Calgary Economic Development brought together leaders in the agricultural sector, as well as members of Calgary’s business community on March 6 for their semi-regular Uplook Live talk series, this time focusing on ag.

Chief among the topics for conversation, both by Kate Koplovich, CED’s Director of Strategy, and the panel consisting of Dawn Trautman, Senior Venture Studio and Innovation Manager of SVG Ventures, Ben Graham, President of AdFarm, Todd Ormann, Vice President of Development at Olds College of Agriculture and Technology, and Chris Brown, Vice President of Business Development at CED was tariffs.

Specifically, they looked at the exposure of Canada’s highly interconnected agricultural economy to the United States, and potentially the advantages to Calgary for untangling that connection.

“I wouldn’t say Alberta is better or worse positioned than other provinces across Canada, but there are the two sub sectors, beef and canola, that we’re really seeing are the most trade exposed,” said Koplovich.

“But there’s also, as we heard from the panel, incredible opportunities when it comes to tech and innovation, increasing productivity, market diversification and really understanding what those global opportunities are for our agriculture sector.”

Koplovich said that the tariff threat to the economy of Calgary is nothing new for a city that is used to booms and busts.

“Alberta and Calgary are resilient. We know how to pull together, and we know how to use technology and innovation. We’ve seen it in the energy industry. We’re seeing it in the agriculture industry,” she said.

But she said, the reality is that the GDP growth will slow as a result of the tariffs.

“There’s that structural difference from where we would be if we didn’t have a trade war, by about 2.5 per cent.”

Tariffs will hurt, but opportunities exist for Calgary agribusinesses

One of the key messages was about the position that Calgary is in to provide diversification for the local agricultural industry, something that Koplovich said was a result of post-secondary institutions in the city and tech and talent incubators to support producers.

Trautman said the number of large agribusinesses headquartered in Calgary, along with their senior leadership serving on industry boards, means that there is the potential for more technological innovation to be adopted.

“When you think about any of these big, successful companies, these things take time. They sometimes take a decade, and we’re seeing things speed up with the pace of technology speeding up. Of course, everything’s speeding up, but it still takes time to build a good company, and it takes resources and partnerships,” she said.

Koplovich said regulatory changes to reduce red tape, and a reintroduction of more public funding into research and development were also things that could improve the speed at which agricultural entrepreneurs brought products to market.

“It hasn’t been as much of a topic lately, but our rail access and things like getting things to market, that is something that needs to be worked on. Calgary definitely has an advantage there to continue developing up, but I think lots of times it does come down that funding component, when I think about bringing new technologies forward.”

Graham said that his firm was helping Calgary Economic Development to bring all of those components together so that it becomes easier for agribusiness to navigate technological change.

“We’re helping with the development of an ag-hub here in Calgary to put the pieces together so we can start helping those entrepreneurs that maybe have the really good idea, but they haven’t done it three or four times,” he said.

“Bringing that expertise together so that they can have an understanding of how to develop a brand. How do you protect your IP? How do you identify the market challenges that there are going to be? How do you build a market… by creating an environment that once we have that playing field more level, so that we’re a good spot to be financially, and then surrounding that with information and supports that aren’t just financial.”

City already a hub for agricultural activity in Southern Alberta

Ormann said Calgary is already a hub for the chemistry side of agriculture—nutrients and fungicides and insecticides—but that comes with being dependent on importing to large wholesalers in the city.

“When the pandemic hit, 20 to 30 per cent of their drivers walked out. We were that close to not having chemistry to manage our crops. It would have been a disaster. But again, it shows you how dependent we are on some of these things,” Ormann said.

“For us to move forward, we really do need public investment.”

He said that the comparison to a country like Brazil, was that they have amazing production, but a lack of infrastructure to bring more product to market.

“Why Canada was really successful is that we have ports, railways and roads that took public dollars. That took really strong focus. We do need to think through as Canadians, how do we do that now for our agriculture systems? We cannot be reliant just on global companies, and we do have to invest in Canada.”

He said part of the long-term solution was to start thinking about Made in Canada, and to share the story more widely about what opportunities already exist.

“I don’t want to underestimate the story as well. Calgary is in a unique place for this. We have the lowest freight rate to Vancouver for commodities here in Calgary. This is why you got all those grain elevators kind of around there. So this is also key for primary production. We got a great airport here in Calgary,” Ormann said.

“We got access to farmers. We got great institutions like the Calgary Stampede that can tell the story—a lot of pieces here in Calgary that can help us drive these pieces going forward.”