“Projects like this are essential as we work together to lower greenhouse gas emissions and build a stronger, more resilient agriculture sector for Canadians,” said Heath MacDonald, federal minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food in a news release.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada announced April 7 that Anodyne Chemistries Inc. will receive up to$1,236,310 through Ottawa’s AgriScience Program – Projects Component under the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership.

Anodyne describes itself as a Canadian chemical startup on its website. It plans to use the funds to develop a bio-electric process to convert carbon dioxide and water into hydrogen peroxide and formic acid.

Hydrogen peroxide disinfects and sanitizes equipment, while formic acid’s uses include as a preservative for animal feed.

The processes to make these products would reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well as the ag sector’s reliance on petrochemical feedstocks.

“We’re proud to work alongside AAFC to build the foundation for a domestic, decarbonized agrichemical supply chain in Canada,” said Anodyne chief executive Iain Evans.

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The federal government announced up to $94.5 million in funding for the 14 groups over five years through the Sectoral Workforce Solutions Program.

The funds are intended to assist 14 organizations develop informational products and employer toolkits to help workers and businesses adapt to current labour market challenges, a federal news release said.

These tools include forecast reports, dashboards on topics like job vacancies by key occupations, and sector-specific growth opportunities.

These are intended to offer job seekers, workers, employers and training providers a detailed view of the challenges and needs within each sector.

The aim is to ultimately help reduce skills shortages, improve job readiness, and support long-term growth across multiple industries, the federal government said.

Other organizations funded represent the energy, construction, trucking, advanced manufacturing, aerospace, tourism, forestry, mining, information and communications technology, the environment and the bio-economy sectors.

These sectors account for 66.2 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product and employ about 9.9 million workers, the news release said.

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“Dan is a high-integrity, visionary executive with more than 30 years of leadership experience across the Canadian seed sector and the broader North American agriculture industry,” said Brent Collins, President of Seeds Canada in a LinkedIn post announcing the move.

Wright most recently worked at Syngenta as head of the company’s North American Enogen and Canada Seed divisions. He previously held senior roles at Monsanto and Bayer, and brings extensive association experience, having served seven years on the Canadian Seed Trade Association Board, including as president (2017–2018).

Experience spanning both multinationals and family-owned seed businesses makes Wright uniquely positioned to unite stakeholders and advance the priorities of Canada’s seed industry, said Collins.

“It is an honor to join Seeds Canada as CEO,” said Wright in the post, adding “having witnessed the incredible value of industry associations throughout my life, I am excited by the opportunity Seeds Canada and its members and clients have to continue to deliver value through innovation to Canadian farmers, ensuring they remain competitive globally.”

To help ensure a smooth transition, Wright will have the opportunity to spend some time with outgoing CEO Barry Senft before his departure at the end of January 2026.

Seeds Canada represents seed growers, analysts, breeders, distributors, processors, retailers, service providers and all stakeholders along the seed value chain in Canada. Its mandate is to support the growth of the seed sector in Canada and worldwide, focusing on plant breeding innovation, seed regulatory modernization, international trade, value creation and plant breeders’ rights.

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Why not apply the same principle to food production? After all, it boils down to the same simple principle — marginal gains theory.

The brainchild of British cycling coach David Brailsford, marginal gains theory is the concept of tiny changes that add up over time.

The theory’s three principles are:

• The change must be small, but the outcome must be large.
• The change should be easy or simple to apply.
• The change should be relatively inexpensive to deliver.

When Brailsford became performance director of the U.K.’s cycling team, the top of the podium seemed a long way away. But he was determined to change its fate, so he broke down everything that goes into riding a bike, then tried to improve each aspect by one per cent. His focus on small, yet critical, aspects of performance, such as power output, nutrition and physical fitness, won the team two gold medals at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, followed by several more at the Beijing and London Olympics.

The principle is malleable enough that it can be applied to weaning weights as easily as to riding a bike.

An example from James Byrne, an Ontario government beef cattle specialist, illustrates the theory with average daily gain at a feedlot.

If a producer buys a calf at 650 pounds and sells it at 1,520, then they need a gain of 2.2 pounds for 150 days and three pounds for the next 180 days. If those numbers improved by one per cent, the animal comes out weighing 1,528.7 pounds.

