sustainable stuff around the world. I'm not saying that we shouldn't tell the world that
we have the lowest emission product in the in the globe. If that's what
the world wants, damn right. So we should tell them. Because it is. Because it
(25:30):
is. And then on top of that, we'll say, and you wanna know what? We're
fixing our tunnel. We're fixing our ports. So in thirty six months, we can
ship you double. You got the checkbook ready? Some of the
solutions are so simple. We have a an issue, and that is
most of the grains and oilseeds that we export out of Canada as well as
a number of other products. The biggest port without any any
(25:52):
comparison in Canada is Vancouver. What does it do in
Vancouver over two hundred days of the year? It
rains. I can't load vessels when it rains.
This is 2025. We can't figure out technology
that is easy to put in place and easy to take
down and not impede our ability to move vessels out of that
(26:14):
port in an efficient way. It's a labor issue, and we can't resolve
a labor issue. It is holding this country back,
and it's reputational damage. Right? We all want this moonshot.
I mean, what do we need as an organization, as an entity
called Canada that says these are top priorities?
Think about this for a second. How old is the Skydome? 50 Years? Mhmm. So
(26:38):
a baseball owner in a city figured out how to watch ball in the
rain, but we can't figure out how to load a ship in the rain. We
valued watching ball more than our country's success.
Every day when we get up, I say that my goal is to build
something to give my kids the opportunity to go to Harvard and cool enough they
might come back to. Do we wanna build a country that our kids are gonna
(26:58):
come back to? Because if the kids don't come back, we're not here.
Find the money. There's a lot of truth to, necessity is the
mother of invention. Right? Yeah. The little little example I gave you
about where I came in on the scene in Richardson where we had a
72 nearing obsolete facilities,
and we were being forced by who? The big corporations,
(27:20):
the railways. We had to either put up or shut
up and get out of the way. Did the owners like it? No. They didn't
like it. Did anybody in this system like it? No. They didn't like it. Was
it necessary? Absolutely. It was necessary. Sometimes somebody's gotta give you a
a a two by four on along the side of the head and say, grow
up, smarten up, get in the game, or get out of the way.
(27:42):
And if you don't do that, you're you're gonna fall behind and you're then you're
gonna be wringing your hands and saying what all happened. What all happened is you
you didn't move. You didn't listen. You you didn't react. You
didn't think forward. I keep pushing you guys because I'm going,
I get it. If you were running Canada as an enterprise,
we'd have a cover in the port in Vancouver, and we'd have a tunnel, and
(28:03):
we wouldn't have a bridge that swings up and down, and I get that. What
advice can you give to Canada that we can act
upon the the mentality and approach that you apply to your
businesses to the benefit of all Canadians, not just your shareholders?
Get realistic. Rally around a doable,
practical, incremental plan. Speak positively about
(28:25):
it. Be sure of your facts. Get involved in the
dialogue. Right? I mean, we didn't sit around and wait to say, I
wonder if the government's gonna give us a hand on on this vision we have
for Richardson. We said, what are the issues? What are the opportunities?
How do we mitigate the the the risks and take advantage of the
opportunities in a in a in a material and sustainable
(28:47):
way? Can we do it while keeping our
principles in place? Ethical conduct, being concerned
about the communities in which we do business, being concerned for our
employees and our employees' safety is paramount. All of
those principles, and that our word is our
bond. I think the joy of chaos is there's a lot of people that fall
(29:09):
into the pit of chaos and stay there. Right? The winners in the game actually
put the ladder and start climbing. If you have a good ideas, one thing is
you have to repeat yourself. Right? They say on an average, you have to repeat
yourself seven times for a child to understand. My wife would say it's a hundred
times for me to understand. Well, everybody get on the same page of where we're
climbing, and let's repeat ourselves to the government
(29:29):
because 90% of what we want is the same. I would argue this isn't
just food. Right? Energy, critical
minerals, water. Anyone know anyone in the world that wants
those things? We got them. Let's make sure all those industries
find a way to have a seat at the table so the message is getting
repeated every single day in Ottawa and find the good
(29:51):
people. I've I've been here for two days. I've met with lots of great
people in government that wanna do the same thing I do, and they wanna see
radical change. They wanna know what the steps in the ladder we want are. Well,
we have to tell them. Opportunities in agriculture. Right? Volatility is an opportunity.
Commodity prices, inputs, machinery, fixed costs. Yeah. But that
creates volatility. Volatility creates opportunity. Right? Second
(30:13):
is leadership. One of our big issues in agriculture is
that for twenty years, we told everybody, don't go into agriculture.
We don't have too many good academics in agriculture that age. We don't have too
many good consultants. They're most of the CEOs are either
65 and looking for some people in the middle. Like, we have a leadership
void. And part of that means is that mentorship normally doesn't happen on a
(30:34):
twenty five year gap, but it's gonna have to.
2030 is when the baby boomers hit the bottom age of
66. So scale better be good
because we are going to consolidate. Right? We're gonna build the ladder
together and we're gonna get those pieces right. I have no idea why they pick
these two people for the panel. I mean, they they lack ideas and
(30:55):
passion. I just wanna wrap up and say thank you both. And what I'm
gonna take away from and there's some real consistent themes, this
incrementality that, you know, it's wonderful thing to have a moonshot, but you gotta
put the ladder up and you gotta start climbing. I think that if we start
applying some of the mentality and learning from our successful companies
who found a way through chaos and volatility to
(31:18):
turn that into opportunity. And if we can bottle that, and I think
if we can share that as an industry, I think we can
have a combination of two things. We can have 10 pies that look really tantalizing,
but we can start creating the ovens to bake them in. So I appreciate both
of you for coming out. I think they deserve an incredible round of applause.
(31:43):
When we return, Lisa Ashton will join us. She's the agricultural
policy lead at RBC Thought Leadership. And I wanted to get
RBC's perspective on where Canada sits in the global
agricultural economy, and she delivers on that. But what
else have found out is she was born and raised on a
farm. So her context makes it even more real.
(32:07):
Hi. It's Tony Chapman. Food does mean the world
to each of us and to all of us. Some of us
have the privilege that food can be something we explore,
learn about new cultures, test our creativity in the kitchen,
dine, and enjoy the creativity of a master
(32:36):
But to do so, we really need to support our farmers. But to do
so, we really need to support our farmers. And so I
wanna give a big shout out to Farm Credit Canada, the University of
Guelph, and RBC for putting together the foundations
in agricultural management. That online course, it's
free, but it gives people that work in the agricultural sector the
(32:58):
knowledge and confidence to make a lifetime of better informed decisions,
to learn about business strategy and planning and farm management
succession planning and financial fundamentals. But here's
to the University of Guelph, FCC, and RBC, and here's
to making Canada a superpower in agriculture.
This food means the world to you, to me, and
(33:20):
to RBC.
One thing we have to change as Canadians is we're too goddamn humble. You
wanna talk about Americans? They won't even throw out their college t shirt. They believe
in what they believe in to the point that sometimes they're arrogant. But you
have to be crazy to be an our
(33:42):
of humbleness is that we built Tim Hortons so that we could go for coffee
to make bets on who we hope to see fail next.
Many of you know that I often end my show by bringing on somebody
from RBC, and more often than not, it it extends
beyond banking to the role organizations can play in
helping individuals, corporations, communities, even
(34:04):
Canada get to where it need, wants, and deserve to go. Joining
me today is Lisa Ashton. She's the agricultural policy lead at
RBC thought leadership. And, Lisa, it's fantastic to have you on the show for the
first time. Yes. Thank you for having me, Tony. Tell me a little bit about
what you're doing as the agricultural policy lead and
why is agriculture something that really RBC is focusing a lot of
(34:26):
attention on? My role provides the opportunity to,
spearhead our agricultural research, from most,
topical issues like trade and tariffs, but also,
important issues including, climate and policy as well.
So really have an opportunity to flex those
research muscles, but complementary to that, engage with
(34:48):
stakeholders across Canada to understand what
issues are most important to them, and work together,
to drive action because we're not only a a think tank, but we're also a
do tank. So So I wanna talk to you a little bit about the conference
in February that this show was taped at. One of the core
themes is that Canada can become a superpower
(35:09):
in agriculture. The the quality of our food, the efficacy,
moving up from a commodity to value added, all of these things can
play into this North Star. Is it possible that as
a country, we can play that role in terms of providing the food
that the, the world so desperately needs? I would actually argue that
Canada is is already a powerhouse superpower
(35:32):
in agriculture and agri food production, but but also export.
Over the last twenty years, Canada has actually, lost some
market share when you look at global agri food exports falling from fifth
place in the early two thousands to seventh place today with risk
of falling to ninth place. We did some scenario analysis
and and believe under a high growth scenario, Canada could
(35:55):
actually add $44,000,000,000 within the next ten
years. So there is certainly a a North Star to to move
towards. I think there's a lot that needs to happen domestically, a lot that needs
to happen in terms of our trade growth and diversification
approach. What's happened? Why have we kinda gone from fifth place to danger moving
to ninth place? Emerging economies,
(36:17):
such as Brazil and Argentina are biting up some,
key categories that traditionally are very important to Canada. So
oil seeds, grains, and meats, that's one
key, challenge that Canada faces. It is somewhat in a
way kind of dulling its competitive edge relative to some of our
traditional competitors like Australia, for example, who
(36:40):
is really taking an aggressive leadership approach in terms
of accessing what we're calling the growth markets. So markets that
you would expect to see high GDP and high population
growth over the next ten years. And one key market is
South And Southeast Asia. Those key markets, certainly have a lot
of opportunity. And if we don't take advantage of them, we
(37:02):
risk falling behind even further. And what stopped us from doing it today? Because
when I was talking to both Kurt and Christian, they said part of the
issue is not so much our ability to grow, it's our ability to be
a reliable exporter. Transportation infrastructure
is a is a key, I guess, linchpin in terms of our
our growth. We've hear heard, lots of discussion, I think,
(37:25):
between Kurt and Christian around, the Port Of Vancouver.
When we compared ourselves to other key agri food exporters,
including Brazil, Australia, and The US, we're behind all of them
in terms of our turnaround time. And there's key challenges
that slow that down for us in terms of getting product to market
fast, such as rules around loading grain onto
(37:47):
ships, when it rains. I think the other other
element is also being a little bit more aggressive in how we
are exploring and, delivering on trade
diversification. Canada has roughly 15 free
trade agreements that gives us access to more than two thirds of the global
economy. So that's a lot of opportunity that's already on
(38:09):
Canada's plate, that it can be taking more advantage
of, including within the European Union, through the,
Trans Pacific Partnership, and even some of our
bilateral agreements with, Ukraine, Chile,
Colombia. We have access to all those markets. So, taking a more
aggressive approach to to enter those markets and deliver our products to them is
(38:31):
a is a key opportunity. Talk to me about technology,
regenerative farming, some of the moves that are being made on the chessboard
to not only maybe drive efficiency, but the efficacy of food.
And how does that play into Canada in terms of our position globally?
We are very fortunate to have a significant amount of
(38:51):
natural resources from water to land, a very efficient
production system. So when we looked at, Canada's agricultural
total factor productivity, so, basically, how efficient are
you using your inputs relative to your outputs, we exceed
the OECD average. I think it's important to note that we
can't be productive if we don't have healthy soils and we don't have
(39:13):
resilient ecosystems. So RBC works
very closely with some of our corporate partners and even Christian,
Hubert, who you were interviewing, to help scale
the adoption and access to climate smart practices, and we
do that through one of our, Climate Action Alliances. Tell
me a little bit just quickly before we finish on your background and and why
(39:36):
it must be somewhat full circle that you're back in, but this time from the
thought leadership. So originally from a grains and oil
seeds farm, in Southwestern Ontario. I think
like most farm kids when I was 16 or 17, I couldn't
wait to get off off the farm and and kind of explore the world on
on my own, but, through my degrees and and career,
(39:59):
I found myself back in agriculture and I think more curious than
ever to learn about this sector and and to help push,
ideas forward that can improve its growth and prosperity. I'm spending a
lot of time helping youth find their path in life.