Sounds negligible, right? Well, that’s 8.7 pounds, and if you have 1,000 cows, that’s 8,700 pounds. That’s a significant bump in gross revenue, especially at today’s prices.

But remember, simple is one of the theory’s guiding principles. If a change isn’t easy to implement, the cost will be irrelevant, says Byrne. For example, if a feedlot operator adds yeast to the ration to reduce acidosis, the question becomes how to incorporate it into a TMR.

“If the practical application of it is challenging, then the producer is not going to adopt it, even if you ignore the cost of it, because it’s too onerous.”

Byrne points to the example of properly measuring pasture. It’s a highly beneficial practice, but it’s time-consuming and involves lots of work, running around and data entry. No sweat for a post-grad, but not practical for a farmer or rancher.

Ideally, for the theory to be at its functioning best, it must hit the trifecta. Success is possible with one or two boxes ticked, but when all three coincide, a producer starts to win big.

Byrne says that what often holds people back is getting stuck in their own minds at the starting line. They may have an idea of their end game, but how to get there is such a dizzying prospect that they do nothing, fearing the adjustment will be too difficult.

“For a producer who has never done it before, there’s a leap of faith involved and that’s where there’s another blockage in the system. Do you really believe it’s going to be successful? What is the change that I want to make?”

Small tweaks, big benefits

When Ryan Galbraith thinks about small changes at his Minnedosa, Man. farm, one of them doesn’t involve getting his hands dirty. The small gains he’s worked on are between the ears.

“Every bit of opportunity over the last few years has come to us and I think it’s just a switch in trying to figure out how to position yourself,” says Galbraith.

He is constantly thinking about ways to be more efficient at the family farm, which includes his brother and parents. Part of what drives that is his farm’s location. At the base of Riding Mountain National Park, Galbraith operates at an elevation between 1,600 and 2,000 feet above sea level. It means his growing season is shorter than the average Prairie farmer. All his decisions are more time-sensitive and must be meticulously thought out.

A small, incremental, yet always difficult, challenge for the young farmer has been delegation. When Galbraith returned to the farm 15 years ago, it was just him and his father. The two of them worked day in and day out, doing all the jobs themselves. Today, Galbraith is much better about delegating and has employees, a change with big rewards.

“In the early years, you feel like you can still do things better than the next person, but I’ve come to understand what freeing your time up as the manager can do for the operation. I spend a lot of time on bigger-picture thinking.”

Some changes are more easily quantifiable. For several years, the family had a granular fertilizer and seed tender truck as well as a liquid fertilizer tender truck. They made it work, but it meant their employee was run off his feet 12 to 16 hours a day managing both. So they combined everything into one unit and sped things up in the yard with a different sized auger for the fertilizer.

“All of a sudden, the guy had a spare hour or two every fill to do truck maintenance or work around the yard before he had to come back to the field. He could keep the yard a little tidier, too.”

Another change with a big gain was with their sprayer setup. They had a single small chemical handler and would splice every jug as they were filling the sprayer. The process itself usually took about 15 minutes per fill. That was a lot of down time, though. Galbraith decided a change was needed. So, he built his own dash trailer on a flat deck trailer. Today, they have four chemical handlers on the flat deck with chemical pre-loaded. The sprayer pulls up beside the trailer and chemical is pumped immediately.

“It went down from about 15-minute fills to five.”

The changeover cost about $80,000, but it was nearly a 100 per cent savings compared to buying a brand new version of what Galbraith made himself.

From calving to winter feeding

When it comes to cows, every little bit helps. Just ask Kyle Hebert, owner of Hebert Livestock Ventures near Wawota, Sask. Hebert and wife Crystal have zeroed in on a few key changes in recent years and the time and money they have in their back pocket attest to the changes’ positive benefits. The single most important change they’ve made over the years is moving their calving dates from February to May for their 950 cows.

Anyone who has calved in February understands the absolute challenge of it all: cow and calf in their most vulnerable states, freezing temperatures, at times a lack of help, shortage of space and more.

Hebert and crew first moved the dates from February to April over 10 years ago. However, April in his area can still be a treacherous month, with a couple of nasty storms almost guaranteed.

After the brutal calving season of 2020, they shifted the dates from April to May 2021. It was a significant change on top of their previously significant change moving to April calving. But the benefits were twofold. The May weather meant less stress on everyone, especially the animals. It also meant that they needed fewer people to manage calving.