A lot of them seem to dismiss agriculture as a career.
I have to believe that a career in agriculture has got to be
(40:21):
something that's incredibly rewarding, purposeful, has nothing but
creativity, innovation as part of it. That is a missed opportunity that
agriculture is not kind of top of mind for many,
young people that are determining kind of what they wanna do for their career
because it is such an evolving and growing
space. There's lots of exciting technology applications.
(40:43):
So generative AI has a role from on farm
efficiency all the way through the value chain. There's a lot of
diverse opportunities. So for example, I'm technically a
researcher, but I say I work in the agricultural sector. There's
opportunities in marketing, communication, engineering,
and it, it is really an exciting field and also a leading sector for, for
(41:05):
Canada. So a place for you to really grow your career,
with, with the number of, different avenues that can be taken. I
really wanna do more shows on why food means the world
to, to all of us and why Canadian food means the world to the
world. So I really appreciate you joining me in Chata That Matters. Thank you, Tony.
Happy to join anytime. Once again, a special thanks to
(41:28):
RBC for supporting Chata That Matters. It's Tony
Chapman. Thanks for listening, and let's chat soon.
The first and only time I ever milked a cow, I felt like
a champion. I was a kid visiting the Maps Farm,
family friends and my grandfather. Three generations of farmers
worked that land, and I swear half of them were in the barn
smiling as I stuck my hand under that cow and wasn't sure what I was
holding onto. When I saw that stream and heard the
(00:25):
milk hit the silver pail, and the look of my dad's
eye, I just felt just magical. Everything was so
different on that farm, because I was a city boy. But what
stayed with me wasn't just the smell of the barn or the sting of the
early morning air. It was pride. Pride in
purpose, pride in growing something that matters.
(00:47):
Earlier this year, I had the honor of delivering a keynote and moderating a panel
at Farm Credit Canada's annual food conference. If you haven't heard of Farm Credit
Canada, I encourage you to look them up. I'll even put their link in the
podcast notes and feel very proud that they're a %
invested in Canadian agriculture. The theme of their conference was the
future of food and 700 people filled their room. Farmers,
(01:09):
producers, processors, innovators, manufacturers,
leaders, every link in the chain from seed to plate, from
farm to fork was there. What I shared with them
is what I'm gonna share with you today. Food is everything.
It fuels our bodies, gives us energy,
creates conversation, connects cultures, anchors our
(01:32):
economy. But it's also governed by forces far beyond what most
of us see. Mother Nature's moods, global commodity
pricing, supply chain issues, tight margins at retail,
even the high cost is simply getting your product on the grocery shelf.
I've spent a career working with food brands, packaged goods, quick service
restaurants. I even judged hopeful recipes on a national
(01:55):
television show called Recipe to Riches. But it was that first splash of
milk that taught me something we too often forget. Food
is work, food is worth, and food is wonder.
And here's an insight that matters now more than ever. At a time when
our country's facing such headwinds, when we're too reliant on one
economy as our trading partner, Canada can become a food
(02:18):
superpower, not just by growing it, but by adding value every
step of the way. From branding to innovation to
processing to sustainability, transportation affordability,
nutrition, there's so many i's to dot and so many t's to cross.
Who wouldn't want Canadian food grown under our fresh
air, our with our fresh water, and our young soil? But I
(02:40):
wanna go beyond just commodities. I want us to become thought
leaders. What food should we be eating as we age
to improve our cognitive abilities? What should we be feeding our kids so
that their minds firing at all cylinders where they're being taught? How
about inflammation or joints? How about our mobility? How about the
ability to prevent diseases so we take immediate
(03:03):
and immense pressure off our healthcare system? For the
world, dealing with food scarcity and food insecurity
and food efficacy, why can't we be the partner they rely
on? But get this right, we don't just feed ourselves, we feed the
world. We don't just create jobs, we create purpose. We don't just grow crops, we
grow hope. So this week, we talk about Canadian
(03:25):
food, its future, its fragility, and its power to
unite us around something we all share, a plate, a planet, and
a promise.
And now it's time to join up with Farm Credit
Canada's Future Food Conference, where I introduce my
(03:46):
esteemed panel.
I'd like to now call on Kristjan Herbert to come up, the Herbert Group,
Curt Vossen to come up from former CEO of Richardson's. And I'm gonna just
start by having a couple one on one conversations, then we'll do it more with
group. And Kurt, I'll start with you. As you retire, I mean, twenty five years
(04:06):
quarterbacking the Richardsons Group, the largest independent ag sporting
to 60 countries and stuff. Do you take time this early on to
reflect on what's on your highlight wheel and
things that you wish you had accomplished but for some reason couldn't? I don't
think I've been wallowing in retrospection since I
retired. I think all the way through has been, has been
(04:28):
a process of reevaluation. How do you wanna be
remembered in the sense of what you accomplished, not only on
your watch for your company, but potentially being one of the
trailblazers that said, hey. We can get to 60 markets as a country. We
don't always have to be dependent on one. There's a legacy issue. Right? And the
legacy issue is we were gifted. If you're not aware of it, the the Richardson
(04:50):
Corporation, began in agriculture in 1857 in Kingston,
Ontario, doing basically what we're still doing today, which is trading
grains and and Canadian produced agricultural products
into a domestic and an international market. I came in at,
year January. So there was a certain element of
understanding that I had a responsibility to a multigenerational
(05:13):
Canadian iconic company that had had various
challenges and opportunities over the years, but had survived for a hundred and
thirty eight years. So that's a big big responsibility for myself and
my team. And so at that point in time, the company
had a watershed moment, and that was we had assets that
were older assets. We had a 72 of the
(05:36):
iconic but not efficient elevators that used to grace the the
Canadian Prairies. We we had a small, boutique
inputs business selling, producers retail,
products. And other than that, a few small, distracted
businesses that that had no materiality. We had to
decide where were we gonna be over the course of the next generation. How could
(05:57):
we pass this multi generation company onto the next generation?