“It’s made it so you can enjoy it,” Hebert says. “Most of us have cattle because we love calving cows. I always say that we get to play God for 60 days and to get 1,000 babies born in 50, 60 days. It’s a pretty fun time of year.”

Overall, this change reduced newborn mortality by two per cent. Amortized across so many animals, Hebert would never conceive of calving at any other time.

“On 1,000 calves that starts to pay for people’s wages.”

During the winter, the cows swath graze millet. Hebert builds a temporary fence, which takes about 90 minutes to construct, and moves his cows every four to five days.

Compared with using a mixer wagon to feed, Hebert saves about 170 hours over the winter by feeding this way. He also saves money and time by not having to put up feed and bring it home before taking it back out to the cows. That time has been converted into many things, including more time at the rink.

And sometimes an opportunity presents itself.

In 2021, the government’s farm and ranch water infrastructure program came available, and Hebert took advantage to trench two miles of pipe for remote winter watering. The cost was $25,000, but the government footed half the bill. It’s a big improvement over chopping a hole through the ice on the dugout. Plus, it keeps the cattle in the natural protection of the trees instead of in the open yard and cuts out having to pay an employee to clean up after the animals.

“It’s helped a lot with animal health and we’ve gained pounds on our calves just because they’re drinking clean water all the time.”

Hebert says the pregnancy rates have improved as well, which he partially attributes to healthier animals accessing clean water 24/7.

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In a letter to three federal ministers – Kody Blois (agriculture), Dominic LeBlanc (trade) and Francois-Phillipe Champagne (finance) — the CFIB pointed to the economic damages to Canada’s agriculture industry from the EV policies.

“Given the importance of agro-industries to Canada’s economy, we recommend government conduct a reassessment of its EV subsidies and tariff policies to mitigate unintended consequences for SME (small and medium enterprises),” the letter says.

“While Canada’s tariffs on Chinese EVs are intended to support the development of the domestic EV industry, it is worth questioning whether continuing to subsidize multinational corporations is the right path forward.”

The CFIB represents about 100,000 small and medium sized businesses, including 5,200 in the agriculture sector. It highlighted the threat of Chinese tariffs in an April 23 news release, five days before the federal election.

In March, China announced 100 per cent tariffs on canola oil, meal and pea imports from Canada, and 25 per cent tariffs on pork and some seafood products.

The move was expected because the Chinese government was frustrated with Canada’s tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles, which were announced in 2024.

Farm groups criticize tariffs

Several farm groups have criticized the federal government for sacrificing the agriculture industry by protecting Canada’s electric vehicle and battery sectors from imports.

“We can’t keep being collateral damage in a trade war we didn’t start,” said the Wheat Growers Association in March.

“We need to end EV tariffs on China and force a solution to China’s unfair tariffs on canola. Canadian farmers and businesses deserve better.”

The CFIB is now adding its voice to the conversation, saying the federal and provincial subsidies for batteries and EV manufacturing are going to large corporations.

“In fact, over $62 billion has been pledged to several major automakers,” the CFIB letter says.

“However, some of these companies are now pausing their plans, raising questions about the need for such a policy, as well as the timing and long-term benefit of this subsidy strategy.”

Chinese tariffs hurting businesses bottom line

In April, the CFIB polled its members to gauge the impact of the Chinese tariffs and possible solutions to the trade chaos of 2025.

Around 35 per cent of agricultural businesses said the Chinese tariffs are hurting their bottom line.

Resolving the trade disputes and developing other markets for agri-food products is critical, but CFIB members are also worried about the challenges of doing business in Canada.

About 80 per cent of agri-businesses want the government to reduce regulatory costs and 79 per cent want the feds to cut taxes.

“The government needs to turn its focus to supporting the agriculture industry and adopting policies to improve the business climate for Canada’s SMEs,” said Jasmin Guénette, CFIB vice-president of national affairs.

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However, that news belied pessimism on the state of ag tech at the recent Agri Tech Venture Forum in Toronto. The forum heard that the availability of capital for agriculture technology entrepreneurs has dried up significantly compared to the heady days of investment growth during the pandemic years.

David Kornacki, of the Canadian Venture Capital Association, reported that agribusiness had a record year in 2023, with $273 million invested in 50 deals.

That compares to a decline of 34 per cent last year in venture capital deals outside of agriculture and a 50 per cent decline the year before.