So there was an imperative on the horizon, and the imperative
was one of logistical efficiency pushed by
the railways saying, you're gonna have to do a lot better than you've done in
the past in terms of being able to move our rolling stock through your
facilities efficiently and effectively. We don't wanna spot two,
(06:19):
three, four, five cars. We wanna spot 50 cars, eventually, a
hundred cars, and you can't do it with the facilities that you've got. So are
you prepared to make the investment? Are you prepared to take the risk of
recapitalizing a business that had not seen this
magnitude of capitalization in in decades? And that was a a
necessity. Right? So how how do you do that? I have an emotional attachment to
(06:41):
the old way of doing business. You got a family history. You're gonna
knock on doors looking for capital when there with the richest group, there's gotta be
many different places where that capital could flow. How do you convince people
that to go after the future in a big way versus
dance around the present? Arguing clearly
and repeatedly about the necessity, about the reality, about the
(07:04):
facts. We can talk in high minded objectives, but
you've got to start with how do you get the first step? How do you
get the first foot in front of the other and then the next and the
next? And what are the implications of that? And is it doable? Is it
sustainable? Is it worthwhile? Is it material? Where do
we really wanna be? So you lay out the the, a blank piece of paper
(07:25):
and you say, is it good enough to compete with the existing
competitive environment that we're in? In those days, 1995, '19
'90 '6, the market in Western Canada in terms of grain
handling and transportation was dominated by producer owned cooperatives,
Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, Alberta Wheat Pool, Man Pool Elevators,
United Grain Growers. And that changed, and we had to see that that
(07:47):
was going to change. The Wheat Board, very material element in the
economy of Western Canadian agriculture. Is it going to
be there forever? We've got a lot of sacred cows in this country. You're
the CEO. It's a private enterprise. You're talking about, at times, it
felt like moving the Titanic. What advice can you give to this
audience? How do you get people that you saying take your first step forward, but
(08:09):
three people are trying to hold on to that leg and not move it? You
try and apply critical thinking to what seems to
be a logical way forward. Am I gonna be competing in a
world twenty five years from now that will feature me as
a service provider to an entity called the Canadian Wheat Board? Am
I gonna be competing against the people that I'm competing with it today?
(08:32):
What are the other possibilities in terms of who I will compete against,
and what do they have as assets, as opportunities,
as strengths, as capabilities that maybe I should
consider applying to my own business? So we were
a fob seller in large part. Why? I think the Canadian
grain industry got lazy. We were a a hewer of wood and
(08:55):
a hauler of water because most of the export business was being
done through the Canadian Wheat Board. We would buy the grain, we would bin the
grain, we would ship the grain, we would we would load the vessels at port
position and someone else would market the grain. But that's not what our
competitors globally were doing. They were marketing the grain. They weren't
necessarily transactional salespeople. They were relationship
(09:16):
salespeople. They knew their markets. They understood the complexities. They understood
the risk profiles, all of which carry an
inherent risk profile. We're doing business today,
Richardson, in a sixty, seventy different jurisdictions in the world. Many
of those would be reasonably called second and third world economies,
emerging economies, and one of the features that pops
(09:39):
up on more than one occasion is rule of law
is notional. So you've gotta have certain
characteristics, certain capabilities, certain disciplines to be able to
operate effectively in those markets. And if you don't understand that, don't get into
it. Kristen, I wanna go to you, and I was watching an interview where you
talk about you had to go off to become a CPA because that farm
(10:01):
wasn't big enough for you. And then you came back and I think you got
40,000 acres. So you've certainly made a farm big enough for you, but your your
horizons are much bigger than farming. Tell me a little bit about your
journey and how that all unfolded that you felt the cars you
were dealt, you needed to change the game that was gonna be played.
I mean, I think a lot everyone in your life has kinda critical moments or
(10:23):
stories that that allow you to pivot. I mean, I can remember 10 years old,
my dad telling me you had to quit coaching hockey because he created a monster.
We're a couple thousand acres, but he he didn't enjoy people. He enjoyed farming.
So for me, the farm was a place that I could work lots of hours.
My dad paid me good. I could, I could take my girlfriend to the keg
instead of McDonald's, and I wasn't sure I wanted to go back. You know, I
(10:43):
I was gonna take a a med degree, wrote the MCAT, said, what am I
doing? It's gonna go into agronomy. And my dad said, you know what? I I
can teach you how to farm if you wanna farm. But take business, because if
you do decide to come back, that's the part that's tough, and it's moving
fast. It was actually my time with Myers North Penny looking at
statements of hundreds of thousands of farms and large
(11:04):
companies and audits that I learned that I I really love
business. That drove me back to agriculture because of the opportunities
in it. I came home thinking growth is good because the only way I can
have more people is to grow. And I don't think most people's job description
should be you're gonna do what I tell you to do when you get here
in the morning. They wanna do what they're good at most of the time. You're
(11:25):
a business person. You're talking about growth. You're talking about
positions. You're looking at balance sheets all the time. You're coaching other farmers in
terms of how their business is doing business. Do you think that part of the
mindset that's hurting us is when you reach for that rung,
you're considered, a little above yourself? In a business like
agriculture on a global basis, scale is everything.
(11:47):
Efficiency, predictability, profitability,
continuity. It it's all about being able to be
material to your customer, your customer on either side of
the equation, either the buy side or the sell side. You you've gotta be,
willing to help them do better than they're doing today. If you're
not, you're not providing a service. I get that you both of you get it
(12:09):
in terms of just by your portfolio and what you've accomplished, but the narrative in
the country at times is that's not how we want
you to swim. Now is that not a mindset that's causing us holding us back?
I believe in the opportunity agriculture. You ask me if I'm gonna grow?
%. I believe in it. But one thing we have to change as Canadians
is we're too goddamn humble. You wanna talk about Americans? They won't even throw out
(12:32):
their college t shirt. They believe in what they believe in to the point
that sometimes they're arrogant. But you have to be crazy to be an
entrepreneur. I'm sorry. You do. Our our biggest success
story of our of humbleness is that we built Tim Horton so that we could
go for coffee to make bets on who we hope to see fail next. Not
to go visit about success and that we're proud of it and
(12:53):
that, you know, companies like Richardson's or P and H or
there's hundreds of them, success stories in Canada that we should be proud
of. Scale is good. We wanna win. One issue with our
industry right now is that we're like our world junior hockey program. We
used to be good. We have all the right assets, but we're losing. And
if you lose, you're not that good. Don't get me wrong. Being humble is
(13:16):
great, but Kurt and I are no different. We love to win.
So when we leave a place like this today, what are we gonna execute on?
What are we gonna do? When we come here next year, three hundred and sixty
five days, if these five things aren't done, we didn't just get the
silver medal, we're lost out of the tournament. Where do you think that has to
I talked about journeys, and to me, that narrative and mindset
(13:38):
has to travel like a water with no dead ends. Has to happen in the
public sector, it has to private sector, academia. Where do you
think it's getting blocked? That sense because as individuals, we love to
win. We love to see our kids win. Look what we have as an
asset. We should be dominating the world, not allowing us to slip by. Where does
it have to change? So three sixty five days from now, we're sitting on this
(14:00):
stage and we're going, you know what? We accomplished a lot in a very short
order. We've got to separate hubris from from
reality, and there's something fine to
be understood about incrementality. Never mind getting
a hundred billion. Let's start at 20 or 25 or 15 or
five or 10. Let's move ourselves ahead and ask ourselves the
(14:22):
question, what does it take to do that? What are the risks? What are the
opportunities? Who is going to stand in our way in terms of competitive
realities because they have the same objectives? And for us to say, let's be the
best in the world. Well, that's aspirational. That's great. But tell
me how. I'd rather be growing steadily. I would
like to be finding a place that is representative
(14:43):
of where our positioning should be, our market share should
be, our sustainability should be, and I sustainability,
I start with economic sustainability. If you're not economically
sustainable, if Richardson didn't make money doing what it did
and it made repeated mistakes in executing his
business, I wouldn't be up here, and we wouldn't be talking right now.
(15:05):
Get real. This is a tough market. Everybody's got the same objective. It's so it's
like those hockey teams in the NHL. They all wanna win the Stanley
Cup. They're not gonna let you walk through, so you've gotta figure out a
plan. It's gotta be a rational plan. It's gotta be a manageable plan. It's gotta
be a plan that's within your reach to move incrementally
ahead. So why do some countries figure it out and others
(15:27):
don't? Because you keep fooling yourself with
dialogue or platitudes that really don't ask the
question, what do we have to do to be successful?
What is that? Let's let's use let's keep your analogy junior hockey. What
do we need to do as a country to move forward
so that we can get back to becoming that kind of competitor? I
(15:50):
don't think as a country it's any different than a business model, and and I
got a pretty simple business model. If you want a good business, focus on time,
brains, and money. And and you can break that up. So hockey team country,
Time is somebody actually has to go to work and do it. Point number one,
I can't go green if I'm in the red. The definition of sustainability
is I need to leave my financial statements, my land, my
(16:11):
community, and my industry in a better state for my children, or
I failed. Brains, the whole focus is people. So if you
wanna run a country, you wanna run a business, you wanna run a hockey team,
pick the right people. And I would say in a whole bunch of
areas right now, we're picking people that drink the right Kool
Aid, not people that are really good at what they do. Whether that's the world
(16:33):
junior hockey team, they fit the politics, let's pick the best
people, pick the winners. We have a lot of great entrepreneurs in
Canada, and I would say right now, they feel
like there's a whole bunch of weights holding them down, and they just said, piss
on. I'm gonna do it myself. I'm not waiting. When in fact, if you wanna
encourage collaboration, that group got there by collaborating.
(16:54):
They they got there through their network and knowing other people and finding ways to
get money. They're they're the best collaborators in the world. But I don't
think we've lent all of our entrepreneurs and said, what can we do for
you? What can you do for us? What are the three things that piss you
off to fix? And then actually make a list and go do
it. Curtis, you look at your three-dimensional chess game. Is
(17:16):
it a game that's gonna be won by individual entrepreneurs
pushing forward regardless of the circumstances?
Or is it gonna have to be a much more collective effort that
says as a country, we need to be reducing pain points and friction
points to allow entrepreneurs to thrive? Well, I think you gotta
stay be cognizant of of your lane. What can you do? When can
(17:39):
you do it? How can you do it? Who's the most effective to do it?
Certain things like national infrastructure is certainly
a worthwhile collaboration with with government,
with industry, with the farm community, etcetera, etcetera, to figure out what
are the bottlenecks and what's preventing us from eliminating
those bottlenecks or certainly debottlenecking them. Those
(18:01):
conversations have to be had, but we still have to see
action on some of these things. And some of them are pretty fundamental, pretty basic.
You can see where the the the bottlenecks are in terms of reliability of supply
to our international marketplace. We talk about customers like they're inanimate
object. Consumers within those jurisdictions,
all of whom have opinions, needs, all of
(18:24):
whom have ways of doing things that we have to recognize
and be understanding of. And so what do you do? You go and listen. You
ask questions, take direction. Do we do that as a nation
as well that we're bringing back to the industry,
here's the unmet needs of Japan, here's what the consumers are looking for, here's
where the opportunities are, or is it done by a business?
(18:47):
I think we're too introspective. Right? I think we think the solutions
are homegrown. The solutions are not homegrown
because it leaves out the critical point of need
on the part of your counterparty, the counterparty to the transaction,
whatever that transaction may happen to be. When you're trading
agricultural products, food products, any kind of products in an international basis,
(19:11):
there's the first three critical items, price,
price, and price. And after that, you get into
what is the quality that is representative of that
price. And the third thing you get into is what is your ability
to be a valued supplier, which means
predictability, consistency. And that's the conversation.