Kornacki says the declines in 2023 and 2022 are a return to normal.

“If we’re taking out the pandemic years, we still saw a an increase of investment in comparison to 2019,” he says.

The sentiment from venture capital investors at the forum wasn’t as optimistic.

“It’s been a challenging probably 18 months in terms of putting together deals, finding lead investors, finding significant partners,” said Jonathon Goodkey, of the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC).

Pitchbook, the industry go-to information source on investment deals, showed a decrease in North American agriculture venture capital investment in early 2024 compared to the high-spending times of 2021.

“I agree, it’s tough times,” says Louis Brown of Carrot Ventures.

Paige Addesi, of Yaletown, another venture capital company, however, said that some great businesses can be built in a downturn.

“This industry doesn’t just go away and founders building businesses at this point in time are quite resilient,” she says.

Concern about interest rates has been one of the biggest drivers of the decline in venture capital being spent, but the potential impact of increased taxation of capital gains passed in the recent federal government budget will also have a cooling impact on investment in Canada, says Kornacki.

Agriculture technology entrepreneurs have to work harder and will have to make sure they have an understanding of the company’s plan to develop and show a route to profit.

When ag tech founders find an investor, they will also find that the valuations put on companies aren’t as high as they were.

“We want our returns, and we don’t want to admit that we are worth less than we were two years ago,” says Artem Zemskov, who works for the Canadian office of the Radicle Growth fund.

Many valuations were high because the venture capital money was flowing freely and some people didn’t understand what they were paying for.

The venture capitalists on the panel at the forum agreed that there is a lot of money sitting in people’s accounts not being spent, and that will change at some point. For now, entrepreneurs will have to make sure they are more realistic about what to expect when looking for investors.

—John Greig is senior technology editor for Farmtario

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“P&H has been a great equity partner and a strong supporter of seed genetics in Canada, and we thank them for their many contributions to Alliance and the industry,” said Shane Paterson, director of trading and transportation at Paterson in a news release.

Winnipeg-based Alliance Seed began in 2009 as a joint venture between Paterson Grain (a division of Paterson GlobalFoods), Parrish and Heimbecker, Weyburn Inland Terminal of Weyburn, Sask.; North West Terminal (NWT) of Unity, Sask.; Prairie West Terminal of Plenty, Sask.; and Great Sandhills Terminal at Leader, Sask.

With the recent sale, North West Terminal and Paterson are the two remaining shareholders.

“The joint venture, established in 2009, has proven to be mutually beneficial, creating synergies
that have contributed to the success of all shareholders. P&H looks forward to continuing on as a
channel partner with Alliance.” said Anthony Kulbacki, president of P&H’s grain division.

Alliance operations will not change as a result of this transaction, the news release said.

—Geralyn Wichers is associate digital editor of AGCanada.com. She writes from southeastern Manitoba.

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Instead of cash, the attackers demanded the hog business owners publicly admit to what they alleged to be livestock mistreatment.

The occurrence was unique and alarming, says Ali Dehghantanha, Canada research chair in cybersecurity and threat intelligence at the University of Guelph’s Cyber Science Lab.

The lab offers a for-fee support service for those managing cyberattacks and cybersecurity.

NEW AUDIO SERIES: Cyber-Savvy Farmer

While the number of cybersecurity incidents across Ontario’s agriculture industry has been rapidly increasing overall, he says the cashless ransomware attack against the family hog business — an incident he and his colleagues helped the family resolve — highlights what could become a wider trend in the tactics used by special interest actors.

Why it matters: Ransomware and other criminal cyber activities usually come with demands for payment. Malicious actors focused on disrupting food production rather than money pose another, potentially harder-to-solve threat.

According to Dehghantanha, the attack perpetrators claimed to have a variety of incriminating evidence showing animal abuse on the farm. This included camera footage taken from what the perpetrators claimed was a now-compromised farm surveillance system. The attacker’s prerequisite for releasing their hold on the farm’s network was a public statement, from the business owners, admitting to animal abuse.

In Dehghantanha’s view, this would have been financially devastating for the business.

In reality, no such footage existed. Indeed, claims of comprised cameras were false. Barring the demand for self-incrimination, the attack proved to be a standard, easily manageable ransomware attack.