(19:35):
They can like Canadians, but if Canadians can't
can't deliver for them to meet their objectives, you know,
they have objectives. They have ambitions. And many cases
where we're doing business, these customers have
less capability, less of those things than we
do. You you folks in, in Algeria, I mean,
(19:58):
surely, you're you're concerned about my carbon footprint. Well,
not at the cost of a price increase. Kristen, I'll put this to you. So
can we institutionalize this knowledge on behalf
of agriculture in Canada so that we are
all responding to what we think these need states
are, what the price point is, what's the efficiency,
(20:20):
reliability? These metrics, can they be collective
metrics that we drive change out of? Or is
it continuing to be just the entrepreneurs that are very successful
where we're gonna see this opportunity be realized? Number
one, if you're using hockey, the government's job is build the rink,
be the ref, get the hell out of the way. So when team Canada is
(20:42):
playing in Canada or in The US, is it a bunch of government employees that
have the Canadian jersey on? No. It's all our businesses. So when Kurt was in
whatever country selling wheat, he didn't talk about
Richardson wheat. Talked about Canadian wheat. He was playing under the same
rules that every other grain company was playing under, and he was selling my wheat.
But the rules were there. This is how you trade grain around the rules. Make
(21:03):
the rules the same everywhere. Let the players play. But
magically, when the players are playing the game, specifically if scale is good
and we have global players, they turn into automatic
ambassadors. Government isn't out doing the ambassador work. Him and his team
were in every cut 60 countries in the world talking about why Canadian wheat
was the best and why you should pay this. And at the same time,
(21:26):
what that allows to happen and and I think we don't always look at this
right in Canada. For the last decade, we've been fighting over everybody's little piece of
the pie. What about if we want 10 goddamn pies Instead of
one, let's use the ambassadors. Let's use these best companies
to drive the pie, to mentor the young ones to come up. But let's not
have the goal of just one pie. Given that we're going on a metaphor, so
(21:46):
I'll now talk about it. Instead of a hockey rink, you need an oven to
bake the pie. What is the rule of government? What would you like to
see change so that they're creating the conditions
that allow our Canadian ambassadors to
succeed? I I think having government as a partner,
particularly in foreign jurisdictions, is very helpful,
(22:08):
particularly to diffuse the implications
of geopolitics, trade barriers, phytosanitary,
food quality, non tariff barriers. We
need the government to understand that we are continuing. We have a supply
chain. How can you help us, whether it's infrastructure or
it's labor policy or whatever it may happen to be, how can you help us
(22:31):
make sure that that supply chain that is so critical to our
success, how do you help us make that efficient,
resilient, flexible when we have such
impediments? What do I mean by that? I mean geography and I mean
climate. We produce a lot of what we produce in agriculture a long
way away from where it's exported. You've got to deal with those things. How do
(22:53):
you deal with them effectively? A government's got a fixed budget.
What would you take away that they're doing now and where would you
invest that money? First of all, get to a point
that the government just does what they say they're going to do. Then
second points, I mean, I heard a good line this morning. I think we're all
ready for radical change, but we're not ready for
(23:16):
vindictive change. I mean, you think about that,
specifically what's going on in The US right now. But in lots of countries,
new government comes in or there's a change and they actually just make change
because the last party or the last whatever pissed them off. Everybody in this room
has to work with every party. I want Canada to be awesome forever. Just do
what you say you're gonna do, and let's quit talking about some of these problems.
(23:37):
So the long term infrastructure, it's a government problem. Can
democracy as it stands today, which is this fixation
of winning the next term, can it align with
twenty five year horizons? Can it align with, I don't care
whose constituencies out there, we need that railway, we need that infrastructure
fixed? If the initiative is well thought through, if it is well
(24:00):
explained, I think people are generally receptive
of of good ideas, a good ideas that have a vision
because a lot of those people have children or they have grandchildren. And they
say, oh, yeah. But for them, we want it even better. Right? We just need
leadership with the courage to do it. You know, what you're talking about is a
horizon of my children, my grandchildren
(24:22):
setting herself up for success long term. But it never really seems
to become policy. Is that kind of thinking
and storytelling and igniting Canadians, where should
that lie? The number one piece to leave with,
stories are stories. What are we gonna do about it? We didn't tell a
story for fifty years that Canada was good at hockey and people just believed
(24:44):
us, but we won. So how do we do that in business? Part of
it, Sherry, we need to have the moonshot. Right? So we produce fifty
fifty million tonne right now. We only get to 70 or a hundred or whatever
that number is. Set it out there, but I think we're gonna go from 50
to 70 just over the next ten years through scale. Who's
responsible for getting Canadians to go, I like the fact my
tax and borrowed dollars are gonna go for the infrastructure we need
(25:08):
to set ourselves up so we can sell 10 pies? There's no question, I don't
think, when you talk to the general public that food and agriculture is important.
The best way to be sustainable is to be able to ship more of our
sustainable stuff around the world. I'm not saying that we shouldn't tell the world that
we have the lowest emission product in the in the globe. If that's what
the world wants, damn right. So we should tell them. Because it is. Because it
(25:30):
is. And then on top of that, we'll say, and you wanna know what? We're
fixing our tunnel. We're fixing our ports. So in thirty six months, we can
ship you double. You got the checkbook ready? Some of the
solutions are so simple. We have a an issue, and that is
most of the grains and oilseeds that we export out of Canada as well as
a number of other products. The biggest port without any any
(25:52):
comparison in Canada is Vancouver. What does it do in
Vancouver over two hundred days of the year? It
rains. I can't load vessels when it rains.
This is 2025. We can't figure out technology
that is easy to put in place and easy to take
down and not impede our ability to move vessels out of that
(26:14):
port in an efficient way. It's a labor issue, and we can't resolve
a labor issue. It is holding this country back,
and it's reputational damage. Right? We all want this moonshot.
I mean, what do we need as an organization, as an entity
called Canada that says these are top priorities?
Think about this for a second. How old is the Skydome? 50 Years? Mhmm. So
(26:38):
a baseball owner in a city figured out how to watch ball in the
rain, but we can't figure out how to load a ship in the rain. We
valued watching ball more than our country's success.
Every day when we get up, I say that my goal is to build
something to give my kids the opportunity to go to Harvard and cool enough they
might come back to. Do we wanna build a country that our kids are gonna
(26:58):
come back to? Because if the kids don't come back, we're not here.
Find the money. There's a lot of truth to, necessity is the
mother of invention. Right? Yeah. The little little example I gave you
about where I came in on the scene in Richardson where we had a
72 nearing obsolete facilities,
and we were being forced by who? The big corporations,
(27:20):
the railways. We had to either put up or shut
up and get out of the way. Did the owners like it? No. They didn't
like it. Did anybody in this system like it? No. They didn't like it. Was
it necessary? Absolutely. It was necessary. Sometimes somebody's gotta give you a
a a two by four on along the side of the head and say, grow
up, smarten up, get in the game, or get out of the way.
(27:42):
And if you don't do that, you're you're gonna fall behind and you're then you're
gonna be wringing your hands and saying what all happened. What all happened is you
you didn't move. You didn't listen. You you didn't react. You
didn't think forward. I keep pushing you guys because I'm going,
I get it. If you were running Canada as an enterprise,
we'd have a cover in the port in Vancouver, and we'd have a tunnel, and
(28:03):
we wouldn't have a bridge that swings up and down, and I get that. What
advice can you give to Canada that we can act
upon the the mentality and approach that you apply to your
businesses to the benefit of all Canadians, not just your shareholders?
Get realistic. Rally around a doable,
practical, incremental plan. Speak positively about
(28:25):
it. Be sure of your facts. Get involved in the
dialogue. Right? I mean, we didn't sit around and wait to say, I
wonder if the government's gonna give us a hand on on this vision we have
for Richardson. We said, what are the issues? What are the opportunities?
How do we mitigate the the the risks and take advantage of the
opportunities in a in a in a material and sustainable
(28:47):
way? Can we do it while keeping our
principles in place? Ethical conduct, being concerned
about the communities in which we do business, being concerned for our
employees and our employees' safety is paramount. All of
those principles, and that our word is our
bond. I think the joy of chaos is there's a lot of people that fall
(29:09):
into the pit of chaos and stay there. Right? The winners in the game actually
put the ladder and start climbing. If you have a good ideas, one thing is
you have to repeat yourself. Right? They say on an average, you have to repeat
yourself seven times for a child to understand. My wife would say it's a hundred
times for me to understand. Well, everybody get on the same page of where we're
climbing, and let's repeat ourselves to the government
(29:29):
because 90% of what we want is the same. I would argue this isn't
just food. Right? Energy, critical
minerals, water. Anyone know anyone in the world that wants
those things? We got them. Let's make sure all those industries
find a way to have a seat at the table so the message is getting
repeated every single day in Ottawa and find the good
(29:51):
people. I've I've been here for two days. I've met with lots of great
people in government that wanna do the same thing I do, and they wanna see
radical change. They wanna know what the steps in the ladder we want are. Well,
we have to tell them. Opportunities in agriculture. Right? Volatility is an opportunity.
Commodity prices, inputs, machinery, fixed costs. Yeah. But that
creates volatility. Volatility creates opportunity. Right? Second
(30:13):
is leadership. One of our big issues in agriculture is
that for twenty years, we told everybody, don't go into agriculture.
We don't have too many good academics in agriculture that age. We don't have too
many good consultants. They're most of the CEOs are either
65 and looking for some people in the middle. Like, we have a leadership
void. And part of that means is that mentorship normally doesn't happen on a
(30:34):
twenty five year gap, but it's gonna have to.
2030 is when the baby boomers hit the bottom age of
66. So scale better be good
because we are going to consolidate. Right? We're gonna build the ladder
together and we're gonna get those pieces right. I have no idea why they pick
these two people for the panel. I mean, they they lack ideas and
(30:55):
passion. I just wanna wrap up and say thank you both. And what I'm
gonna take away from and there's some real consistent themes, this
incrementality that, you know, it's wonderful thing to have a moonshot, but you gotta
put the ladder up and you gotta start climbing. I think that if we start
applying some of the mentality and learning from our successful companies
who found a way through chaos and volatility to
(31:18):
turn that into opportunity. And if we can bottle that, and I think
if we can share that as an industry, I think we can
have a combination of two things. We can have 10 pies that look really tantalizing,
but we can start creating the ovens to bake them in. So I appreciate both
of you for coming out. I think they deserve an incredible round of applause.
(31:43):
When we return, Lisa Ashton will join us. She's the agricultural
policy lead at RBC Thought Leadership. And I wanted to get
RBC's perspective on where Canada sits in the global
agricultural economy, and she delivers on that. But what
else have found out is she was born and raised on a
farm. So her context makes it even more real.
(32:07):
Hi. It's Tony Chapman. Food does mean the world
to each of us and to all of us. Some of us
have the privilege that food can be something we explore,
learn about new cultures, test our creativity in the kitchen,
dine, and enjoy the creativity of a master
(32:36):
But to do so, we really need to support our farmers. But to do
so, we really need to support our farmers. And so I
wanna give a big shout out to Farm Credit Canada, the University of
Guelph, and RBC for putting together the foundations
in agricultural management. That online course, it's
free, but it gives people that work in the agricultural sector the
(32:58):
knowledge and confidence to make a lifetime of better informed decisions,
to learn about business strategy and planning and farm management
succession planning and financial fundamentals. But here's
to the University of Guelph, FCC, and RBC, and here's
to making Canada a superpower in agriculture.
This food means the world to you, to me, and
(33:20):
to RBC.
One thing we have to change as Canadians is we're too goddamn humble. You
wanna talk about Americans? They won't even throw out their college t shirt. They believe
in what they believe in to the point that sometimes they're arrogant. But you
have to be crazy to be an our
(33:42):
of humbleness is that we built Tim Hortons so that we could go for coffee
to make bets on who we hope to see fail next.