“This was the first time working in this specific industry we have seen ransomware not asking for money. That would make our job much more difficult as we are dealing with adversaries whose motivation is not money,” Dehghantanha says, adding the transfer of cash is often the riskiest part for those committing ransomware attacks, because the movement of funds can be tracked.

“Prior to this we were not concerned with these small family food businesses…There was not a playbook for these kinds of situations.”

More accessible ransomware

Dehghantanha says his lab has been engaged with 20 cybersecurity issues reported from southern Ontario in the first half of 2023 alone — up from a mere handful in the entirety of 2019. Awareness of cyber risk has likely played a role in higher reporting, but it’s also getting easier for bad actors to acquire harmful attack tools like ransomware.

Simultaneously, the agriculture and food sector are underprepared for such threats. Dehghantanha considers agriculture and food to lag other sectors, notably energy and health, by approximately five years. Remedying the problem would begin by establishing a committee or another body of industry representatives, technology experts, and others to design cybersecurity standards “rooted in the reality of the industry.”

“We must identify steps for farmers and businesses that can be gradually achieved to get to the same level. This has happened in energy and health sector so there’s no reason it can’t happen in agriculture sector,” says Dehghantanha.

“We need to identify a body responsible for receiving these standard reports from farmers trying to evaluate them and give feedback and work with them…If a farmer knows they are level two, level three, or whatever level they are, it would make it much easier for them to understand and improve.”

Awareness and practice

Stakeholders in the agriculture sector, such as Ontario Pork, say they are raising awareness about the ever-growing need for better cybersecurity.

In an email statement received July 12, Ken Ovington, general manager for Ontario Pork, says the commodity group “routinely meets with cybersecurity experts and researchers to gather knowledge that can be used to create awareness and provide informational tools that are valuable to pork producers and the provincial pork industry.

“These types of cyberattacks are undeniably on the rise. As technology usage increases, so does the methods and sophistication of cyber criminals so it’s crucial that producers, agricultural organizations and government continue to prioritize cybersecurity measures, stay vigilant, and collaborate to prevent future cyberattacks,” says Ovington.

Strategies used to prevent issues within the organization itself were listed as well, including cybersecurity training for employees. No comment on specific incidents, such as the ransomware attack on the family hog operation, was provided.

Dehghantanha himself encourages greater proactivity. While establishing standards would help the agriculture sector improve overall security – and, potentially, bring spinoff benefits like lower insurance rates for higher cybersecurity scores – he stresses individuals and organizations need to pay attention to the threat posed by cyber criminals focused on industry disruption over money.

“We don’t need to wait for a standard to work on awareness. If you have livestock, you could be on a target list.”

— Matt McIntosh is a southwestern Ontario freelance writer. This article previously appeared at Farmtario.com.

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U.S. President Joe Biden last May loosened restrictions on travel, remittances and migration, and promised the United States would do more to support the fledgling private sector in Cuba.

Change, however, has been too slow to come, said Paul Johnson, chair of the U.S. Agricultural Coalition for Cuba, a more-than-100-member organization that includes national and state farm organizations, corporations and producers.

“We’re losing, and we’re tired of losing,” Johnson told reporters on the sidelines of the gathering at a hotel in Havana.

The U.S. businesses are keen to both sell their own product to Cuba and to invest in private sector farms and cooperatives to help them develop.

Little has changed on the island since a similar group of would-be investors arrived last April. Many farms have been shuttered by lack of investment, equipment, fuel and supplies, leading to widespread shortages of food across Cuba.

“It’s frustrating to us in the United States, because we believe it’s something that we can fix. We need to go back to our government… and insist that the private sector is a path forward to development,” said Johnson.

Cuba, a long-time foe of the U.S., swapped capitalism for socialism shortly after Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution, preferring state over private enterprise.

But in August 2021, the communist-run government lifted a ban on private companies that had been in place since 1968. Upwards of 7,000 such businesses have opened since, according to an economy ministry list updated on March 23.

Canada, according to the federal Trade Commissioner Service, is Cuba’s second-largest source of direct investment, with “significant” stakes in mining, energy, agriculture and heavy equipment, as well as in tourism, with over one million Canadians visiting Cuba annually, pre-pandemic. Cuba is also Canada’s top market in the Caribbean/Central American sub-region.

Investors from countries including Mexico, Venezuela, Vietnam, China, Spain and Russia, among others, have also previously participated in state and private business in Cuba.