Many of you know that I often end my show by bringing on somebody
from RBC, and more often than not, it it extends
beyond banking to the role organizations can play in
helping individuals, corporations, communities, even
(34:04):
Canada get to where it need, wants, and deserve to go. Joining
me today is Lisa Ashton. She's the agricultural policy lead at
RBC thought leadership. And, Lisa, it's fantastic to have you on the show for the
first time. Yes. Thank you for having me, Tony. Tell me a little bit about
what you're doing as the agricultural policy lead and
why is agriculture something that really RBC is focusing a lot of
(34:26):
attention on? My role provides the opportunity to,
spearhead our agricultural research, from most,
topical issues like trade and tariffs, but also,
important issues including, climate and policy as well.
So really have an opportunity to flex those
research muscles, but complementary to that, engage with
(34:48):
stakeholders across Canada to understand what
issues are most important to them, and work together,
to drive action because we're not only a a think tank, but we're also a
do tank. So So I wanna talk to you a little bit about the conference
in February that this show was taped at. One of the core
themes is that Canada can become a superpower
(35:09):
in agriculture. The the quality of our food, the efficacy,
moving up from a commodity to value added, all of these things can
play into this North Star. Is it possible that as
a country, we can play that role in terms of providing the food
that the, the world so desperately needs? I would actually argue that
Canada is is already a powerhouse superpower
(35:32):
in agriculture and agri food production, but but also export.
Over the last twenty years, Canada has actually, lost some
market share when you look at global agri food exports falling from fifth
place in the early two thousands to seventh place today with risk
of falling to ninth place. We did some scenario analysis
and and believe under a high growth scenario, Canada could
(35:55):
actually add $44,000,000,000 within the next ten
years. So there is certainly a a North Star to to move
towards. I think there's a lot that needs to happen domestically, a lot that needs
to happen in terms of our trade growth and diversification
approach. What's happened? Why have we kinda gone from fifth place to danger moving
to ninth place? Emerging economies,
(36:17):
such as Brazil and Argentina are biting up some,
key categories that traditionally are very important to Canada. So
oil seeds, grains, and meats, that's one
key, challenge that Canada faces. It is somewhat in a
way kind of dulling its competitive edge relative to some of our
traditional competitors like Australia, for example, who
(36:40):
is really taking an aggressive leadership approach in terms
of accessing what we're calling the growth markets. So markets that
you would expect to see high GDP and high population
growth over the next ten years. And one key market is
South And Southeast Asia. Those key markets, certainly have a lot
of opportunity. And if we don't take advantage of them, we
(37:02):
risk falling behind even further. And what stopped us from doing it today? Because
when I was talking to both Kurt and Christian, they said part of the
issue is not so much our ability to grow, it's our ability to be
a reliable exporter. Transportation infrastructure
is a is a key, I guess, linchpin in terms of our
our growth. We've hear heard, lots of discussion, I think,
(37:25):
between Kurt and Christian around, the Port Of Vancouver.
When we compared ourselves to other key agri food exporters,
including Brazil, Australia, and The US, we're behind all of them
in terms of our turnaround time. And there's key challenges
that slow that down for us in terms of getting product to market
fast, such as rules around loading grain onto
(37:47):
ships, when it rains. I think the other other
element is also being a little bit more aggressive in how we
are exploring and, delivering on trade
diversification. Canada has roughly 15 free
trade agreements that gives us access to more than two thirds of the global
economy. So that's a lot of opportunity that's already on
(38:09):
Canada's plate, that it can be taking more advantage
of, including within the European Union, through the,
Trans Pacific Partnership, and even some of our
bilateral agreements with, Ukraine, Chile,
Colombia. We have access to all those markets. So, taking a more
aggressive approach to to enter those markets and deliver our products to them is
(38:31):
a is a key opportunity. Talk to me about technology,
regenerative farming, some of the moves that are being made on the chessboard
to not only maybe drive efficiency, but the efficacy of food.
And how does that play into Canada in terms of our position globally?
We are very fortunate to have a significant amount of
(38:51):
natural resources from water to land, a very efficient
production system. So when we looked at, Canada's agricultural
total factor productivity, so, basically, how efficient are
you using your inputs relative to your outputs, we exceed
the OECD average. I think it's important to note that we
can't be productive if we don't have healthy soils and we don't have
(39:13):
resilient ecosystems. So RBC works
very closely with some of our corporate partners and even Christian,
Hubert, who you were interviewing, to help scale
the adoption and access to climate smart practices, and we
do that through one of our, Climate Action Alliances. Tell
me a little bit just quickly before we finish on your background and and why
(39:36):
it must be somewhat full circle that you're back in, but this time from the
thought leadership. So originally from a grains and oil
seeds farm, in Southwestern Ontario. I think
like most farm kids when I was 16 or 17, I couldn't
wait to get off off the farm and and kind of explore the world on
on my own, but, through my degrees and and career,
(39:59):
I found myself back in agriculture and I think more curious than
ever to learn about this sector and and to help push,
ideas forward that can improve its growth and prosperity. I'm spending a
lot of time helping youth find their path in life.
A lot of them seem to dismiss agriculture as a career.
I have to believe that a career in agriculture has got to be
(40:21):
something that's incredibly rewarding, purposeful, has nothing but
creativity, innovation as part of it. That is a missed opportunity that
agriculture is not kind of top of mind for many,
young people that are determining kind of what they wanna do for their career
because it is such an evolving and growing
space. There's lots of exciting technology applications.
(40:43):
So generative AI has a role from on farm
efficiency all the way through the value chain. There's a lot of
diverse opportunities. So for example, I'm technically a
researcher, but I say I work in the agricultural sector. There's
opportunities in marketing, communication, engineering,
and it, it is really an exciting field and also a leading sector for, for
(41:05):
Canada. So a place for you to really grow your career,
with, with the number of, different avenues that can be taken. I
really wanna do more shows on why food means the world
to, to all of us and why Canadian food means the world to the
world. So I really appreciate you joining me in Chata That Matters. Thank you, Tony.
Happy to join anytime. Once again, a special thanks to
(41:28):
RBC for supporting Chata That Matters. It's Tony
Chapman. Thanks for listening, and let's chat soon.
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