The United States remains an outlier. The U.S. Treasury Department last May authorized a company owned by entrepreneur John Kavulich to invest in a small private business in Cuba’s services sector, the first such approval in decades.

But many other similar requests remain unanswered, Johnson said.

“Obviously that’s just not good enough,” Johnson said. “We’re capitalists. We invest in private business all around the world. Why can’t we do it in Cuba?”

Despite the loosening of some restrictions, a Cold War-era U.S. embargo on Cuba remains in place, prohibiting some trade and financing between the two countries and complicating investment ties.

— Nelson Acosta is a Reuters correspondent in Havana. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

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The Canadian arm of Rabobank — an Amsterdam-based farmer co-operative lender, providing banking, leasing and real estate services in more than 38 countries — announced Tuesday it’s getting set to offer “financing, risk management and partnership solutions” to primary producers in this country.

For now, the company said, it plans to focus on a “core market” of the three Prairie provinces, served by a remote workforce rather than physical branch offices.

Rabobank’s Canadian arm has operated out of Toronto since 1997 and today has a staff of about 20 providing loans, asset-based financing, private placements, merger-and-acquisition services and risk management products among others.

It describes its Canadian business so far as “food and agribusiness industry-specific,” for wholesale clients across much of the value chain.

At the farm level, though, the Canadian arm’s work has until now been only indirectly, through “third-party vendor finance partnerships.” For example, Rabobank has provided financing on crop inputs to an estimated 12,000 farmers via Richardson Pioneer’s ag business centres on the Prairies.

The company said this week via email its decision to enter the farm lending business will have no impact on its offerings through third-party vendors such as Richardson at this time.

In a joint venture with Calgary-based Telus Agriculture, Rabobank in 2021 also took ownership of Minneapolis tech firm Conservis, whose software products gather and integrate farm-level data from platforms such as Climate FieldView, the John Deere Operations Center, Crop Data Management Systems and Rabo AgriFinance.

Since Rabobank’s arrival in Canada, “we’ve gained a deep understanding of the marketplace and how Rabobank can best serve Canada’s leading growers,” Paul Beiboer, Rabobank North America’s CEO, said in a release Tuesday.

Expanding its Canadian portfolio to include direct farm-level lending has already been an ongoing project for nearly three years, the company said Tuesday, noting it’s already met all national and provincial regulatory and licensing requirements.

Rabobank said it plans to offer “short- and long-term debt options” at the farm and ranch level. “We will be a one-stop shop for Canada’s agricultural term and operational lending needs, as well as other financial services and risk management products,” Marc Drouin, Rabobank Canada’s general manager, said in Tuesday’s release.

Rabobank has also already named Roxane Lieverse as its new head of Canada agricultural banking, to be based in Calgary. Lieverse, up until October, was director of Alberta agricultural banking with Scotiabank, and previously was a regional manager for National Bank of Canada.

Lieverse is also now building a “dedicated team of relationship managers” for the ag lending business, Rabobank said.

The company is now “onboarding several experienced and talented relationship managers,” she said via email, adding that it’s entering the market “with skilled bankers who truly understand agriculture and want to support industry growth.” Meanwhile, she said, farmers will be able to contact the company via its general email.

In Rabobank’s release, Lieverse said the company plans to “do business with our customers at their kitchen table (and) meet face-to-face with clients to listen to their needs and understand their operations.”

Rabobank’s approach, she said via email, will focus on a “partnership model” with a producer. Such producers, she said, “tend to take a longer-term, growth-based view of their operation and understand that they need a financing partner through the industry cycles.”

Setting Rabobank apart from other lenders in the same market, she said, is the bank’s “deep global research… which prospective customers will benefit from, as they navigate the global impact on their operation.”

In a separate interview this week with Rod Nickel of the Reuters news service, company officials said that out of the total Canadian farm lending market, currently dominated by Farm Credit Canada and the big six domestic banks, Rabobank aims to command a 10-15 per cent share within 15 years.

“The number of young farmers is actually growing and the country is on track to become the world’s second-largest food and agricultural products exporter,” Beiboer said in Tuesday’s release, describing Canada as “an attractive and logical market” for Rabobank to work with farmers and ranchers as well as its current corporate clients.

— Article updated Jan. 14, 2023 to include additional information from Roxane Lieverse of Rabobank.

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